Ideas to Get your Kids Involved with Grocery Shopping

April 4, 2012 | Posted By: Shannen Bayless | Categorized in: Shopping, Family, Couponing

This past weekend my husband was out of town on business, which meant there was really no other option than to take my kids with me grocery shopping. After the disaster trip we took last week, when I almost walked out of the store, this week we headed to the store with a whole new attitude.

Here are a few things I did to keep my kids involved while we were in the store:

Have your kids help plan out your weekly dinner menu. We did this before we left, and then when we were at the store, they helped remind me what we were having so we didn’t forget items on our list.
Have your kids help pick out coupons from your envelope or have them hold onto the coupons you plan to use. I was a little skeptical of letting my 5 year old do this, but he really did a good job.
Have your kids help pick out items on your list. For example, we needed lunchmeat, so I let them decide if we should get ham, turkey, or both. We got both because we go through a lot of lunchmeat at our house. I also let them pick out which kind of juice we bought for the week.
Practice counting items you need. We did this with fruit. We simply counted the number of pears, apples, etc. that we needed. Counting was also very effective at stores that were offering Buy 10 for $10 sales and Buy 10 get $5 back sales.
Have your kids be in charge of checking off items on your list. We brought along a highlighter for this task.
Let them help unload the cart. We were shopping in the evening, and the store was not real busy. If they had been, I would have just done it myself to save time.

This week we definitely spent more time in the store than normal, but we had time to kill because my husband was out of town. We didn’t need to get home at any particular time. Sometimes it’s nice to just take a step back and get the kids involved with helping out at the grocery. My boys thought they were pretty cool kids getting to help mom!

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Ideas to Get your Kids Involved with Grocery Shopping