How to Create a Uniform Printable Shopping List
Reasons to use a list when grocery shopping range from making sure to purchase both staples and unusual ingredients to saving time at the store because you know exactly what you need. A list can also save you money. According to SupermarketGuru.com, "With a list, you can expect savings of around 20 to 25%." Many people do not use lists, however, which is why financial journalist Jean Chatzky says that, "we buy bags of food but have nothing for dinner." A standard printable grocery list provides a quick, easy way to keep track of which items you need from which stores. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Make a list, on the computer, of the stores where you routinely shop for groceries and other household products. If you generally buy paper products and grooming supplies from a membership warehouse club once every month or two but buy your fruits and vegetables from the produce place down the block, both stores, along with any others, should go on your list.
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List the items you buy at each store. Be sure to include not only items you buy weekly, such as, say, dairy products and produce, but also products that you buy less often but regularly, such as spices and baking supplies.
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Arrange the items in each list. There are a couple of ways to do this. Ordering the items alphabetically will make each item easier to spot when you are marking them at home, while putting the items in the order you will find them in the store aisles will make the items marked on your list easier to keep track of at the store.
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Add boxes or short blank lines before each item. This enables you to indicate which items on your list you will need to purchase from that store next time you go. A box can be marked with a highlighter to show you need that item, and when you purchase the item, you can put a check mark in the highlighted box. Checking off items at the store as you gather them allows you easily to keep track of anything the store might not have had in stock when you were there. (If you use short lines before items, you can either put check marks next to items you need or highlight the item, leaving the short blank line to mark off items you get at the store.)
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Print out copies of your list. You can use clean, new sheets of paper or, to reduce paper waste, you can print on the back side of already used paper. Because you won't necessarily go to all of your stores on the same day, having several copies of the list on hand allows you to transfer items not purchased that day to a new list and avoid confusion about what still needs to be bought.
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Tips & Warnings
After your list of items for each store, include several blank lines to write in items that you don't normally get or that you get so infrequently that it doesn't make sense to keep them on the list.
Be flexible with your list. If your store stops carrying a particular item or you stop using it, it can easily be deleted from the list you've saved on your computer to make room for new items you're now buying.
There are also various shopping templates available online if you don't wish to create your own list, though these may not be as tailored to your shopping habits.
