Managing Our Groceries

I would like to start to manage our groceries more properly. Currently, peoples in our household are my husband and I, our two adorable babies R1 and R2, and the nannies for each. For the nannies we decided to have catering prepare their daily meal. The catering deliver their meals everyday at 10 AM which is more or less when the nannies have their late breakfast. They serve three types of meals and they last for a day. Our groceries is more like an additional for the menus from the catering.

Menu for April, three meals a day for the nannies

As for my husband and I, we like to have light breakfast like coffee and toasted bread or the ready-made breads from the bakery. We have our lunch out in the office since I don't cook, hopefully next year this flaw of mine will change next year. For dinner, we usually eat out or buy something to bring home.

Coffee with sugar and some ready-made bread. Man, I need to learn how to cook #sigh

Baby R1 is now 20 months old and R2 just starts to eat solid. We will always need to have some fruit, vegetables, and chicken meat. Their milk is certainly the utmost important things in the list of course.

I have been saving this format I have downloaded from the net for quite sometimes. I don't remember where I have downloaded it from. Basically, I start using this format because even though they categorize the groceries into so many category, I found it applicable to our situation, moreover since I will be the one (and maybe the only one within this household) who uses the list, I find its arrangement is the closest to how I categorize my groceries (I put this grocery categories as a mental note, that is)

My grocery list draft

Some of the category are applicable to our household while others don't so I have altered the list to our own needs and expand it further into a price book and an expense tracker.

After 5 months (already?) of trying to manage our household groceries, I concluded that we always need these grocery must-haves:

Our grocery staples

We always keep stock for the following items :
1. Broccoli
2. Carrots
3. Boneless chicken breast
4. Eggs

5. Meatballs
6. Red chili
7. Potatoes

At first I thought that since we need them regularly, I bought them in bulk. But we found that system is not working since a couple of times when we want to cook them, the vegetables may not be as fresh as I first bring them home

Nowadays we purchase those items every week or at least every 10 days from our local market except maybe for the meatballs which we still buy in bulk for 60 pieces.

Do you categorize your groceries or just buy as you went along? What are your fridge staples? Please do share how you manage your groceries.