Four Ways to Shorten Your Grocery Store Trip

Sarah-Jane Bedwell,SELF magazine

According to the Food Marketing Institute, for every minute we spend in the grocery store, we spend $2! So getting in and out with a cart full of healthy groceries in record time is super important if we want to keep our spending in check. There are a few tricks of the trade that I use myself and share with my clients when it comes to shortening your grocery trip...

See more: The Healthiest Cities for Women

...Here are my top four:

1. Make a list, and divide it up by area of the store.
It's great to have a list, but not just any list will help shorten your grocery trip. It may be great exercise to run back and forth from the produce section to the meat case for each item on your list, but you will end up taking more time and probably spending more moolah as well. Instead, write your grocery list in sections- have a column for all the items you need from produce, dairy, bread, and so on. This way, when you leave a section of the store, there will be no going back to it. Plus, the second time you walk by an item, you will be more familiar with it, which may be all it takes to lead you to make an impulse buy.

See more: 50 Delicious Detox Meal Recipes

2. Next, look, but don't touch.
If an item is not on your list-- even if it looks interesting-- do not pick it up. If you pick up an item, you are four times more likely to buy it than if you don't touch it. And if it is not on your list to begin with, then you probably don't need it anyway. Don't worry, if it's truly something you are interested in, you can always look it up online and get more information. Then if you are still interested, put it on your list for next time.

3. Speaking of looking things up online, log on before you go to the store.
Checking out a store's website before you go grocery shopping is a good way to shave some time off your trip because it will help answer product questions and tell you if a store carries a particular item. Want to compare nutrition facts or prices for similar products? Some store websites even have tools on their websites that allow you to do this in record time.

Related: The Benefits of Being Part-Time Vegetarian

4. Use a basket instead of a shopping cart.
If you have less space to place things, you may be more likely to stick to your list. Plus, if you are carrying your groceries, you probably aren't going to want to waste any time (especially the heavier they get). However, if you are using a basket, stay away from the junk-food aisles. A recent study found that people who use a basket are three times more likely to pick up junk food than people who use a cart!

Using a basket, doing online research before you go, not picking up items and above all sticking to your list can help you get in and out of the grocery store quickly, and a little richer! In fact, if the statistic from the Food Marketing Institute is true, shortening your grocery store time from 1 hour to 30 minutes could save you $60! Now, that's worth picking up the pace!

More from SELF:

• 20 Superfoods for Weight Loss
• Yoga Moves for Flat Abs
• 38 Antiaging Foods
• Gwyneth Paltrow's Arm and Ab Workout