Do you have a plan when you go grocery shopping?

Are you the kind of person who…

• goes to the store and buys exactly what is on the list…never to deviate from it,

• or do you toss random things into your cart as you walk up and down the isles?

By the way…there’s no right or wrong answer to that last question.

We are all different people & we do things differently…it’s all good!

I’m not here to tell you that there is a right way to shop!

I’ve spent probably hundreds of hours planning menus, writing shopping lists, and grocery shopping over the past 5 years. As a personal chef, I was able to hone the art of efficient grocery shopping, and I want to share what I learned with you!

• You grab the cart.

• Sanitize it (yes, even in pre-covid times, I wiped that whole thing down)

• You pull out your phone, go to your notes…

• Start at the top of your shopping list, you can work your way through the list & around the store.

🧐 That’s efficiency my friends!

I’ll talk more about it in a second…but shopping geographically is THE BEST!

Like I said...I’m not here to tell you that there is a right way to shop, but if you want to be efficient with your time these tips will help.

👏Set 👏yourself 👏up 👏 for 👏success!

Have a running to-buy list on your notes app or on a white board in the kitchen so that whenever someone eats the last bite of Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream 🤤 or Cone Together as its called here in Germany…they can write down that you need more!

When you are planning to shop, refer to your to-buy list as well as what you are planning to make for the week.

Okay, here is where I lose like half of you…I understand that planning meals for every day of the week doesn’t work for some people. And that’s totally fine!

There are two approaches you can take here…

• Write out a menu for the week. If you are recipe person, look up recipes and ensure that you have those ingredients on your list.

• Don’t write out a menu, but have an idea of some of the meals you think you want…like pasta with meat balls. This latter leaves you some flexibility. You can chose the pasta, choose a sauce, and even choose the protein you want for meat balls. This approach takes a little bit more creativity on the cooking side of things, but if you have this skill you’ll never have to follow a recipe again!

Okay let’s get back on track here…writing your shopping list.

Regardless of the approach you take on menu planning…I highly recommend you write a shopping list!

A list will save you time in the store and will save you time in running back to the store for items you forgot. It may even help you save money…because if you have a list to follow, you’re less likely to veer from it.

My favorite way, and what I’ve found to be most time efficient, is writing a geographical shopping list!

A geographical shopping list will save you so much time!

Good news, you don’t need a GPS for this, but this method works best in a store that you are already familiar with!

Basically, all you have to do is imagine you are entering the store where you typically grocery shop. You can literally create a map if that’s helpful for you to visualize as well.

I’ll take you through a typical shopping list based on my local store…which has a bit of a different layout than most. 🤷‍♀️

Shopping Trip through my Local Store

• When you first walk in the baked goods are on the right; so the first items in my list are bread, bagels, fresh pastries…etc.

• The deli counter is right next to the bread so I’ll write any cold cuts or sliced cheeses I need next.

• Then down the first isle I’ll there’s the fancy cheese area so obvi next on my list is an aged cheddar cheese and maybe another slicing cheese.

• On that same isle there are the frozen and fresh proteins. Next on my list I’ll typically have  frozen salmon filets, pork tenderloin, and ground turkey.

• Round the corner and I hit the produce section. This is usually the longest part of my list; seasonal fresh fruit, tons of dark leafy greens, bell peppers, onions, garlic…everything! Okay so here, if you know your store really well, and you’re as excited as I get about this…then you can geographically hone your list even more based on where you know the produce is located. *This will save you time if you learn where things are located.*

• Okay, so  just beyond produce along the back wall is dairy, eggs, and frozen veggies. After produce I’ll write down whole milk, butter, yogurt…etc and frozen veggies, frozen broccoli is a staple in our freezer!

• Next we get into what would typically be called the “middle isles”…where you can buy pantry items, canned items, and of course cookies! 😁

• So I’ll usually bulk together pastas, canned items, and Asian condiments like soy sauce and mirin on this part of my list.

• So for the dry goods area…you may not know exactly which isle the item you need is located on…that’s fine! But if it is in the dry goods section on your list, you know to be on the lookout for it when you are in that area of the store. *You can also use the same tip as in the produce section, when you learn the store and the isles better, you can get hyper specific with your list so that you’re not wasting time.*

• This store in particular has a bulk section, so last up on my list is grains, dried beans, and everything I could want for trail mix!

• It’s good to note, that before moving from section to section…double check your list to make sure that you’ve gotten everything! This will ensure that you’re not running around the store a million times!

Once I started shopping geographically, and I become more familiar with the store’s layout, the I spent half the time grocery shopping!

In my opinion, this is the best way to shop efficiently…get in, get what you need, and get out…because you have better things to do than grocery shop for hours! 🙌

Want to save time in the planning and grocery shopping process?

You’ll be an expert list grocery list writer & geographical shopper in no time!