Weekly Shopping and Errands Planner

Who this is for

The week's shopping and the week's errands on one sheet. The shopping list takes a quantity and your own price per item and multiplies them out, totals the lot and compares it with whatever you set aside; the errands sit underneath, one per day.

Households that shop once a week to a list and a figure, anyone combining a big shop with the trips to the post office and the tip, and people who would like to know what the list comes to before they get to the till.

What this helps you track

• Everything to buy, with where it is coming from
• How many of each and what you expect to pay
• What the list adds up to, before you leave the house
• How that compares with the amount you set aside yourself
• The errands for the week, against the day you mean to do them

How to use it

1. Write the week beginning, the currency and the amount you have set aside — that figure is yours; there is none of ours anywhere on the sheet.
2. List what you need to buy, with the shop or the aisle beside it.
3. Put a quantity and the price you expect to pay against each line; the line total, the list total and the summary are worked out in the browser and the workbook.
4. Tick items as they go in the trolley, on paper or on screen.
5. Fill in the errands underneath and put a day against each so the trips can be combined.
6. Keep the sheet after the shop and use last week's prices as this week's estimates.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Where do the prices come from?

From you — a receipt, a shelf edge or a guess you refine next week. The sheet supplies no price for anything and could not, since they differ by shop, country and week.

Is the total what I will actually pay?

It is what your own quantities and prices come to. Offers, substitutions and whatever goes in the trolley unplanned will move it, which is rather the point of having a figure to compare against.

Can I use it without the prices?

Yes. Leave the price column blank and it works as a plain list with tick boxes; the totals simply stay empty.

How is this different from the meal planner?

The meal planner builds a grocery list out of the week's meals. This sheet is the shopping trip itself — quantities, prices, what it comes to and the other errands wrapped into the same journey.

Does the errands table do any arithmetic?

No. It counts how many you have ticked in the summary and nothing else; an errand either happened or it did not.