Oh honey, I've been bagging items myself for years--way before our reno, and sorting as I bag --way before our reno: perishables are bagged together, kitchen non-perishables together, items that go in our downstairs pantry closet together, etc.

I use the self-checkout lane at one of the supermarkets I frequent which facilitates my sorting/bagging very nicely!

:-) You are not alone!!!

Oh my...WHAT have I been missing??? I can just imagine doing this at Costco during one of our 300-mile stocking up trips! lol I can't believe I've never thought of this...lots of time to make up!

I completely agree. Plus there are those baggers who would squish the tomatoes with various assundry hard edged items. Yikes!

LOL.. had a big smile when I read your post... for years I used to bag by type: perishables, taxables, dairy, freezer, etc. Now like you I bag by the place it will go: cabinet, refrigerator, freezer, storage, etc. With cloth bags it is even easier! You are definitely not alone !

I usually try to bag my own because I have a back injury and have to distribute the weight in the bags. I usually get nasty looks and sighs from the checkout people, so I know just how you feel.

Yes, I bag mine. They don't like it but I just say, "If I get home with squished grapes, it's my fault. If I get home with the squished grapes YOU bagged, it's YOUR fault." The bag boys don't have a clue about refrigerated items together and frozen in a different bag together. And the one lonely frozen item in the bag with the cans. GRRRRRRRR!! So Yes, I let them simmer while I bag my own.

Not just sorting as I bag but sorting as I load the cart and then unload at checkout has been my aim for many years. That way, if I can't dissuade the bagger from taking over, I just point out to them that I have grouped items together that I want bagged together as they roll down the check out counter. Most of the young ones are happy to do what I ask. The ones who seem to be my same geezer age are the ones who want to do it their way. LOL.

LOL! I was doing this waaay before I was TKO. And I have always arranged my shopping list by aisle in my usual supermarket so I grab things in order. It was a happy day when my supermarket installed several nice self-checkout lanes to handle full orders, not just 10 items or less. I haven't gone through a checkout human in ages. And my grapes and tomatoes are never squished when I get home!

Maybe this is just a type-A personality thing...?

whew, I thought I was alone....

Me too! I've been bagging my own groceries since I started buying my own groceries(18, when I went off to college,) because I liked to keep my frozen stuff together, canned stuff together, my bananas away from the heavy bottle of dish detergent, etc. DH used to roll his eyes when I'd insist on bagging, but he's used to it now.

Me too! I'm usually happy enough if they put the frozen together and the perishables together (as I obsessively arrange things on the checkout counter), and don't squish the bread or tomatoes, but I'm often there rearranging bags and advising and being a total pain.

Today I learned the joys of delivery however (couldn't drag myself to all the shopping I've been putting off with a bad cold). Not only do they carry in all the groceries, the delivery charge is minimal, they're not allowed to accept tips (I thought my delivery man was worth a 10% tip but he refused per store policy), the prices are great (this is one of the big chains), I was able to stock up on all the bulky and heavy pantry items with an order too big for my car...but, while it all comes in the nasty plastic bags, they ARE sorted by type because they're picked department by department, bagged together and put into bins for transport. Even the laundry stuff was together, as was the cough medicine, the Kleenex, etc. It took practically no time to put away. :) I still have my own shopping to do for produce and meats which I like to see for myself, but what an amazing boon!

You have a bagperson??? I consider myself lucky if the cashier even acknowledges my presence.

Thank you for making me feel normal again! You understand that it goes beyond putting tomatoes and canned goods in the same bag!

And Sharonite -- my husband doesn't understand when I rewrite the list in the order of the aisles. And he cringes when he comes with me and I have the bulldog clip to clip my list to the shopping cart . . . . (sorry, I have to see it, don't I?)

Hmm, our baggers usually do put like things together, all the canned goods together, all the perishables, etc. What I always have to remind them of is to put the cold items in the insulated bags. They'll start filling my insulated bags with cereal and canned goods. I only live a couple minutes from the store, so I usually don't say anything, but I have been known to make them unpack and repack, LOL

Rjr, do you type your lists? I find MS Word very useful. :)

another nice thing... I'm sure you notice buying similar items on your store runs...

I have a typed list of our normal groceries....

and the list is laid out in the order of the store....

I keep copies of the list, hanging in the kitchen, so when we run out of something, I can just circle it.... occasionally DH might even circle something.

feel free to mock. :-)

Has anybody done their grocery list online? I usually don't trust dh in the grocery store (all snacks and desserts that he comes across end up in our bags), but when I hurt my feet, I had to make lists or if I am stuck at work, I email the list. This way he has pictures and prices and those self group by dept.
I put my groceries on the conveyor by groupings, but usually get annoyed when they fill bags halfway. I bring my reusables and like to cram them full before resorting to plastic.
The self check out lane makes things much easier....

This is utterly hysterical. Who *KNEW* there was anyone else out there this obsessed??? And it takes this surrogate form of kitchen-planning... like, golly-wow.

What is the +/- count of us who are obsessed in this way with bagging sensibly? Because I almost never see anyone like this in the grocery and from the attitude of the checkers you'd think they never do either, and their denominator is an awful lot bigger than mine. So what are our numbers here? A few hundred across the nation?

Maybe we are afterall rarer than the concentration within this forum suggests....

Aliris, it's my mother who taught me to make grocery lists in the shape of the store. I think there must be a lot of us out there, quietly obsessing over our groceries and thinking that we're the odd ones when, in fact, we're normal!

I dunno from normal....! True, my adolescent girls are obsessed with believing themselves not-normal, in itself utterly commonplace. So if that pattern holds, you could be right at that.

We are not alone. Do we deserve a new acronym? GSOO: grocery shopping organizing obcessed?

I do have a very anal-retentive list for my Christmas Eve and dinner shopping (please note, the hyphen in anal-retentive puts it a notch above anal retentive WITHOUT the hyphen), but have not considered a pretyped list of the weeklies. I am definately going to adopt this technique! In the past I have used a long, thin notepad supplied by a hotel chain my husband frequents in his travels. They REALLY ticked me off when they had the gall to change both their pens and notepads. Interrupted my schwing, they did.

Thanks to all!

Hope your cold is better soon, plllog.

I've been having groceries delivered for several years and love the that they come packed to be put away easily--freezer items together with dry ice, refrigerated items together with ice packs, and so on. I started when my twins were infants and it seemed like a luxury, but a necessary one.

Now I know that even with the small delivery charge I actually end up spending less, because I'm a far better shopper (more disciplined, more thorough, more likely to read labels and compare prices, less likely to give in to things that we don't need) from the calm of home than in the bustle of a store. Once I learned to trust my supplier's commitment to the quality of produce and to responsive customer service, I was hooked.

It's not new to me, either. But then I'm CDO.
It's like OCD, but the initials are in the right order!

I have index cards that I made up pre-computer. There is an index card for every store that I frequent with a list of what we buy there. For example, before I go to Costco, I check the card to make sure that I don't need anything else, even if the item wasn't written on the shopping list.

The shopping list has two columns - Trader Joe's and other. I scan the weekly ads (we get ten of them) to decide which store has the best deals and gets my business this week. All these stores are within a four mile radius so it's not like I'm going out of my way. Grocery shopping is combined with different errands to make the best use of my time. So I hit TJ's and ONE grocery store/produce place/farmer's market every week; Costco is every 3 or 4 weeks.

And yes, the list is made out aisle by aisle to minimize the time spent. Thus, all the frozen stuff is together, produce together, etc. in the cart which makes bagging simpler.

The errand list is also numbered in order of places to visit.

When I write it all out, it seems complicated, but it's second nature to me, takes maybe 15 -20 minutes (the reading, listing and checking; not the shopping!) and we rarely run out of something important.

As long as your system works for you, then it's a good way to do it.

I ran into one of you crazies in the Whole Foods parking lot today. It was a crowded parking lot with lots of mounds of snow and narrow aisles and this woman was standing behind the trunk of her car, blocking traffic, while she rearranged all the groceries in her bags. Unbelieveable!

I used to bag if there wasn't a bagger but not anymore. Now that the local Stop & Shop seems to be cutting back on personnel I refuse to bag myself. I make the poor girl at the checkout do it no matter how many people are waiting. Refuse to use the self checkout unless I have 5 or fewer items. Apologies in advance if you get behind me in line but I will not be turned into a drudge.

Sorry to offend but arranging things in your bag based on storage in the kitchen is silly. Sorry. No other word for it.

You know that Extreme Couponing show? That's me.

I sort my groceries on the conveyor belt according to what bags I want them to go in.

And I shop with my iPad grocery list, which coordinates with my iPad weekly menu, which is printed and posted on my fridge each week, and on which family members list items we need for the coming week.

You do not want to get in line behind me, unless you like to see someone get $500 worth of groceries for $100. Since I shop for our family of 14, I often have spectators. Sometimes I get applause. :oD

Weismann, Very funny! Lol.

I'll admit to everyone that I am not a GSOO (goosoo?). I drop into the grocery store for about 15 minutes everyday on my way home to fill out the dinner supplies. I stock a minimum of goods so i don't need to heavily organize my quarter of a bag of groceries.

I like to use the freshest items I can and find that easier to do with frequent trips. On a weird note, I also find myself eating more sensibly? when I shop each night for what we are feeling hungry for. If I want pork chops and eat pork chops I am less likely to be munchy later because the chicken at home didn't quite satisfy.

I keep a few boxes or cans of premaid goods but I find it's quick to replenish the supplys if Im on top of it all the time. When I'm at the store thinking about what to buy I think about what I made for dinner last night. If I used something I stock at the house I pick up a replacement.

That lets me use the quick checkout 99% of the time and gives me a very specific idea of what I'm buying before I go in every time. It also means that the bags are very light to carry as a bonus!

I am definitely a member of this club! Word process my shopping list, grouping items based on store layout. As I shop the aisles, based on my list of course, I place similarly stored items together in the shopping cart. Doesn't matter who bags, I always put my stuff on the conveyor belt according to storage groups (refrigerator/pantry/cleaning supplies/pet supplies, etc.) BTW, my system isn't so specific that it causes me to hold up the line in order to get my stuff in the proper "assigned" bag. So, sometimes, if the cashier bags, I might take the time to rearrange some items in the parking lot. (But, no, Weissman - never to the point of disregard for others!)

Worldmom: I would love to check you out at check out! If you're ever doing that in my neck of the woods, just wear a sign on your back that says "Worldmom" and you'll get a big GW hug . . . instead of a very rapid detour to a different line. :-)

I'm somewhat GSOO. I always go with a list organized according to the aisles. I find it really helps to keep me from impulse shopping and helps to get the task done faster.

There is one woman at my grocery store who does a wonderful job of organizing the contents of each bag--all frozen in one bag, fresh veggies/fruit, cleaning products, canned veggies, etc. Unfortunately, I don't see her as much as I used to. :(

Worldmom, are there any websites you use to get your coupons? I must confess that I'm not as diligent with coupons as I should be. I'm trying hard to be better about it (one of my many new year resolutions)! Any hints/suggestions to make this easier would be appreciated!

Oh, my typed list (organized by aisle, of course) is a necessity, since my husband does 90% of the grocery shopping. I keep a clipboard with grocery lists sitting on my kitchen desk at all times. All we do is make a line in front of each item as we discover that we need it. As he shops, he puts a check on the line as each item goes in the cart. This has worked beautifully for us for many years.

Rita, I'll send you a copy of my list for you to use as a starting point for yours. :)

You people are nuts. Making grocery lists in MS Word?!?!

Use Excel like a normal person.

It lets you sort by aisle and item, so that if two recipes both call for butter, you can get the right total amount.

OK, so now I know why the bagger at Whole Paycheck today asked me if I wanted to bag my own food. You were all there ahead of me!

One woman did block the parking garage to get something out of her trunk, but it didn't appear to be either food or bags. She left us shaking our heads and wondering.

I used to make my list based on the geography of the store, as taught to me by my mother. Now that DH is retired he does the shopping and I am blissfully ignorant of the location of many important items, like red wine and chocolate.

marthavilla - I use several resources but the main one is www.grocerysmarts.com There is a pull-down menu from which to select your state, and you'll then see lists for your local grocery stores that have ad prices matched up with any applicable coupons. (The prices are also rated so you know when things are really good deals. The people who make the lists track this info in a database.) I like this particular service because it's free (as opposed to something like The Grocery Game, which is $5 a month) and because it includes links to any printable coupons right in the list. Other coupons that come from the newspaper inserts are referenced as RP (Red Plum), SS (Smart Source) or PG (Proctor and Gamble), along with the corresponding date of the inserts. I get five Sunday papers each week, plus I have friends that give me extra coupon inserts, so I'm able to stock up when things are at their cheapest. I get free things almost every week, usually thanks to double coupons, and I have a basement storage room (about 17x17) that is packed full of our "stockpile." We have aisles of shelving set up so it's like a mini grocery store. ;o)

I spend quite a bit less on groceries than I used to, plus we now have this room of food and necessities that we are constantly using/replenishing. I actually teach a class at our local community college on how to do this type of shopping, so if you're interested, I can email you the handouts for the class. For some reason I can't get GW to let me add my new email address to my profile, but if yours is set up to allow email, I can send it that way. :o)

For those of you with iphones (or droids, too, I think), I highly recommend 'ourgroceries'. Visit 'ourgroceries.com'.

You can arrange items by categories (which you define yourself). You can create a 'recipe' of frequently shopped for items and add them to the list with a quick tap.

You can edit the list on-line as well as on the phone, so kids and other family members who don't have the 'right' phone can add to the shopping list.

You can have multiple lists: Grocery, Sam's Club, Target (honey do chores)

All household members can share the same lists. It's my second favorite app (after Stanza).

p.s. I have no stake in this app. It is free. The ads are unobtrusive, but I would pay $2-3 to avoid the ads or support the developers since I *LOVE* this app.

Here is a link that might be useful: ourgroceries app

No, NO, Marcolo!! Excel is for catering so that one can have three dimensional spread sheets to compare prices at various vendors, and update quantities according to guests and budgets. BTDT. Word is for recipes and pretty color coded columns of ingredients that require acquisition. One store, if possible. One store only needs a simple program. :)

Today's bagger and checker at Whole Foods did an admirable job of maintaining my sorting without my having to rebag in the parking lot, though I do admit Weissman's description hit close to home. Except the snow. There's plenty of room in the lot though, so I don't block anybody. Just annoy people who want me to leave so they can have my shade tree.

Marcolo -- you crack me up!

Send it, Holli!

I can't call myself TKO (maybe a little, given the amount of time I spend reading this group...but not in practical terms, given my falling-apart 1960's kitchen).

But I do like to organize while shopping. Now that our supermarket has hand-held scanners, I can bag while I shop, using my own bags. That means I don't have to put my groceries on the conveyor belt -- no store employee touches it after I bag it. I have two big insulated bags (one for refrigerated perishables, one for frozen stuff), and a few bags for the other stuff. Nothing gets squished, and everything is right where I want it for unloading. Works great! Weighing and pricing produce takes a little longer, but I don't mind that because overall, using the hand-held scanner saves time.

The big payout -- checking out takes about a minute -- I can go through the express self-checkout with a week's worth of groceries, and none of it leaves the cart.