WFMW: The Kitchen Edition

Well, I've trying to think of something since Monday to contribute to "The Kitchen Edition." And, I decided that I have either nothing to contribute or my little "tricks" are so ingrained that I don't recognize them as anything spectacular! *wink*

But here is one little thing I noticed last night as I did my grocery shopping. I used to need serious help organizing my grocery shopping list. And, since I've used three different grocery stores in the last 3 years (all of which were organized completely differently), it became a problem to remember everything and where it was.

So, I took to the aisles of a particular grocery store for about 10-15 and took notes! I wrote down (roughly) what was found in each aisle. I then went home and made up an Excel file where each column was a particular aisle. (One of mine is shown here. It's hard to read but you get the idea.)

So, during the week, I write on my list things we run out of. Come Tuesdays (my grocery day), I put everything into the correct column on my Excel sheet. And then when I get to the store, my list is in the order I will walk through the store! It inadvertently keeps me on budget since I fold the list in three's to fit on my coupon organizer so each "third" should come up to about $20-25 to hit my weekly grocery budget of $65-70.

That works for me! Go to Shannon's site for more ideas to streamline your kitchen-related problems.