Do you ever dread the coming-home part of grocery shopping?
It isn’t the actual errand of selecting food for the family that’s the chore. It’s the gargantuan job of putting it away.
(Especially with so many mouths to feed.)
How can you stop dreading the unpack-and-put-away part of grocery errands?
Try these three tips to streamline your post-grocery success.
Tip one
First of all, make sure you’re getting help.
Are the kids (if they’re old enough) coming out to help you bring in all those grocery bags?
Can they hop on stools to unload food out of the bags and set it on the counter for you?
If you have re-usable bags, can they take the produce out, gather up the reusables, and place them back in your between-grocery-trips spot?
You shouldn’t be doing all the work yourself.
Unpacking (both from the vehicle and from the bags) is a big job.
It won’t seem nearly as daunting when the vegetables, cans, and refrigerables are out of their containers, just sitting on the counter waiting for you.
Tip two
Now, let’s get some delegation going.
You’ve already had the kids doing some of the work. Bring it a step further and let them complete the easy tasks of grocery put away.
Do you need the gallons of milk loaded into the fridge? Ask someone to do that.
Is there a fruit basket you want reloaded with a selection of the new fruit? Put a kid in charge of picking out the “use first” fruit and loading it up.
Did you return home with a stock of on-sale freezer foods? Delegate some eager helpers to stow all that frozen pizza in the freezer.
(Just be sure you already made space for it!)
Define zones in your pantry for faster grocery put away.
Tip three
This is the best one of all. Define zones in your pantry for easier grocery put away.
What do I mean by this?
Have a section for canned goods. Beans go here, pasta sauce there, canned vegetables in this row.
You probably want a pasta section.
What about a snack bin? Where do you keep the unopened applesauces, packages of dried fruit, and jars of nuts?
What other dry goods does your family eat a lot of? Give them their own specific section.
(Rice, onions, potatoes, sauces….)
This is the secret to getting help.
When your kids know where the pasta bin is, they can take the spaghetti you just bought and dump it in with the rest of the pasta.
Just hand a kid a stack of cans and tell him to put them in the appropriate rows.
Ask someone else to open the potato bag with scissors and dump all the new potatoes in.
Will it be perfect? No.
Did you have to do it? No.
Is it worth it? A thousand times yes.
You see, you can teach your kids where the groceries go.
Then everyone in the kitchen is weaving in and out around the counters – around each other – grabbing their next pile of same-category food items and scooting them to the correct location.
You’re all putting the groceries away – not just you.
How’s that for help?
Enlisting the whole family to assist in unloading, unpacking, and taking to the appropriate spots in your pantry (or fridge or freezer) will halve your current grocery putting away time. (Or better!)
And time is worth a lot as a mom.
So try it out.
Make zones in your pantry, show the older kids where things go, and do a trial run next time you go grocery shopping.
You’ll like the results.
Life skills for them, more time for you.
Win-win.
