Grocery shopping...revisisted

Back a month or so ago when I posted about how much I hate to grocery shop, a kind reader suggested that I stretch my shopping to every two weeks instead of once a week. Hmmm. I've tried to do a month before, but it took so long to shop with two carts, bring it home and put it away that I was discouraged from doing it again. But two weeks? Maybe I can handle two weeks.

Because I plan my menus, it really isn't that hard to make my grocery list. And besides a few produce items I knew wouldn't last into next week, two weeks worth of food fits in my pantry and two fridges, so why not? Yesterday was the experiment. My son was home because he doesn't have class on Tuesday and so I left my daughter at home with him. You would think I would have brought a kid with me to help, but kids slow me down, and kids make impulse buys. No kids.

I fit everything in my cart (it was very full) and I even bought for my college kid on campus. I realized when I checked out and spent a full $100 less than I normally would for shopping two weeks in a row (one week times two), that I probably spend a lot on "I'll just grab that" items, and shopping once instead of twice really cuts down on that. I think also because I didn't want to push two carts I really only bought what I absolutely needed (except that Snicker's bar!).

I will probably have to get more milk at some point, and I definitely will have to pick up those produce items that won't last, but I'm really happy that I have all the meat (went to the butcher shop on Saturday) and groceries I need for two weeks!

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And speaking of grocery lists, a couple months ago we talked about grocery list apps. I had a few suggestions, and went ahead and loaded Grocery IQ. It's free and at first I really liked it. I could scan UPC symbols of items I use a lot and keep a list of favorites that transfer to my weekly grocery list at the touch of the screen.

But two things drive me nuts about it. First, it freezes all the time. It might only be for ten seconds, but when you are trying to do something quickly (aren't we all always trying to do something quickly?), and the device freezes for ten seconds every few minutes, it's very frustrating.

The other thing is, the app is loaded with all sorts of brand names that I don't use. Because each list is divided into sections of the grocery store -- canned goods, dairy, fruits and vegetables, if it doesn't recognize your input, it puts it in "other." Because I shop in a discount grocery store and many of the brands are unknown to Grocery IQ, a lot of my items go into "other" and then I have to change them manually to the section the item is in. If it was just one or two items, I wouldn't mind, but it ends up being a lot of items. That is probably confusing if you've never used this app, but suffice it to say it takes longer to make a grocery list than it should.

I also thought since my college son could load it on his Droid that our lists would interface, but they don't. He can only email the list and then I have to manually put the items on my list.

So, back to the drawing board and I'll try another of the suggestions I originally got.

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