If your grocery trip is costly and no darn fun then your skills may need an upgrade. When you take time to do this you will restore your cash and your confidence.

 

There are so many skills we need to learn. For example, grocery shopping at a reasonable cost, high nutritional quality, and ‘match’ with meals we decide to make at home. Times change, food budgets change, and food preferences change, not to mention time demands in different phases of life. To manage your home food supply well and feel good about how it affects your health, grocery shopping skills need to be upgraded from time to time. Doing this will bring back the fun factor and positive energy to your shopping trip.

4 Steps to Upgrade Your Grocery Shopping Skills

Step 1: Plan It – Without Fail

There’s nothing more important to grocery shopping success than a plan. This step can help with getting and staying organized, especially if you do it week-after-week. This skill promotes more calm and less stress.

In this order…

• Review your upcoming week’s calendar
• Brainstorm what meals will realistically fit into your week
• Find a few healthful recipes and match them to your calendar, too
• Add well matched meals (recipes + sides) to your calendar

If you don’t already have a trusted recipe collection then search through my blogs where easy, tasty recipes are abundant. There are some resources that can help to spark ideas in this creative step such as the grocery store ad, a grocery store app, or a friend.

Step 2: Write It – Beforehand

Writing down, or texting yourself, a well-put-together shopping list before you arrive at the store will be a huge time and money saver. The best list matches the plan from step 1. Spend time practicing this new list writing skill if you want to fully benefit, and closely focus your attention on the list throughout your grocery trip.

A list that matches the layout of your grocery store will be efficient, saving you energy and time. You will get home quicker and feel less rushed.

Step 3: Shop It – Neat and Tidy

Haphazard grocery shopping is a path to spending too much and getting too little nutrition. So, try a new skill of keeping a neat and tidy grocery cart. This way you’ll be able to see what you have and do quick spot checks as you move through the aisles. When you arrive at checkout, spot check again. Until you pay, it’s not too late to remove an impulse purchase from your cart.

Take a few minutes to read these specific Grocery Cart Tips for Good Nutrition. 

Or, take a few minutes to read about A Grocery Cart of On-Budget Smart Nutrition.

Step 4: Cook It – Nice and Easy

Kitchen confidence is a fragile thing. To feel less overwhelmed when cooking at home, practice cooking quick and easy recipes often. Two or three recipes, each practiced once a week will bring on improved kitchen confidence in a couple of months. Cooking skills will get better when these skills are used on a regular basis. Your kitchen confidence will grow and grow.

Recipes don’t have to take a long time to make and, in fact, simple recipes are often healthier. Take a few minutes to view these kitchen cooking videos, scrolling down for eggs, oatmeal, kiwi, canned pumpkin, and sweet potatoes. Your quick and easy cooking skills will improve with each one you try.

A Unique Approach to Upgrade Your Grocery Shopping Skills

With any kind of tour, a hands-on approach helps build skills and knowledge faster. If you want to learn about famous painters, for example, then it’s smart to book a museum tour where you encounter the masterpieces up close and you remember a lot about what you see. The same approach applies to a grocery store tour where the grocery store is your museum. With a registered dietitian as your guide, the aisle-by-aisle learning is easy to grasp and fun. At the store you’ll touch and smell foods, discover the ins-and-outs of storing perishable foods, and talk about how to cook nutritious foods that are unfamiliar to you. You’ll imagine trying new flavors and you’ll practice interpreting the labels of your favorite ingredients. The best part will be the confidence boost you feel as the fun experience moves along. And, when you plan your next grocery trip on your own, you will feel that confidence, too. Consider how a one-time investment in upgrading your grocery shopping skills can pay off for you and your family. Scroll down and read this description of an individual or small group grocery store tour. Then, contact me to schedule your one-of-a-kind tour. If you have any questions then I’ll be happy to clarify the grocery store experience.

What aisles of the grocery store do you want to learn more about and why?