Quick and Easy Ways to Save Time at the Grocery Store

 

I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping, mainly because of the time it takes. But we need food, and I don't want to pay extra for a shopping service. If you're like me and you don't want to spend much time in the store, here are some very easy ways to make your grocery shopping trip quicker and easier.

Shop the Perimeter

In a typical grocery store, all the fresh food is around the perimeter, or the outer edges, of the store. Produce, meat, seafood, dairy, the deli and the bakery are all on that outer ring. The rest of the store has the shelf-stable items like cereal, candy, soda and snacks, etc. Those shelf-stable items are often full of preservatives and artificial colors, and are not very nutritious. They also tend be “convenience foods” that are more expensive. 

So if you can shop the perimeter and avoid the shelves – unless you need specific staples like coffee, tea, spices, oil, flour, or sugar – you will be eating healthier as well as sparing yourself all that time going up and down the inner aisles. With fewer things to look at, you can also avoid getting snagged by impulse buys, which can save a lot of money, too!

Plan Ahead

You know where everything is in the grocery store, so make a plan before you get there. As you're making your grocery list, write the items in the order you will encounter them in the store. I always turn right after I enter and go around the store counterclockwise, so I know I will see the produce section, then frozen foods, then meat, etc. I write my items down in the that order so that I never have to run back to a section I was already in

Load and Unload Your Cart the Right Way

As you go through the store, be mindful of how you put your food in the shopping cart. It won't take you any extra time to put your cold food all together, your produce all together, and your heavy stuff all together. When you get to the checkout, you will be ready to unload your cart onto the conveyor belt in a way that will make sense and save time for both you and the cashier.

Place all the heavy items, like cans, on the belt first so they can go into the bottom of the bag (also place your reusable shopping bags/cloth totes here). Follow up with lighter items and delicate items that need to go on top, like eggs or baked goods. Place all your cold items together so they can be bagged together and keep each other cool while you are taking them home.

Last but not least, your produce, because most of those items will need to be weighed. Placing them all together in a group will ensure that the cashier can be in “weighing mode” and do the same tasks in a group, instead of stopping the flow of scanning over and over to weigh items that you've stuck haphazardly in with all the other things. Having all your like items grouped together will also save you time at home when putting them away, so consider that a bonus!

If you follow these tips and tricks, you will successfully hack your grocery store shopping trip and save a lot of time and money. You might even start to like grocery shopping!

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/couple-buying-groceries-at-a-supermarket-4198970/

More shopping tips: 

http://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-guide-to-purchasing-amateur-boxing.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2018/11/top-five-gift-cards-for-goth-kid.html

The Skeeve: An Analysis

 

Some of you folks may be unfamiliar with the term “skeeve”, commonly used to refer to an instinctive, immediate, physical reaction of shock and disgust to an unpleasant stimulus. I will attempt to clarify by using examples to illustrate, as well as to address some concepts that are related to the skeeve, such as the wiggins and the huzz.

A skeeve is not to be mistaken for a wiggins. A wiggins is the chill that accompanies a feeling of fright, or at least of weird, Twilight-Zone-ish coincidence. You know that saying, “A goose just walked across my grave”? That is a wiggins. A skeeve is also not exactly a huzz, which is a wonderful Southern term (anything with a short “u” sounds best when uttered with a serious drawl; my favorite is “whut?!?”) that describes that “ick-nasty” feeling you get when you suddenly realize either that there was a worm in your apple (half a worm = Super Huzz) or that the extremely pervy guy who sits in the back of the class just took a picture of you with his phone when you bent over to pick up a pencil you dropped.

A skeeve is more physical than the mere shiver of a wiggins or the stomach drop of a huzz. A minor skeeve typically involves a rapid shaking “no” of the head with shoulders trembling and is frequently accompanied by what I like to call “involuntary jazz hands”. The full-body skeeve combines the abovementioned with shaking of the lower body, as well, and a sufficiently disgusting or creepy stimulus may also induce the “walking skeeve”, which is a full-body skeeve that requires the sufferer to pace around a bit while skeeving, in order to diffuse the shock. The ultimate skeeve would be a walking, full-body skeeve starting from a seated position. If you can tell your drinking buddies a story so severely jacked up that you can propel them from their chairs and make them march around writhing and making the baby-tasting-a-lemon face, you have scored.

Lastly, the root word “skeeve” is both a noun (as in, “That gave me such a skeeve”) and a verb (as in, “Richard’s breath made me skeeve so hard”), including other common forms, such as skeeving and skeeved, and has also been adapted as an adjective (as in, “Who is that skeevy guy in the corner?”), so there should be a skeeve derivation for pretty much any purpose. 

And there you have it: a thorough analysis of the skeeve. Now the next time you find yourself making involuntary jazz hands over something that tastes (or just sounds) terrible, you'll know what to call it!

Here are some creepy songs that might make you skeeve: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-creepiest-songs-by-beatles.html

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-with-a-disgusted-facial-expression-8637946/

Top Five Books to Read on the Plane

 

Here are my best suggestions for interesting reading on the plane. Engrossing novels for travel and great nonfiction picks, too!

Going to take an airplane trip soon? If you’re like me, you won’t be able to simply lean back and snooze away the flight, so let’s make sure to have reading material handy. Magazines just won’t do for reading on the plane. Not only do they not usually last the whole flight, with no continuous story to keep a reader engrossed, there are too many opportunities to stop reading and go back to boredom, anxiety, drinking an inadvisable amount, or working up irritation over the silly things people do on airplanes that wouldn’t even get to you if you were lost in a nice, spellbinding read (add those last two together, and you’ve really got a problem). To that end, here are my recommendations for in-flight entertainment of the literary kind:

1. The Horror Story: As long as it doesn’t involve airplanes, a horror story is a great pick, because they are usually quite riveting and your objective is to make the hours pass. Also, since you will be on a well-lit airplane surrounded by people instead of alone in a dark, creaky house on a windy night, you shouldn’t be able to get TOO traumatized. My recommendation in the horror category is Duma Key by Stephen King, which takes place in the Florida keys (no airplanes involved) and is very well-paced to keep you reading, creepy enough to get your horror fix fulfilled, and long enough to last through all but the longest flights. Click to read the whole review.

2. The Mystery: Ah, nothing keeps one immersed in Bookworld like a good mystery. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco is my all-time favorite mystery, plunging the reader into the shadowy, intricate world of a medieval monastery. If you’ve already read the Eco, try the scary, thrilling The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which covers a broad historical span from the Byzantine Era to modern times, as well as a large swath of the globe. You will learn some things, be creeped out, and follow a tantalizing mystery throughout this satisfyingly long book. Click to read review of The Historian.

3. The Thriller: One of my favorite thriller authors is James Patterson. His novels are breathlessly-paced, can’t-put-‘em-down works of sheer adrenaline. A lot of Patterson’s novels feature Alex Cross, the Washington D.C.-based homicide detective. Each of the Cross books stand alone, but if you don’t want to get into a continuing-character series (references to past events and in-jokes are just less fun, aren’t they?), a good one-book story like The Quickie makes for an engrossing read. Click to read review of The Quickie by James Patterson.

4. The Learning Experience: Fiction may not be your bag, but although non-fiction can be thought-provoking, informational and even entertaining, what you want here is something that will keep you going for the whole flight, not something divided by subject or exercise. A great nonfiction story is the right call, here; you can follow along and learn things the whole time. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy is a gripping story that gives the reader a vicarious ride along with the author as she experiences life with a disfigurement. If you want a more lighthearted read, any of Bill Bryson’s travelogues (Notes from a Small Island and In a Sunburned Country are good choices, especially if you are headed to England or Australia) or the “green” comedy-of-errors Almost Green: How I saved 1/6^th of a Billionth of the Planet by James Glave. Click to read review of Glave book.

5. The Literary Novel: Here, we have to tread carefully; it’s awfully easy to pick something that’s good but that might end up making you cry (The Red Tent by Anita Diamant), which could be a tad embarrassing in front of a planeload of strangers. We also might want to avoid a choice that might make you howl with mirth (anything by David Sedaris, Dave Barry or Dave Eggers—those Daves will make you giggle and jiggle and truly annoy your seatmate). So something that makes you think, touches you without torturing you and leaves you feeling fulfilled is in order. I recommend anything by Barbara Kingsolver, especially The Poisonwood Bible if you have a very long flight. For a shorter flight, try Unless: a Novel by Carol Shields. Click to read full review for Unless. Click to read full review of Prodigal Summer

Now that you have an armload of recommendations, have a great flight! Oh, and you might want to take a magazine anyway; they’re good for shutting up a chatty seatmate. No, don’t whack the person with the magazine; just offer kindly. They will usually take the hint. If they don’t, you can always whack them until they do!

image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-reading-a-book-3884217/