A Grocery Guide

If there was an award for fastest grocery shopper, it would be my life goal to get that award.

....kidding, but seriously. I just hate grocery shopping! And when I started clean eating, it took longer and it made my normal 20 minute trip almost an hour trying to find things, bagging fresh vegetables, etc. I HATED IT.

I made it a priority to find the best way possible to still eat clean, cut my trip in half, and slash my grocery bill to a low (super low) cost.

I wanted to share a few of my grocery shopping tips - in another blog post I shared my exact grocery list! Here are my tips for keeping your grocery bill low and for getting it done fast!

1. Come Prepared - When I go to the grocery store, I look like I'm prepped to take on the DMV - paperwork galore....but seriously, it works I have my purse that snugly holds my grocery store MVP card and my credit card. I have a small stack of papers in my hand - THIS IS IMPORTANT! Obviously, I always make a grocery list - duh. Who doesn't? My husband and I even have this system where we have a magnetic notepad on the fridge and anytime we run out of something or think of something we need, we write it on the list. This keeps me from wasting 20 minutes of thinking of things I need before I even leave for the grocery store. Anyways, my purse also holds some coupons. I don't go searching for coupons, but if I find them, I keep them. It holds my meal plan too! I plan meals out each week - down to the snacks. I never write anything on the list that I don't need (I'm trying to cut spending here people!)
                                     1a. Meal Plan - I meal plan down to the detail. Snacks, breakfasts, even what we pack in our lunches. Maintaining this organization is what keeps me sane and helps make grocery shopping easier.
                                     1b. Coupons/cards - our store, Food Lion, caters coupons to your latest purchases. And since I buy a lot of the same stuff each week, I have coupons for those things! OR. I try really hard to find good deals by buying the Food Lion brand of things instead of the typical name brand stuff...it still tastes just as good.
                                     1c. Grocery List - We have our grocery list on a magnet list on the fridge. Because we typically need more than just food at the grocery store (aka cleaning supplies, dog food, etc.) we add this stuff to the list as we run out of it, or if Jared has any special food requests he puts i there. Time saver!

2. Go where you need - I avoid the frozen food aisles, the candy, the chips, the soda aisles (and sometimes even the baking aisle if I have all ingredients I need). I go exactly where I need to go (and thanks to my handy dandy grocery list that correlates with my meal plan) I'm good! It took some time for us to figure out how fast we eat cucumbers or how many pounds of ground turkey we go through, but now that we've got it down, I know what I need &
when I need it.

3. Keep it Simple! Keep it fresh, keep it clean and you will be good to go!