I love using a spreadsheet that helps me plan our grocery costs ahead of time. It is meant to be used to know which store to go to for an item but I use it mostly as a planner for my total expected cost. For instance, I can enter in my grocery list using a manual list spreadsheet and then it will tell me what it will all cost based on prices that I entered in before. After each grocery trip, I compare my receipt with my price book in the spreadsheet and update any that have increased or decreased in price.
I have my grocery items listed and then I created categories for each, the unit size and the main 4 stores I shop at and the prices at each:
I can also sort my list by various categories such as cold items:
I do one monthly shopping trip a month and then each following week, I do small trips for things we run out of or need to buy weekly like produce and bread, etc. Here is a sample list of one of those weeks:
You could do this by hand but a spreadsheet does all the math for you! It has saved me a lot of time after the initial time of setting it all up and entering in the information.
I'm having to plan more beforehand because of the price increases and going over our $450 a month budget and $200 stock-up budget. If I can't get things under control, I may raise our monthly budget.
This is the spreadsheet I use: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1701882995/grocery-store-cost-comparison
