Grocery Shopping

I don't know if it's due to pregnancy brain or the fact that I do most of my grocery shopping with a wild toddler in tow or if I'm just starting to lose my mind, but every single time I go to the grocery store I forget something or buy a duplicate of something we already have at home in the pantry or fridge. Not to mention, I find myself backtracking through the store because I forgot to grab something on an aisle I've already been down. Mind you, I'm making all of these forgetful mistakes despite the fact that I have a list in my hand! Ugh! It's so frustrating. I was getting tired of coming from the grocery store and immediately having to make a list of things I'd forgotten, so here is my attempt at remedying this problem. :)

Since we got married, we have always kept a magnetic notepad on our fridge to keep a running grocery list. So throughout the week, whenever we notice we are running low on something we can easily jot it down on the notepad. This has worked great for us! But I found a tip on the I Heart Organizing blog {seen HERE} that would make creating our grocery lists even better & more thorough: creating a list of our "staple" food/grocery items that we always like to keep on hand. Now, before I head off to the grocery store I always reference this list of "staples" to see if there's anything I might have forgotten to include on my shopping list. We keep the list of our "Smith Family Staples" in a plastic sheet protector on our fridge.

This is when things got kind of nerdy. ;)  I broke out a map I had of our commissary {which is where I do most of our grocery shopping} and created a shopping list based on how the commissary's aisles are organized. This was my attempt at trying to avoid backtracking through the store.

I'm also working on creating a list of meals we eat on a regular basis to keep on the back of our "Smith Family Staples" so that I can think of meal ideas quicker/easier when I am meal planning/creating my grocery list for the week.

Here's to hoping this will help keep me more sane as I grocery shop! :)