My New Favorite App: Grocery iQ

{ Insert Hallelujah Chorus }

Yours truly joined the 21st century about a week ago. { Hooray! }

At first, I was skeptical about Siri... but girlfriend is my new virtual BFF.  I ask her, "What's for dinner?" and she finds restaurants nearby.  Perfect for nights when the pantry is in serious need of a refill.  Which has been more often than not as of late.  An unusual amount of travel has meant fewer meals at home.  That, and most of the free time I've had over the last few weeks was put into developing my entry for the bake-off. { Voting goes until Monday at midnight! }

All that to say, we just made a MASSIVE grocery trip. Second only to perhaps that first one you make after moving, when you've got to stock the entire house and the buggy is overflowing.  The three digit kind.

Now normally, I'd write three or four versions of a list for a trip like this.  I'd get it all written only to remember some other bit of produce we need. And then I've got to rewrite the whole thing so that all of the produce is still grouped together and I don't end up crisscrossing the entire grocery store.  { Is that normal? }

But not for this trip!  Technology to the rescue in a big way.  Meet my new favorite app.

Grocery iQ is a dream come true for kitchen nerds like me.  Not only is it awesome, it's FREE!  You can create grocery lists from a massive database of name brand and generic items and it automatically organizes them into categories.  No more rewriting of lists.

{ Love that it even has Reduced Fat Wheat Thins! }

Adding items is super simple, and the built in barcode scanner lets you scan items running low in the pantry and fridge to add them to the list automatically.

Grocery iQ will even customize your lists to the layout of your favorite stores so that your list shows up in the order of the aisles. { As soon as I relearn the layout of our newly remodeled my Publix, this will be fabulous! } A satisfying little check box lets you see only what remains on the list as you work your way through.  And, you can virtually share your lists with other people who've installed the app... perfect for when you're sending someone else { ahem, Spencer } to the store.

Plus, there are built in coupons!

It stores previous trips and favorites so that you can keep track of frequently purchased items, too.

Just thought I'd share.  Available in the App Store and Android Marketplace!

Save or Splurge? Kitchen Edition.

{ Worth every penny! }

It seems like money is tighter for everyone these days.  Or, at the very least, we're all trying to be smarter on how we save and spend.  In our house, that means we eat out less and think twice about unnecessary new things.  I buy store brands when I can and I've even become a pretty dedicated coupon user. { Gasp!  I know.  More on that later. }

But in all this saving, there are some places that the scrimp just isn't worth it.  I'm a girl who'd rather have one really awesome, really nice pair of shoes that I wear constantly { currently, it's these beauties } over ten cheap pair that hurt my feet.  It's cost per wear that counts in my mind!

I get what that means in my closet.  But what does it mean in my other favorite place, the kitchen?  I have to admit, I've bought store brand on some things and ended up throwing them away because the loss of quality just wasn't worth it.  But in other cases, I can discern no difference.  So here, in my experience, is where it's best to save and where it's best to splurge in the kitchen.

Save

Paper Products - We get all of our paper towels, trash bags and the like at Costco.  I buy their Kirkland Signature brand.  The major warehouse stores have crazy high standards for their private label items.  They demand that they meet or exceed the quality of the top national brands.  I have a good friend who used to market bath tissue, and packaged her expensive brand for a warehouse club as their private label!  Same stuff, much better price.  The same goes for trash bags, aluminum foil, etc. 

{ These even fit our SimpleHuman trash can! }

Wine - It doesn't have to be crazy expensive to be good.  And just because it's expensive, doesn't mean that it's good, either.  If you like it, that's all that matters.  There's no reason you can't get a good - even great - bottle for less than $15. 

Butter - Someone tried to tell me once that good butter makes a big difference.  I bake all the time, and I use the store brand stuff.  So does my mom.  As long as you're not storing it next to a cut onion in the refrigerator, I say save away. 

Baking Basics - From a chemical perspective, sugar is sugar!  Same with baking soda, flour and more.  I pour mine into air-tight canisters as soon as I get home, so it's not worth the extra money for ten minutes with a Dixie Crystals logo. : )

Splurge

Olive Oil  - Keep a small bottle of the the best kind you can afford for use in salad dressing, dipping bread, etc..  If you're just going to sauté something in olive oil, the lesser expensive varieties are perfectly fine.

Vanilla Extract - Avoid imitation vanilla extract { read: not vanilla }.  It's made from coal tar.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Coal tar. And it takes twice as much imitation vanilla to equal the flavor of the real deal.  A little bit of vanilla extract goes a long way, so a good bottle will last.  I love Neilsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla best.  Many specialty retailers carry it, including the Williams-Sonoma Outlet!

Organic Greens - I have a nutritionist friend who swears that the only time it's worth buying organic produce is for things that are hard to wash, like lettuce or spinach.  A good, quick scrub should remove pesticide residue from other vegetables, fruits, etc.

Organic Milk - We don't drink a ton of milk in our house.  I started buying organic milk largely because the expiration date is so much further out and I was tired of pouring out wasted milk.  But, the more I read, the more I prefer to avoid scary stuff like rBS and rGBH.  And although I buy organic milk, it's still Publix brand!

Honestly, though, it all comes down to what you value.  So where do you save and splurge?