Have you ever thought about your favorite grocery store's layout and how it might affect your shopping?

I will say, I'm a list-shopper. I make a list and pretty much can't think off that list. That in itself can mean I miss some sales that I didn't notice or plan for. But that's the downside I have to live with in exchange for being good at sticking to a list.

Anyway, I was thinking about my favorite store, WinCo, and how the different departments are laid out. There is only one entrance for WinCo. You pickup your cart outside and 10 feet away is the one entrance door. Inside a little vestibule at the entrance are a bunch of foods displayed, often seasonal foods, such as special bakery goods related to upcoming holidays. At the opposite side of this vestibule (and adjacent to the actual door opening into the store proper) is the dispenser for sanitizing wipes. As you pause to grab a wipe and clean your cart handle, you are surrounded by expensive bakery goods. Just inside the door, you're again prompted to stop and check the large cooler full of the sale meat of the week.

You may think you're now in the clear and you can go about your business of buying the foods you had planned. However, the entire 30 foot narrowish walkway to the produce section is flanked with displays of various packaged foods, most of which are a featured sale. I don't mind this section all that much, as this is where I discover when mayo, mustard, or canned veggies are on sale. But there are also sugary cereals, boxed cocoa mix packets, and packaged snack mixes along the walkway. I can imagine this is a difficult section to travel if you have impressionable kids (or spouses) with you shopping.

Now finally, you get to the produce section. Right there at the end of the packaged promotional foods walkway you are faced with a display of the most perishable fruit in the section, the berries. And just beyond the berries are the pre-cut fruits and vegetables, like fruit bowls/cups, raw vegetables and dip, and salad kits. You have to wade through those produce items before you can get to the budget-friendly produce like apples, bananas, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, onions, and celery. 

The produce section is crowded with barely enough room to navigate a large cart. I try to get what I need as quickly as possible and get out. I have noticed that I buy a lot of fresh produce. I wonder if the crowded feeling compels me to buy more than I would otherwise. And I wonder if this quasi-stressful feeling early on in the grocery shopping trip prompts me to over-buy additional food as I navigate other aisles.

Opposite the produce section is the seasonal section, with candy for holidays closest to the walkway and less impulse oriented holiday items (like gifts and decorations) further down that aisle. I try to ignore this aisle altogether.

Just beyond the seasonal aisle are the snacks, candy, cookies, cracker, soda aisles. I'm sure some corporate executive did a study to see if people put more items into their carts at the beginning of a shopping trip compared to later in the shopping. I would assume snacks, candy, cookies, and crackers are high profit margin items.

Finally, canned goods, pasta, rice, and ethic foods finish that side of the aisle. Across the way (and beyond the produce section) is the bulk section followed by the bakery. Like the produce section, the bulk bin section always feels crowded. You may think of grains and beans as the mainstay in the bulk bins. In fact, there are a lot of bins of candy, snacks, and treat foods. I'm a little surprised that the bakery is in a dead-end corner. It doesn't get much traffic, unless someone is deliberately looking for bakery goods.

Turning the corner is the meat section, deli, and condiments/salad dressings. You literally have to walk through the meat section to get to the rest of the store. Beyond the fresh meats are two large aisles of dairy/refrigerated foods. The milk and eggs are in the very back corner. But you can't skip the other dairy/refrigerated aisle if you want cheese, butter, or lunch meat. 

Wrapping around are the freezer cases. The first freezer you come across contains pre-made breakfast foods, a large section of pre-made breakfast foods. I can imagine a frazzled mother with young kids might be thinking about now "what can I get that will make meal prep easier and the kids will like?"

And now beyond the freezers are baking ingredients and mixes, cereal, tea and coffee, fruits and fruit juices, etc. I'm a little surprised that the boxed cereal aisle is not more prominently located. Boxed cereal seems like it would be a good impulse buy.

Just before hitting the checkout are pet supplies, OTCs, health and beauty, and household items. My guess is these items don't attract impulse buyers. You either need pet supplies or you don't. Ditto with vitamins or shampoo.

Opposite the checkout is commercial bread products, jams, and peanut butter. I see these items as last minute,"yes, we can always use more peanut butter and bread" items. 

And of course, at the actual checkout are individually packaged snacks, chilled bottles of soda, candy, and a few small toys, trinkets, and assorted small notions.

Just as you think you've survived all of the impulse/kid-attractive traps of WinCo, you have to leave through the one and only exit, which is lined with coin-operated games and soda machines. A mom with kids just can't win.

It always annoys me that I have to shop the produce section before canned goods, or heavy bags of sugar or flour, or large jugs of milk. All of the easily-dented produce can quickly become crushed by later items if I'm not careful to rearrange my items as I shop. 

A contrast to a consumer grocery store like WinCo is a business/restaurant supply store like Chefstore. The baking supplies are at the front of the Chefstore and the produce section is near the back. While Chefstore has end caps with sale items, I'm not sure impulse buying is a very large part of their profit strategy. Restaurant owners are more incentivized to keep to a list or stay within a budgeted amount. Their profits depend on minimizing waste and unnecessary purchases.

I still love WinCo for grocery shopping. But it does seem like the store's layout has been carefully designed to increase purchases.

At the grocery store where you regularly shop, is the produce section at or near the entrance to the store? How to you "manage" the produce put into your cart, if it goes in first, keeping it from becoming crushed by bulkier packaged foods later in the shopping? Would you ever consider doing all of the shopping in other departments first, then backtracking to produce to get those items last to prevent bruising?

How do you divvy up the after dinner kitchen chores?

I should preface, we haven't had a working dishwasher since 2023. So, in my house, we may have more after dinner chores than at your house. But I am curious, have you found a system that works for your household for kitchen cleanup in the evening? Do you have formal jobs for each household member? Does one of you do all or most of the cleanup? If you all pitch in, do you rotate chores?

Up until about a month ago, after dinner cleanup was a bit haphazard in our house. Someone always washed dishes. The other three would do everything else -- dry, clean counters, sweep the floor in the toe kick area of the cabinets, put leftovers away, etc. But we had no real system for these auxiliary chores.

Then a month ago, after some frustrations between us and minor resentment that maybe some were doing less than others, I decided we would formally divvy up the tasks. We now have one person who washes dishes and wipes out the microwave (usually me), another who puts everything away from the dish rack from the day's washing and sweeps in the toe kick area in the cooking zone, a third who dries and puts away clean dishes/cookware from dinner, and the last one transfers dishes/cookware from the counters and stove to the sink, puts away leftovers, and wipes the counters and stove down. Four distinct jobs that take approximately equal amounts of time to perform. 

A couple of the jobs can be completed (or mostly so) before we sit down to dinner. So someone or someones can request to do those jobs if they have something going on in the evening and would like to be done earlier. An example, I wash dishes all day long and leave them to air dry in the dish drainer and the top shelf of the nonworking dishwasher. One daughter has evening meetings a couple of days per week. On those nights, she'll be the person who puts away everything that has air dried during the day, doing so before we sit down to eat. My husband also likes to finish up early in the evenings and will take that job on other nights. I don't mind washing, and honestly, I do the most thorough job while saving the most water, plus I'm very quick. It just makes sense for me to have that job most nights.

On nights when one or both daughters are out for dinner, I usually plan something super easy and that also has very little cleanup. Cleaning up after two people can be a lot easier than doing so for four.

What we've noticed

We are done very quickly now. As we're finishing dinner, we all choose the job we want. Everyone knows what is expected of them and just does the work. It takes about 10 minutes, and we enjoy conversation while working. But mostly, we've all commented that the work is done quickly, and no one feels that they are doing more than anyone else.

The exception

We make one exception each week to after dinner cleanup. Friday night we watch a movie while eating dinner. Since it's later than usual when finishing with dinner/movie, we leave the mess until Saturday morning. Then on Saturday, we each tackle a bit of the mess as we're making our breakfasts. While the cleanup is not organized, and we do have to wake up to a messy kitchen on Saturday, this is a way to give all of us a night off from KP.

So I'm curious, how do you now or have in the past divvied up after dinner chores? What works best for you? If you had to change one thing about your after dinner kitchen cleanup, what would that be?