A Better Way to Make Your Grocery List

For many years of my married and mama-life, when it came to making a grocery list, I would think about what I wanted to make that week for meals and then just jot the ingredients down on a piece of paper. Then, as I’d walk through the grocery store, I’d have to search the whole list as I was in each section of the store, making sure to get all the produce I needed when I was in that section, and all the dairy on my list when I was by the milk. The only problem was that I would inevitably miss that lemon I needed to buy that was third from the bottom of my list. Or I would see that I had written down sour cream (which we almost never need) and I wouldn’t be able to remember what recipe it belonged to, so I’d nix it from the list, only to realize later that our enchiladas needed it. Sound familiar to you, too?

I figured that there had to be a better way to make a grocery list. So my husband and I sat down and made our own grocery sheet printable. I wanted something that held space for our weekly meals. I also wanted a sheet where I could divide up the ingredients by section: produce, dairy, meat, pantry, miscellaneous and frozen.

What came out of it was a grocery list planning sheet that shortened my time grocery shopping, which feels so important as a mama and for my desire to minimize store-time during the pandemic. Not only that, but it became a meal-list I could tape to our fridge each week, so that when my husband asks “what are we having tonight for dinner?” I can just direct him to the front of the fridge. 🙂 To use the planning sheet as a save-able weekly meal reminder for your fridge, just cut out the circle of your meals once you’re done grocery shopping and stick it to your fridge–putting all those pesky “what’s for dinner questions” to bed.

To make meal planning even easier each week, we stick to some weekly meal rhythms. Meatless Monday always warrants a vegetarian meal; Taco Tuesday limits my dinner search to (you guessed it!) tacos; Wednesday is our date night so I typically don’t cook; and one night per week we eat leftovers. 4 meals already narrowed down and made easier to plan!

So, download your free grocery planning sheet below, and here’s to quicker trips to the grocery store! Maybe you can take a nap with all that extra time you’ll save, mama. Or maybe just get some time to drink that reheated coffee. 😉 Cheers!