Apps to Help You Save Time and Money at the Grocery Store

Although some people may cook vegetarian fare while others profess a love for bacon while preparing meals, one thing we all have in common is the need to shop for groceries.

However, this necessary task often isn’t one people particularly look forward to, because it can be time-consuming and costly. Keep reading to learn ways to make grocery shopping more fruitful, and maybe even fun.

Categorize Your List

Many people make their grocery lists throughout the week, jotting down items as they remember them. That means, by the time the list is complete, it’s in a state of disarray that has no rhyme or reason.

Before you go to the grocery store, think about rewriting it and separating the items by department. Most have us have gone to the paper products aisle to buy toilet paper and then realized 30 minutes later paper towels were also on our list, but further down, so we didn’t immediately see them.

Organizing your list is something that should just take a few minutes to do, yet it could save you a significant amount of time at the grocery store, especially if you get into the habit of doing it on every trip. Apps like Wunderlist make list making and organizing easy for every member of your household.

Tag-Team It

Tasks that cover as much ground as grocery shopping does are usually much more manageable if you recruit help. Take along a helper to the grocery store, whether it is your partner or 13-year-old daughter, and use that person to help you get through the list much faster.

Get Cash Back on Grocery Purchases

Everyone knows about clipping coupons to save money, but you’ll soon be thinking that’s old-fashioned after downloading an app such as Snap. Made by the team behind social deals site Groupon, the app lets you earn cash back after purchasing weekly deals that may even be things you needed to buy anyway. There’s no need to clip coupons or wait on lengthy mail-in rebate offers. Just take a picture of the receipt with your smartphone as proof of purchase, and get cash back as a reward.

Download the Grocery King App on Your Smartphone

This app does so much, it really could be considered royalty when compared to all the other shopping apps. Grocery King has a database of stores in your area that lets you know when stores are open or closed, and can even sync up with your phone to provide alerts when you’re passing a retailer that has an item on your shopping list. It makes it easy to get shopping done when it’s most convenient, rather than making special trips.

The color-coded price comparison feature is especially helpful if you’re the kind of person who loves to save money whenever possible but hates how time-consuming it can be to do price checks. Grocery King can also store gift or loyalty cards, plus electronic coupons, meaning you can still save money in those more traditional ways, without having to fumble around for the physical cards or coupons in your wallet.

Stop Buying Too Many Groceries

If you share the grocery shopping responsibilities with someone else in your household, there have probably been at least a few occasions where you’ve picked up an item on the way home from work after remembering you were running low, only to realize later that another person in your home had the same thought and also bought the product.

The Out of Milk app is a list-syncing app that updates automatically across several smartphones and even your desktop computer. That means if you share your list with the other person who buys groceries, he or she can instantly see when you’ve purchased something and marked it off the list, even if you aren’t near each other.

Grocery shopping isn’t glamorous, but it doesn’t have to be something that makes you feel glum. Use the tips above to streamline the process so you have more time and money for things you’re more likely to enjoy.