Do you have a system when filling your trolley at the supermarket and bagging your purchases?

I usually muck about on the trolley, racing & spinning around, having imaginary cop chases with other unsuspecting shoppers. Handbrake turns in the aisles & drifting around the freezers, a family sized pizza makes for a decent steering wheel & a large pack of flour substitutes for a good quality airbag.

Heavy stuff goes beneath the other items. If I remember. Today, for example, I bought a spaghetti squash which almost crushed my plums.

I’m very well prepared at the checkout – I organize the items in exactly the way I want to bag them, thus saving time.

I carry a list, but it is never organised. But I usually go to the same supermarket and I walk along the displays in the same order every visit. The goods end up being packed in the basket thus: fresh vegetables closest to me; then ground provisions (that is, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams), the heavier fruit like oranges and apples; meats and other cold foods in the compartment where young mothers put their toddlers to sit; canned goods at the furthest end. Heavy stuff – dog chow, laundry powder, and the like, in the compartment below.

I put all fragile items in the kid compartment, now that none of my kids will fit. I keep all frozen and refrigerator items together, so nothing melts before I I have it dug out. Then, all pantry items are put together. Treats are bagged together to be put in a vault. I can be slack about that now, but I have to keep it locked when my kids visit.

I place them in the cart. I use a smaller cart with an upper and lower levels,so I don’t dump stuff in or on top of other stuff. And I let the bagger fill the bags.

I recently changed my system a little, because I purchased a bunch of reusable insulated grocery bags. I bought all insulated bags so there is no worry about whether the items are cold or not.

While shopping through the store I put all cold and frozen items into the bags. Other items I don’t bother while going through the store, so I just have the bags for those items folded up in the cart.

When unloading the cart to be rung up I give the cashier a couple of my folded bags and start unloading all the frozen and cold stuff. I used to not do the frozen first, because it can leave the belt with wet areas, but the people who bag groceries were a little confused that all my groceries go in the insulated bags so I switched it. Many of the people who bag at my grocery store are a little mentally disabled (I say this without sarcasm, it is a very nice thing that my supermarket employs a lot of people with down’s syndrome and other handicaps) So, I try to make it as easy for them as possible. They honestly do a better job then the last town I lived in where I still always grouped like items together and the people would put raw meat in with raw vegetables or cooked meat, it was extremely annoying, I had to watch like a hawk what they were doing and they didn’t have any disability, that town just seemed void of common food safety.

Back to how I unload the groceries. Hand the cashier some grocery bags, unload first frozen and cold, then hand the rest of the bags to the cashier, and then heavy items like canned and bottled goods, followed by other packaged goosd, then veggies and fruits, then eggs and bread, and lastly raw meats if I have any.

I pack the trolley with the heavier stuff at the back because that makes it easier to steer. And I bag things according to where they go when I get home; fridge, freezer, cupboard A (mostly tinned & packet/dried goods), cupboard B (fresh fruit & veg, drinks & other items in bottles, cakes/biscuits). It makes unpacking and putting things away much faster when I get home and that’s the part I hate most about grocery shopping. I never let the staff pack my bags for me, though fortunately its not common round here.