Do you organize your grocery cart?

October 22, 2020 by
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A lot of people dislike bagging their own groceries, feeling like it is disenfranchising workers and pushing work on shoppers without giving them any benefit in price reduction. I, on the other hand, often volunteer to pack the groceries myself. Bagging my own is one of the many reasons I am a fan of Aldi as well. I’m pro-self-bagging because I find that no matter how organized my items are on the scanning belt, they become jumbled at the end by the harried grocery bagger or cashier. I do not blame them as much as I do the system; they are merely trying to work as quickly as they can. But rather than having bread squished and finding cold items in every single bag instead of grouped together, I prefer to do it myself.

That is why I was instantly drawn to an article on The Kitchn that asked the question: do you organize your groceries in the checkout aisle? Obviously my answer is ‘yes’. I group items according to various categories like food vs. nonfood, refrigerated vs. shelf-stable, cans vs. boxes, produce vs. meat, and so on down the line. I start with the heaviest items that are least likely to be damaged: canned goods, detergent bottles, and other sturdy things, dividing between food and nonfood and between which items will go straight into the kitchen and which will be tucked away in the pantry (actually, just a closet in the next room).

Although I try to keep the items arranged in the shopping cart, I do sometimes have to move things around in order to get like items together on the belt, but they are organized at the checkout if not before. If my husband is shopping, he just tosses items onto the conveyor belt willy-nilly, although he does save eggs and bread until last (he’s not a monster).

Do you organize your grocery items or do you play it more loosey-goosey?

Category: Antipasto

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9 Comments

  • Jenny  on  October 22, 2020

    I’m like hubby – get in, get out, keep your back against the wall and watch the openings. I do pay attention to eggs, bread, and bananas. If I organized my grocery cart, I wouldn’t have time to brush my teeth.

  • averythingcooks  on  October 23, 2020

    I definitely organize my groceries onto the belt and have a bagging plan as items go through. I bring specific bags that I use for specific groceries (cloth, sturdier material, cooler bags etc). This has become more important as I am now trying to strictly limit my number of grocery trips so my is cart is significantly fuller than before. We also often have the option of using boxes which we can pick out ourselves. As we seldom have designated baggers at our stores anymore, self bagging allows the cashier to get your items through faster and keeps the line moving……these days especially, people just want out of the store as quickly as possible!

  • Eclauser  on  October 23, 2020

    I absolutely organize my cart and the way things go on the belt. I am frequently dying a little inside (overly dramatic, I know) as I watch all of my best laid plans fall apart in the bagging. I try to bag myself as frequently as possible by choosing a checkout lane where there is no bagger on duty. Usually this works well because the cashier is thankful for the extra hands and it’s a win-win. It’s a strange habit because I am definitely not so organized or picky in any other area of my life!

  • Jane  on  October 23, 2020

    Organized in the cart, organized on the belt, organized in the bags. Only way in my mind to shop. Makes unpacking so much easier.

  • whitewoods  on  October 23, 2020

    Disenfranchising? Please. Bagging my own groceries is extremely important to me, and I use self-checkout as much as possible for that reason. However, some of the comments in this blog post don’t really apply to me. I live alone in Brooklyn with no car, and I use a very small stair-climbing shopping cart to get my groceries home from the supermarket across the street. I go to the store frequently, and am not buying massive quantities at any one time. So it’s not really necessary for me to organize the items in my cart, however, I do put all of the heavy items on the conveyor belt first. However, my pet peeves in the past were mainly the massive amount of plastic bags that the clerks would use. They’d put, like, two items in each bag and then double bag it. So I’d have massive amounts of bags, and by the time I got out of the store I immediately had to undo everything and repack it, just so that I can get home. Maybe that works for people who have cars and houses but certainly not when you’re trying to lug a shopping cart across the street and up two flights of stairs. First of all, the shopping cart has a liner–so there’s really no need to bag the milk cartons, six-packs, kitty litter, etc., at all. I just put those at the bottom of the cart. But now thanks to NY’s bag waste reduction law I can finally enjoy packing my shopping cart myself and not be the odd ball out any more. And by now the clerks at my local store know me well enough that even if they’re helping me pack the additional shopping bag that I’ve brought along, they know (without my telling them) that the bag is just for the smaller lightweight items, and the heavy items go in the bottom of my own cart. I commented to one girl the other day, “Aw. You remember how I pack my things. How sweet.”

  • jackiecat  on  October 23, 2020

    I just put everything back in the cart with no bags and bag things when I get to my car using my own bags.

  • Koolkook  on  October 24, 2020

    I organize my cart, and the order of items on the belt, and I also ask (usually politely) the bagger to keep certain items (frozen veggies, individual yogurts) together, for easier unpacking at home. I even organize the bags as I put them in the car, so I know what to carry in the house first.

  • TeresaRenee  on  October 24, 2020

    My cart is semi-organized. It starts out organized but eventually, everything piles up. My favourite cart idea is keeping the bakery items in the space for little kids. It’s separate from the main area of the cart and big enough for a loaf of bread or two.

    Watching cashiers bag groceries drives me crazy so I bag my own groceries. Breads in one bag, produce in another, heavy stuff at the bottom, cold stuff together, etc. It makes unpacking so much easier when items that are stored together come out of the same bag.

  • CapeCodCook  on  October 24, 2020

    I love bagging my ow groceries into separate in my cart using that little hand-held gizmo to scan the barcodes and show me just how much money I have spent so far, and then waltzing through the self-checkout section in a couple of minutes with only the task of inserting cash or credit card into the machine and then pushing my already-loaded cart out the door to my car. In these pandemic times, I have less interaction with clerks who don’t have to be exposed to my (possible) virus germs and much less time spent in the store itself.

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