Starving sounds more appealing to me than shopping for groceries every week so a few years ago I developed a system that I *love*. Yes, that’s right, grocery shopping and love were just put in the same sentence and I only have to do it every 2 weeks!

Step 1- Calendar check

Between my husband’s crazy on call work schedule and plans with friends I don’t need a meal for every night, after consulting the calendar I usually figure I need 8ish dinners (some nights will be leftovers).

Step 2- Menu & shopping list creation

I scan through my binders, magazines, books and secret folder of recipes I am hoarding and pick out the number of dinners I’ve decided I need for the next 2 weeks, adding all of them to the top of a Word document.  As I add each meal to the menu I type the ingredients for the dish below the menu section.  I type the ingredients in the order of how I shop the grocery store so for example produce comes first, then the bakery section, canned goods, etc.  If I know I have an ingredient on hand I don’t add it, if I’m not sure I add it and put an asterisk* after it.  While creating the menu and reviewing the ingredients I put any meals with highly perishable ingredients to the top of the list and the more shelf stable dinners to the bottom.  This is a key part of how I get away with only doing major grocery shopping 2x a month.  Sometimes I realize I have too many highly perishable dinners and need to do some tweaking.

Step 3- Stock check

After creating my list I go back through it and check inventory on any item that has an * after it.  If I already have the item it gets deleted from the list, if I don’t have it the * is removed and it stays on the list.

Step 4- Print & shop

I always bring a hard copy of my grocery list along with my favorite, super cute, purple sharpie highlighter. After an item goes in the cart, it gets highlighted. This is especially helpful when shopping multiple grocery stores because if one store is out of stock, you will know you need to pick it up at the next store since it hasn’t been marked off your list.  When shopping I always rummage through the produce area to make sure that anything I get that is dated is the furthest date out from the day I am at the store.

You will really be surprised at how many fabulous dinners you can make towards the end of the two week period without feeling like you’ve skimped on freshness!  We never eat pre made or prepared frozen/boxed dinners, I have tons of suggestions on how to avoid this. Once in a while we may need to run to the store on a non-shopping week but it’s only to grab 2-3 items and it is far better than spending an hour every week at the store.

Here is my beautiful and well organized grocery list for this 1/2 of the month.