A Little Thing on a List
Every week, before I go shopping I write a list. I look for some scrap paper. I can't find it. I pinch a piece from the printer and I wait for someone to say "you're wasting printer paper". Then I disarm them with "strawberry ice cream this week/ or mint choc chip?"
I write it all down. I put the list in my bag; and then, every week without fail, when I get to the shop I fail to find it. It falls to the very bottom of my bag and it's lost forever. But I've hit on the answer. I don't put the list in my bag any more. I put it in my coat pocket. Fiendish, eh? Oh yes. I'm pretty pleased with my plan. Or, as my Mum would have it: little amuses the innocent. And even less the fool..
So I made a page about my simple light bulb moment. I included the things on my list and I added a shopping lady. I'd been saving her to use as a travelling storyteller; but it turns out she's a travelling storyteller who needs to go to the shops. And then I looked at it and realised that a note of a months worth of shopping, in this year before the biggest eater leaves home, would be a fun thing to have. It turned out like this:
In October I brought home sixteen loaves of bread and twelve large boxes of cereal and thirty litres of milk and five bags of rice and six big bags of pasta and six cans of tomatoes and seven blocks of cheese and two sacks of coffee beans and four bags of chicken pieces and two roasts and thirty one apples and sixty two bananas and more potatoes than one small mother should reasonably be expected to carry and more biscuits than were strictly necessary.
There were other bits and pieces too, of course; but those were the basics. Makes you think when you see it laid out like that..
You can find out more about Month in Numbers here - it's a great way to count!
Storytelling Sunday this weekend! I have a little dark and stormy stormy almost ready to go..how about you?
36 comments:
What a clever lisrt. May I steal this idea for November? It's a boring month where nothing much generally happens after Bonfire Night, except work. There are only 2 months in a year when a teacher works a full calendar month (but actually we get 2 days of November in half term this year)
I need to ask, how do you keep track of all your numbers? I really like this particular idea as well - and I know it would be something very interesting to look back upon.
That's some shopping list,Sian!!!No wonder TTO is so tall!!
Thinking of my shopping...I lost my shopping list twice....I bought 6 loaves of bread,4 boxes of cereal,1 bag of rice, 2 bags of pasta,2 blocks of cheese....and only 1 tin of tomatoes....but that's because DD1 would hyperventilate if asked to eat tomatoes of any description!!
When TTO leaves home you won't know what to do with all your spare cash!!
How funny! My list is a bit like yours for October. If the other months (apart from January) are anything to go by, it won't make it to 'publish' anyway! We use most of a 4 pint carton of milk every day and I used 5 tins of toms in one cooking session last week! As for shopping lists, mine is usually to be found still on the table when I get home!
love your shopping lady. great idea using your coat pocket. I suffer from accumulated shopping lists in the bottom of my bag and then have to devine which is the current one
Wow a huge shopping list! At least he's eating fruit as well as biccies! Loving the layout - so cute!
shopping huh? I hate shopping. Mr M took over that chore when I went back to college for the CQSW course. His record for the quickest weekly shop ever was eleven minutes - start the clock at the door going in and stop it when the last item goes through the checkout. He had help getting the stuff off the shelves though.
Sian - we use the backs of envelopes pulled out of the recycling boxes for shopping lists (and notes etc.) but then our printer is up a flight of stairs in a cupboard...
I really like that shopping traveling lady. Made me smile because this month has been interesting as Ewok & Princess get to see how much work feeding everyone is. Even though they aren't actually going shopping most of it is delivered or picked up by WOokie.
Oh Sian, I've been using the coat pocket system for years.....if I remember to actually take it with me! I think you should calculate how much you save while the TO is away at Uni, it might be worth not letting him back:)))) great layout, love the bits and bobs:)
I just love scrapbooking the everyday! I especially like showing my pantry and refrigerator at Christmas. This year, I'm going to include my list! Thanks for the idea.
Great list. Shopping will seem so much lighter (and cheaper) when TTO is away.
Great idea :) Love the layout with the travelling shopping lady.
I confess, I tell Siri on the phone, as I never lose my phone. Before that it was old envelopes and my Dad used to cut up all the cardboard when he was recycling and leave them in a little pile for my mum to use as lists.
Do you know, I think that - if letf to his own devices - J would buy that much bread for the two of us too! [He's a bit of a bread fan!]
I confess to always sneaking a peek at abandoned shopping lists I spot in the trolley etc ... you never know what interesting combinations someone went in search of!
Thanks for joining in once again, you're on the board now: http://pinterest.com/notesonpaper/my-month-in-numbers/
I'm wracking by brain for a dark + stormy tale to join you with.
Happy November!
Jx
Love your list! What a fabulous way of recording your family's eating habits!
It sounds like quite a list when you put it like that doesn't it! Lovely idea for a LO, looks beautiful :)
I daren't add up what I've bought during an average month...too scary!! I love this peak into your day to day life...I have a shoppng list pad (magnetised) on the side of the fridge & then if anyone is the last to use up something they can (in theory) pop it straight on the list! All I have to do is a final check through the fridge/freezer/cupboard & tear off the list, pop it in my purse & pull it out with a pencil (also kept in my purse) to cross off things as I go!! Mrs organised or what?! I'm loving every little component on this LO & have spent a while just taking it all in! :D
What a lovely page! Your travelling shopper looks ready to go - and with a list like that you'll need her generous bag. I keep my shopping list in the pocket of my jeans, but since I also often slip in there my earrings if I find they're beginning to irritate my earlobe ... :(.
What a fascinating idea! I think lots of us might be doing this now you've given us the inspiration :)
I once posted my shopping list - there's a post box outside Asda so I took along a letter when I went shopping, but the list went into the post box instead of the letter doing so!!
I great take on your month in numbers, it's amazing how much stuff we get when we look at the whole months worth of lists!
Oh I just love your layout - that shopping girl is adorable. And, wow, that's a lot of bread, milk and rice...must be those big kids you have hanging around your place. ;o)
Love this post and layout....the scrap paper always goes missing here too!
What a fun idea for your October numbers. I'm hoping to work on my numbers list later this evening.
Kirsty - I'd be delighted if you'd like to use this idea, please do!
Amy - I keep my numbers in my head, but Julie has some great tips on her Month in Numbers page
I love your shopping lady. Still haven't managed a month in numbers post (maybe next year), but I do have an idea for storytelling. . . off to compose it soon.
Rinda
What a great idea. Would be a great way to see what I spend the shopping money on and what gets used the most (and how much really sneaks into trolley on the way round :-/)
My gran always said we'd all be rich if we didn't have to eat...when you see it like this, she might have been right!
Alison xx
That's a lot of bananas! I don't think I have bough that many bananas all year combined.
I keep meaning to scrap about our shopping but we are so hit and miss with our routine! I've started putting the list onto my phone now so I can't lose it ;-) Great saying of your Mum's.
A great idea for a list - I'm wondering what my month's shopping would add up to. Beautifully scrapped as ever!
Oh and meant to add - the coat pocket thing is just as problematic for me ... which pocket? which coat? and I often remove my coat to drive and then forget to put it on when I reach the underground car park at the supermarket; and then there are the pockets with holes!!!!
Wow thats quite the list. You have me wondering how much just the 2 of us buy in a month. The layout looks relly neat.
Yes, I can relate to making the list (although I have cut up scraps on my kitchen planner desk) even though I don't really plan, and more often than I care to admit, the list remains on the kitchen counter while I am at the grocery. And I can also make more than a once a week trip now that my biggest eater is home again from college. You would think an accountant could increase her quantities sufficently, but I haven't somehow, so I have to shop a little more often. But I am not complaining, soon enough I'll be back to shopping just for 3 and that will make me a little sad. Darling layout!
I have embraced the digital age ... my list is on my phone :-) I don't loose it anymore LOL
I wonder how much your grocery bill will go down? Mine seems to be increasing rapidly with two teenage boys that are taller than me.
Oh I love your page and MiN and your shopping list is so funny! seeing it written down like that I mean. Can I use your idea one month? I faithfully make out the list and leave it on the kitchen work top! Still it is a useful start to the next list started with the things I forgot. x
This post has given me an insight into my future shopping...with three boys! huh!
A wonderful idea, i will have to try it with fruit - we go through so much of it! beautiful page too x
I swear, Sian, you can make a scrapbook page and a blog post out of almost anything! Genius!
My grocery shopping method is quite different, mostly because we do a major shopping about once a month. After years of handwritten lists, I finally decided to create a columned list by food category and indicate by checkmarks or by number needed the things I wanted to buy. The letter-sized page is really too large to be convenient in the store and ends up getting folded in many different directions as I make my way through the store, but it really does make the prep for shopping much easier as the list provides reminders of the kinds of things we usually need.
As for the in-between grocery trips, I'm afraid my lists, written on the smallest scrap of paper possible, are more often left on the kitchen table so I either have to call to find out what I wanted to buy or rely on my unreliable memory.
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