Making Grocery Shopping Fun for the Kids (and Enjoyable for You!) | Family Economics

By Cathe

Grocery shopping. Not one of my favorite tasks. When I shopped with three young children in tow, keeping them orderly was nearly impossible. So once they were old enough to safely walk around a grocery store on their own, I devised what I think was a brilliant plan to make shopping not only more bearable, but fun!

While my kids were at school, I would put on some good music, grab a cup of coffee and head over to my grocery store’s home delivery website. (You can find several grocery websites here.) With my handwritten list in hand, I would do all my shopping online, without actually purchasing the items. Then I printed out the items in my virtual shopping cart as pages showing a photograph of each item, quantities, price, discount and description including size, ounces and/or flavor.

Once I picked up my kids from school we would head over to the grocery store where I would divvy up the pages among them. They each headed out on a grocery scavenger hunt to find the items while I strolled happily and quietly through the store waiting for them to return often to drop items in my non-virtual shopping cart.

Behold no boredom, bickering, tennis shoe “flat tires”, fighting over who gets to ride on the end of the cart or spontaneous purchases. When our shopping cart was filled with all items on the list and all mini shoppers were accounted for, we’d all head over to the bakery section for our free cookies.

Finally, back at home they shared the tasks of bringing in groceries from the car and putting everything away. What used to be an agonizing experience turned into a fun afternoon spent with my kids.

What are your best tips or tricks for shopping with children?