How to Save Time While Food Shopping
Tips for Mums to Buy Groceries Without Wasting Time
Sep 4, 2009
Many stay-at-home mums dread food shopping trips. It’s a time-consuming task made many times worse by grumpy, demanding and wailing kids who come along. Still, grocery shopping is a chore that needs to be done regularly.
So how to save time while food shopping? Check out the following tips to buy groceries without wasting too much time or money.
Mums Should Shop Alone
Shopping with kids means more time and money will be wasted. The kids will often demand to have the lollies and junk food they see on TV commercials. Some temperament ones will even roll on the floor or create an ugly scene if their ridiculous demands are not met! Mums should just shop alone. Leave the kids at home with a trusted babysitter or use services offered by occasional care centers. That way, Mum can quickly move through the aisles and only pick up items the family really needs.
Know Supermarket Layout
When a mum is familiar with the supermarket layout, it’s a lot easier for her to plan her shopping and quickly find food stuff that she wants to buy. List all items according to aisle order to prevent having had to backtrack for something else. So get a copy of the supermarket layout – usually found at the entrance – keep it and use it when planning the next grocery shopping trip.
Have a Shopping List
This is a sure way to save time and money while shopping. Write down all items needed on a piece of paper, ideally according to the store aisle order. Stick to the shopping list while in the supermarket. Items that not listed are not needed at the moment. Skip unnecessary items no matter how tempting they seem.
Limit Food Shopping to Once a Week
A lot of time is wasted if a stay-at-home mum goes food shopping every few days. Make it a weekly task. Some mums can even stretch it to once a fortnight. However, be sure that all necessary items are put on the shopping list to eliminate the need to go back to the supermarket after two or three days.
Use Online Grocery Shopping Services
With Internet grocery shopping, mums don’t even need to step out of the house. Many local grocers and supermarkets these days provide reliable online grocery shopping services. So make use of it if leaving the house with the kids is too much trouble. Establish a good relationship with the store or supermarket so that only the freshest food stuff is delivered to the family.
It is possible for stay-at-home mums to buy groceries without wasting too much time. To save time and money while food shopping, mums should shop alone, be familiar with the supermarket layout, write down a shopping list, limit grocery shopping to once a week or try online grocery shopping.
Found this article useful? Read also Time Management Tips for Stay-at-home Mums, Becoming a Time Efficient Stay-at-home Mum and Organizing Time Effectively for Full-time Mums.
Reference:
Armstrong, Cath and Brighton, Lea-Anne. Debt-free, Cashed Up and Laughing. Sydney: ABC Books, 2007.
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