Grocery Tip #3: Make a List

Did you know that 53% of grocery purchases are made on the spur of the moment?

Are more than half of your groceries bought without forethought? Are you making extra trips to the convenience store each week to pick up items needed at the last moment? If so, now is the time to stop!

Get up from your computer right now and put a piece of paper on your fridge or other prominent place and write at the top: “Grocery List” and then come back to your computer.

Okay are you back? Now here is what you do - when you start getting low on a staple item, Write It Down! Know what is, and is not, in your cupboards before you go to the store!

Never, ever, go to the store without a list!

Mark off items as you put them into your basket and do not deviate from the list. Yes, that snack pack of premade pudding in little plastic cups may be on sale, and it does looks so attractive displayed on the endcap of the aisle (the pudding manufacturer paid thousands for that placement, so let that be a clue!), and it would be so easy to just plop those pudding cups in front of the kiddies for lunch tomorrow, but hey it is NOT on your list. If it was important and really needed, you would have put it on your list. Besides you can make pudding for about one-zillionth of the price even though the premade stuff is on sale, but let's save that topic for a future post.

More next week. Remember babysteps.

This week you should be implementing Tips 1, 2, and 3:
Don't go to the store hungry.
No Gimmees.
Make a list.