ATTENTION! All You Anywhere Shoppers!!

This is, hopefully, a helpful, and somewhat, educational blog post. A couple of times, on facebook, I've mentioned how exhausting grocery days are for me. I shop for a mid-size to (in some people's minds) large sized-family, plus fairly frequent dinner-party-style entertaining. When the big push for our own, non-disposable, grocery bags began to be more predominant, I decided to take a turn at it. I was left feeling a bit frustrated, because, inevitably, I found one or more items had rolled under the seats in the van, and become the following week's mystery foul smell.

One day, as I was strolling the aisles at Wal Mart, I had a, sort of, epiphany. I was looking at all of those varied sizes of plastic containers, and began thinking about my weekly (if not more) grocery shopping trips. Suddenly, I envisioned a much saner approach to my grocery dilemmas.



These inexpensive crates fit well in most shopping carts, and ensure that groceries stay put for the drive home! People at the checkstands often comment at how much easier it is to check my groceries. I use one crate for veggies, one for small items, one for meats, .., you get the picture. this makes it easier to keep the cold things cold, and MUCH easier for unloading after the groceries are home!


All frozen foods are together, and go in the freezer! Imagine that! So simple, it hardly feels like work! The biggest problem in initiating this system into my everyday life was remembering to bring the baskets into the store. Since I shop, pretty much, the same stores every week, most of the checkers are used to my drill by now. I try to have most, or all items, with the bar codes facing up, and they either check the items without even unloading them from the baskets, or they unload a few things, then put everything back in the same basket I had the items in, to begin with.



I know things will fit in my car, and I'm confident loose items will not fall prey to a sharp turn, or sudden stop! They are all snug, in their separate baskets - ready to be unloaded as soon as I get home!


So, in a world where every one is trying to cut down on throw-away, superfluous items, try out my basket shopping idea, and see how it makes your life a little simpler along the way!

Every 2 weeks, we buy at LEAST:
12 gallons of milk
6 gallons of orange juice
10 DOZEN large AA eggs
LOTS of meat...
Fresh fruit/veg 3X per week, at least!
8-10 loaves of varied breads
Too many more things to mention!!

Janni, help me out here! I'm sure you have to maintain at least what we do - if not much more!!

Happy shopping, friends!!