A household grocery routine is a set of four separate tasks: keeping the standing list, making the store trip, checking what is running low or past its date, and putting food away. Each step can sit with the family, with a hired non-medical aide, or be shared. Sorting them before hours are booked prevents the most common gap in home help, which is a task that everyone assumes someone else is doing.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Sort the four steps first

Write each step on its own line and name one owner for it. The standing list is the document that drives everything else, so the owner should be the person who knows the household's usual items and any special orders. The store trip covers driving, shopping, and carrying bags inside. The stock check covers reading labels, noting what is low, and removing items that have passed their dates. The put-away covers shelves, the refrigerator, and the pantry order the household uses.

An aide can often handle the store trip and the put-away on a fixed day. The stock check is a good task to share: the aide reads and reports, while the family decides what is discarded or replaced. Menu choices and any special eating instructions stay with the family, and health questions go to the family's doctor.

Check the store trip before you hire it out

  • Who holds the store account, loyalty card, or payment method, and how receipts are returned to the household
  • What the aide may substitute when an item is out of stock, and whether a phone call is required first
  • How perishables are kept cold between the store and the kitchen, and what happens if the trip runs long
  • Which rooms and containers the aide may open, and where the list and receipts are kept
  • Whether the household wants a photo or written note of what was bought and what was not

Questions to ask an agency about grocery help

  • Does the agency send the same aide for the store run each time, so the household's preferences carry from visit to visit?
  • If an item is missing, who is told, and how quickly?
  • Where are changes to the list recorded so the next aide sees them without being told in person?
  • Can the household set a fixed store day and a fixed order of stops?
  • What happens to the list and receipts if the aide is absent that day?

Plan one week on one page

Keep a single page on the refrigerator with the standing list, the store day, the stock-check day, and the name of the person who owns each line. The family fills in the menu and any special-order items. The aide follows the page on the fixed store day and the stock-check day. When a line changes, the page changes the same day, so nobody works from memory.

Local resources, named in general terms

Area agencies on aging, county senior service offices, public library and senior center programs, and volunteer ride programs can help with errands and trips to the store. Check which of these serve the household's specific county, since coverage differs from one county to another. For a view of where hired help is thinner and planning takes more time, see Finding help where the supply is thinnest.