The World of Grocery Lists

Recently, I read some little blurb on my Lifehacker reader feed about grocery lists. Yeah, I know, it sounds really boring, but to a domestic engineer like myself, a great grocery list means less time fumbling around at the stores, and therefore less frustration.

What I didn't realize, though, was that there are people who collect other people's discarded grocery lists. I am not kidding. Grocerylist.org has collected and published something like 1300 found grocery lists. You can check them out here.



One of my favorite lists is to the left here, written on the back of a wedding RSVP card!

I found the Grocerylist.org website to be really funny, especially since I couldn't believe I spent er... wasted 10 minutes looking at other people's grocery lists. I was horrified at how messy they were, and the thought of writing down everything in one big long list causes me to twitch. I'm not judging anyone based on their grocery lists... I'm just saying that I would find it difficult to be efficient with certain methods. How's that for diplomacy? hehehe


I will readily admit that I am pretty much a chaotic person in general. BUT there are a few things about which I get very fussy. One is how the dollar bills are situated in my wallet (larger to smaller denominations, all heads on top). Another one is how my grocery list is made.

I used to have a Word document of my shopping list, but I got frustrated when it came to editing it, so I now just do it on a notebook page. On the left I have my Aldi column. Everything I need from Aldi is listed, in the order it appears in the store. On the upper right corner of the list is my weekly schedule & menu. Below that is the Walmart section, where I list things I need that aren't available at Aldi. I have to write large, because now that I'm advancing in age I can't see without reading glasses, and I am too vain to wear them at the store :-) I really need to learn how to work Excel so I don't have to keep writing the list... then again, I don't buy the same things every week. For my grocery shopping tips, check out this blog entry: How We Cut Costs - Part 2 Food Finances.

I just can't get past the idea that there are people out there who pick up others' discarded grocery lists. The Grocerylists.org guy even published a book of them. Amazing! It really is interesting though, isn't it?