Looking to save time while grocery shopping? With a little bit of effort it is possible to cut your grocery shopping in 10 minutes or less both online or in the store. Here seven top tips:
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Choose a small supermarket
Choose the smallest supermarket you can. This will mean you have the essential products you need and you won’t need to walk up and down lots of aisles to get the stuff you need. Aldi stores are great for this – just don’t get distracted by the items in the middle asile.
Have a List
Have a list of every item that you need. Group the items by food type. For example, have all your fruit and veg listed together, then you can make sure that you have every item in that section before you move onto the next food type. If you forget anything and have to go back to get the item you’ve forgotten, this is going to cost you more time.
Another way to organise your list is how you move through the store. To do this, make a master grocery list – brain dump all the items on one list. Then rewrite the list with the items written in the order you’d find them in the store.
Buy Non Perishables in Bulk
Purchase items that don’t go off in bulk. You can do this every one or two months or even less frequently if you have the storage space. Think things like toothpaste, laundry liquid, fabric conditioner, hand soap, shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, cloths – the list goes on.
Spices, dried beans, olive oil, pasta frozen and tinned food can also be bought in bulk.
If you have a backup of these items, there is less to buy in the weekly shop. Buying in bulk often saves you money – another bonus. You can often buy stuff in bulk online (see below) and get them on a subscription service so they’ll be delivered to you automatically when you run out and you won’t even have to think about it.
Buy Online As Much As You Can
If you can, order your groceries online, this is going to be much quicker than going to the supermarket. You may need to spend some time on your first order, but after that, you can just copy your original order and take away any items you don’t need from your original list. Or add items you need.
There are many ways you can order stuff for your weekly groceries online. Here are some ideas:
Amazon Subscribe and Save
You can set it up to have household items such as toilet roll and cleaning products delivered on a regular basis. The great thing about it is that once it’s set up at the right frequency, you never have to worry about buying these things or running out ever again.
Who Gives a Crap Toilet Paper
I get all my toilet paper from the company “Who Gives a Crap”. The toilet roll comes every 12 weeks and is enough to last our family of four until the next delivery, so I don’t have to worry about getting this at the supermarket when I go, cutting down my grocery shopping time. The great thing about this company is that the toilet paper and packaging is made from recycled materials and its plastic free. The toilet roll is strong and excellent quality. The company also donate 50% of their profits to help build toilets in places where they need them.
Recipe Box Delivery Service
Another way to quickly get your groceries delivered is through a recipe delivery service such as Hello Fresh. They send you all the ingredients you need for a recipe. It’s already measured out, saving you time when cooking. There is no waste – as they send you the exact amount you need. Just choose your recipes and get what you want delivered.
Utilise Your Freezer
We’ve already said about buying non-perishable items in bulk but even fruit and vegetables can be bought frozen so you can stock up ensuring you don’t need to buy these in your weekly shop.
It’s always great to have frozen veg such as peas and beans. Frozen veg lasts longer and has as much goodness as the fresh varieties as mostly it’s frozen within hours of being picked. Frozen and tinned fruits are perfect for making smoothies or crumbles. Frozen organic veg and fruit is often much cheaper too.
You can buy also purchase frozen chopped onion, which makes preparing food much quicker too – no chopping required.
If the food you’ve already purchased is nearing it’s sell-by date, sometimes you can pop it in the freezer. This means you’ll waste less food but have to buy less too – meaning not as much time at the store.
Make Use of Apps
There are some great phone apps that will help you do your grocery shopping quicker. Here are a couple:
Any List App
This app is awesome. You type your shopping list on the app and it will organise your item into the proper category. This will make it much easier and quicker to follow your grocery list as you go around the store. The other great thing is you can share it with a family member or the person you live with, and it will automatically update when you have purchased something or added something to the list.
Bring
This has a visual representation of the food you want to buy. So you see an icon instead of a list of items. It also connects with google assistant so you can update your list by voice anytime you want.
Go to the Supermarket at Off Peak Times
When the supermarket isn’t busy you can park nearer the store. You don’t have to queue. There’s fewer people moving slowly around the store and more room to navigate.
Make Grocery Shopping a Team Effort
If you live with others – a partner, friends or older kids make grocery shopping a team effort. Divide your list in two, start at each end of the store and meet in the middle.
Do Bigger Shopping Trips Less Often
You may not be able to do a big grocery shopping trip in less than 10 minutes. However, if you do one big shopping trip once a month it will save you time so all your other trips to the supermarket can be 10 minutes or less.
If you go to the supermarket a few times a week to get basket full of items this is going to add up (think parking, finding a trolley, paying etc). An efficient big shopping trip to stock up on essentials will save you lots of time in the long run. Then any other time you need to go to the store to get fresh food, it’s going to be very quick because you have everything else you need at home.