Getting Started With Your Grocery List

We are half-way through week one of our 1st Once A Month Cooking endeavor. You have read through the site, found the menu, looked through the grocery list for the month and now you are wondering, what next? I find the best place to get started is your monthly grocery list. So let’s begin!

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is PRINT the current months grocery list. With that done, walk through you pantry, look in your refrigerator, and check out your freezer. As you go, highlight the items that you already have on hand and thus, will not need to purchase. Remember, mark these items for your once a month BIG DAY or set them in a box, otherwise hubby or the kids (or you, but we know you never forget things) might eat them accidentally.

Here is how this played out in my house this month. I took the list and started walking through the house. I was fairly certain that I had all the spices; turns out I was WRONG! I have basil but definitely NOT 12.5 teaspoons. I also found out that I am COMPLETELY out of cinnamon. How does that happen? Sure glad that I looked through my pantry! Here is a sample of my February highlighted grocery list of things that I will NOT need to be purchasing for our Once A Month Cooking Big Day. Take a look as an example for yourself as you get started.

Stage 2

As you are preparing for the grocery trip of the week look through the sale ads, or online at our grocery watch list and make a list of the items that you will be purchasing this week. Try to make your target budget between $30-$38 (for this week).

That’s it, you are ready to get shopping! In the upcoming weeks I will continue to plot my progress and you should plot yours.

Have you gotten started this week towards your Once A Month Cooking BIG DAY?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 10:03 am and is filed under Kitchen Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.