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At some time we all have been unpleasantly surprised when the person at the checkout stand gave us the total for our grocery bill. Food can be expensive, and with such an array of goodies on every aisle it is easy to get carried away and give in to impulse buys. Then we kick ourselves after arriving home and realizing that there is more food than we can eat in the next week and little space for everything we bought. And the truth is that this could have been avoided if we had just done a little planning.

First of all, you should never go to the grocery store without a list. A shopping list is essentially a battle plan to get you in and out of the store quickly, while doing as little damage to your bank account as possible.

Rather than listing items randomly, make headings on your paper for each section of the store. Titles for these headings may include produce, canned goods, and dairy. Place the headings in order of their location in the store. Before going any further, jot down essential items like bread and milk (just so you do not forget).

Next, plan a weekly menu, including breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Get out recipe books or cards that you plan on using as references, and write down all the ingredients you need on a blank sheet of paper. Use this as a checklist to do an inventory of your kitchen. On the checklist, mark off items you already have. Then copy the remaining items from your checklist onto your shopping list, under the appropriate columns.

Next, add a few snack items. Consider asking your kids if they would like anything special, like something for breakfast or school snacks. By allowing kids to pick out one thing to put on the list, you save yourself from a lot of squabbling and pouting at the store. Your kids will be happy, and you will be able to stick to your list.

Finally, add cleaning and health care items.

You will notice how much easier it is to navigate through the store. Because the sections of your list are in the same order as store aisles, you can get everything from a single section of your list at once, before moving on to the next section. You will not forget anything or have to backtrack. Focusing on a section at a time will also help you move quickly from one item to the next, and this keeps your eyes from wandering off course. An organized plan also allows you to skip aisles, containing no items on your list, which means you will not be lured in to an entire aisle of unnecessary impulse buys.

Before you know it, you will have all of the groceries you need and none of the usual extras, and once you get home with your groceries you will be pleased at how smooth the trip went and how much money you saved.

Learn more about this author, Jerri Rivers.
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