Tech Family

You give up? Grocery store shopping carts are like touching raw meat according to the following USA Today article

The thought is that many meat products drip juices on the carts and then comes along the unsuspecting shopper who touches all the nasties on the cart.

Many stores have wipes. I'm not a germ freak but I must admit I do use the wipes.

It makes you wonder how safe those carts really are! On the other hand, what about door handles chairs, desks and hundreds of other public items? Do we wipe those down as well?

What is a non-renewable resource that can't be bought for any price, but we are all given free of charge the day we are born?

I think you know the answer. If not read on.

Are you running around 24/7 trying to get a grip on the 101 things that need to be done just to maintain? I'm not talking about improving your lot here. I'm talking about maintaining your daily existence.

Gathering (shopping) preparing and eating food takes up more time per week than three restful nights (8 hours) of sleeping. This is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We need to take back our time spent doing task we don’t like to do. How can we do this? Just a little planning is all it takes to saves tons of time.
By being more efficient in doing the routine things in life we put time in the bank to be used for doing something we really want to do. In other words, actually enjoying life more…

Let me give a little example of wasted time due to lack of planning.

It’s the Christmas holidays and I just got back from shopping for all the holiday meals coming up. No sooner do I get relaxed and start to veg-out when I realize I don’t have milk. Out I go again heading to the store. Milk is a necessity in my house, why I left the grocery store without I don’t know. I get back and pour myself a tall white frosty one.

Fast-forward two hours. I’m digging through the cupboards trying to find the rarely used oregano spice for the dinner I’m making. It was a holiday dinner so I was trying to impress by cooking lamb. Yep, back out to the store.
My frustration meter was well into the red zone at this point, and that old country song kept running through my head “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”.

I was so struck by this that I actually created a shopping list web site to help solve the problem called www.GroceryWiz.com .It’s purpose is to spare other souls from making the same mistake by allowing visitors to create and manage an online shopping list.

There are so many was of taking back wasted time and this was just one example.

If I had more time I would dig deeper into this topic, but as it stands my time is limited, just like yours.

Food prices are up along with everything else. How do we save at the grocery store?

Many manufactures offer coupons that can be printed out from your computer.

Check out the money saving coupons that you can print out at www.GroceryWiz.com

One thing you might want to add to your shopping list is a kitchen scale.

Often times we over eat because were not really sure how much we are eating.
Keep a kitchen scale around so you can measure out the serving size you are actually eating.
Serving sizes are listed on most grocery items .

I tried this with Cheerios and couldn't belief how many servings I was eating!

How many people in the grocery store are using a shopping list?

The next time you go to the store take notice of how many people have a shopping list in their hand.

From what I can tell, about 1 in 3 people will be using a shopping list at the grocery store.

Hmm..... that means most people are hitting the store unorganized and probably overspending.

Just an observation.

Did you spend too much for that item on your shopping list?

While shopping I remembered I needed a new mop. I think the last time I purchased a mob gas was under $2 a gallon. I digress.

I didn't need something fancy so I went for the $9 mop.
After getting all my grocery items rung up and in my cart. I decided to do a quick scan of my receipt. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the $9 mop rang up as $14!

NowI'm getting into the habit of taking a quick scan of my grocery receipt right after I get it.

This has a few benefits.

1) It reminds me how much darn money I spend on groceries, which reinforces being more mindful of sales and savings.

2) I find those little gotchas that cost me money, mis marked items, sale items that don't ring up as a sale items, and high ticket items that I didn't realize were so expensive.

3) It also reminds me how much things should cost. So the next time I go to the grocery store I will be more likely to notice those items that are priced higher than usual.

Hope this tip saves someone out there a little hard earned bread.

It seems every time I turn around I'm reading another article about the rising cost of food.


I've already blogged about this topic but it seems to be worth writing about again, it's getting worse not better.

You can save at the store by always bringing your shopping list ( if I've said it once I've said it a thousands times) and go armed with coupons.

As you may or may not know www.GroceryWiz.com has lots of coupons offerings, but there are many more options on the web and here are a few.

www.thecouponsClippers.com - easy to use and lots of variety.

www.centsoff.com - Cost money so you need to use a lot of coupons to make out.

The Sunday newspaper.

Hope this helps with the bottom line at the checkout.