master grocery list for speedy shopping

A little background….I'm a freak about menu planning. I truly enjoy planning our bi-weekly menus and working in new recipes and snacks and dreaming up our next treat meal! One thing that drove me nuts is my grocery list was always a mess and I came home missing items or bought something that I didn't really need but thought I did. With 1 master list now all I have to do is highlight the items I need and it's organized by my flow through the store. Shaves tons of time off my trip!!

It will be a bit time consuming at first but TRUST ME it will save you loads of time both in and out of the store.

1. start by typing a list of everything you buy in the store. YES, EVERYTHING (unless you buy it very rarely like q-tips or something! lol). I visualized my path through the store and just starting typing away. Produce was the easiest!
2. begin to separate your list into sections/aisles of the store. produce for me is at the top followed by two lines to fill in for bakery or deli, then it's the organic food aisle, mexican and salad dressings, pasta aisle, etc. etc….it won't be perfect, but get it close
3. When it's organized the best you can, print out several copies so you always have one on hand. Simply highlight the items you need as you work through your menu plan! No need to keep writing them down in the future as you now have a master list to print out for each trip.
4. as you shop the first couple of times you can make adjustments to your list for things out of place and items you forgot. I'm still tweaking my list.
5. my list spans 1 1/4 sheets so there was plenty of room to write my menu plan in for the week. even though I have a list of highlighted items I need it helps to have a visual of our menu in case I forget to write down the # of items I need (like lbs of turkey etc.) Especially helpful in produce because I tend to buy too many or too few peppers, onions, potatoes forgetting exactly what they are for

Hope this helps someone like it helps me!