This 1 App Resolved Our Grocery List Issues
And the one that we thought would be with us for the long-haul but ended up failing us.
[Note: We are not in collaboration with any of the applications mentioned in this post. But we do really love our Amazon Echo Dots (we have 3) and there is an affiliate link that does not change the price for you if you choose to pursue one for your home.]
We're finalizing our grocery list today, are you?
Today is Saturday, the day we would be thinking through our grocery shopping needs in anticipation of our weekly grocery run tomorrow. We now use an app that has made the process so much easier for us and it may help your family too, Our Groceries.
What we used before and why that app didn't work
Our Groceries app was not the first app we used in an attempt to stay organized and keep an up-to-date grocery list. The latter of which you'd think would be easy ended up being a critical downfall. In fact, before finding Our Groceries, we used a competing app, Grocery IQ, and unfortunately, this app's IQ wasn't high enough to stay on our iPhone's home screen let alone keep from being deleted off our phone application list altogether.
Grocery IQ entered our life a couple years before Our Groceries took its place on our phone screen and our hearts. Grocery IQ also predated our first child and a couple Alexa Echo Dots entering our lives, more on that in a minute.
The downfall for Grocery IQ snuck up on my wife and I. We had been using the app throughout each week casually adding, adjusting, and removing items from our list prior to and during our grocery runs, for several months. As I was leaving the office to start another evening commute, my wife texted asking me if I could stop by the store to pick up a few items before arriving home. She said,
"the grocery list is updated"
Of course I replied,
"I'd be happy to!"
I proceeded to our store and pulled up Grocery IQ when I arrived. Went to the shopping list and saw 3 items that seemed likely ingredients for another delicious creation my wife might make. I checked them each off from the app upon retrieval and proceeded to check out.
Returning home, happy to have helped my wife, I pulled the 3 purchased items from the bag and looked up to see the look of disappointment on my wife's face. After a bit of "back and forth" dialogue I learned that our trusted app, failed us. The items I purchased were from a list a couple weeks old. The app had at some point stopped syncing.
We tried troubleshooting the app on both of our iPhones to figure out the syncing issue so we could salvage the app. We even reached out to Grocery IQ support to no avail. With no real root cause identified we went to the App Store, but not before doing some digging into some reviews which led us to Our Groceries. Granted I don't always make the grocery run, but when I do going forward I would not be using Grocery iQ.
We opened our lives and our home screens to Our Groceries, with apprehension, and remain thrilled to have this app in our routine
Sometimes when a challenge comes into your path it may be the opportunity for something better. This was certainly the case with the Grocery IQ app's demise. We were able to find Our Groceries as a viable alternative. We aren’t sure how we overlooked it as an option when we acquired Grocery IQ but are glad to have found it nonetheless.
It turned out that Our Groceries was far more than just viable. It fits a whole lot better for our situation than Grocery IQ which turned out better in the end for us. How did it fit better?
Most notably the Alexa voice command capability is by far the best feature of this application. Having been given as gifts a couple Amazon Echo Dots the last year or so we have been able to link Our Groceries app to our Amazon Alexa account easily. This functionality lets us add items to each of our lists, and we do have multiple lists (Groceries, Quick Groceries, Target, Home Depot, and a couple others). The voice command, as with other apps, requires getting the hang of the right sequence of words at first but works like a charm and instantaneously each time. All you have to say is:
“Alexa, ask Our Groceries to add milk to our Quick Grocery list”
And voila it’s in the app and on the right list not but a moment later. In fact, the app through Alexa will even notify us if an item is already on the list as we are attempting to add it. This is so handy when working in the kitchen to add items on the fly. I don’t even need to have my phone near me. And if my wife, or me for that matter, is at the store we will both receive the updated list immediately.
More importantly after about a year using this app routinely the syncing functionality has been (knock on wood) bullet proof. Perhaps the best feature of all.
Key Takeaways
If you have a need to keep a grocery list Our Groceries is the one to download.
If you have a partner, make sure they download the app too.
If you don’t already have one, be sure to get yourself an Amazon Echo Dot and link it to your Our Groceries app. You’ll be glad you did.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this, we hope it was helpful,
Jim