How can I use AnyList to plan my regular, weekly grocery shopping?

To get the most out of AnyList, we recommend adopting the following method of organizing your weekly grocery shopping, especially if you are just getting started with the app.

Reuse the same list from week to week

We recommend keeping a single grocery shopping list and using it over and over, as opposed to creating a new list every week. In AnyList, each list works independently, and each list has its own list-specific favorite items, categories, stores, and so forth. AnyList is designed this way because the appropriate categories and favorite items for a grocery shopping list are very different from the categories and favorite items for a packing list, for example.

Reusing the same grocery shopping list from week to week ensures that you’ll be able to take full advantage of any favorite items you’ve saved, custom categories or stores you’ve created, and recent items that have been automatically remembered by the app.

Save favorite items and build your weekly list

Items that you purchase on a regular basis, sometimes referred to as a “master list”, can be saved as favorite items for your list. Before you go shopping, you can bring up the favorite items screen, and give it a quick run through to jog your memory and ensure that you never forget to buy your weekly staples, like milk, bread, and eggs. Tapping on a favorite item adds that item to your shopping list.

When adding items to your list throughout the week, it’s generally quickest to simply tap on the Add Item field and start typing. Since items (including those you’ve marked as favorite items) are automatically suggested as you type, you usually only need to type a couple of letters before being able to tap on the item you want to add.

Alexa and Siri also provide a convenient way to add to your list during the week. Running low on milk? Just ask Alexa or Siri to add it to your list. To set up voice assistant integration, follow these steps.

At the store

Once you’re at the store, you can tap on items on your shopping list to cross them off. When you’re finished shopping, you can quickly delete all of your crossed off items to remove your purchases from your list.

Deleting the crossed-off items does not remove them from your favorite items, so they’ll still be there, ready for your next shopping trip. Recently deleted items can also be found on the recent items screen.

Organize your shopping across multiple stores

With our optional AnyList Complete upgrade, the app’s stores & filters features provide further help in organizing your weekly shopping by allowing you to assign items to one or more stores. Your list can then be filtered to display only the items available at the particular store where you’re shopping, along with store-specific item prices.

Our category sets feature can be used by itself, or in conjunction with the stores & filters features, to change the list categories and their order to match a particular store. This allows you to, for example, have the bakery category appear first while shopping at one store, and the produce category appear first at another store.