I’m just wondering what the title asks: do you organize your groceries in the order you will check them out, if doing self-checkout, or arrange them on the belt/counter in a standard checkout line, in the hope that they’ll be bagged in a specific way?
I didn’t know there was any other way people do it, but just learned some people prefer to checkout/bag without pre-arranging things. I’m kind of curious to see what’s more common, or if there’s some other options I haven’t considered?
Of course I do, is there another way? How else would one determine packing order and avoid crushing the more delicate stuff like tomatoes and eggs under the weight of the heavier items.
Same with stuff that needs to be frozen or refrigerated. Makes it that much easier to put things away when you’re back home.
The stuff at the top of the basket goes first so I can reach the stuff at the bottom?
Have you considered using one of those carts you can open from the bottom?
Heavy items such as milk goes in first, so that they will also be at the bottom of my backpack. Light and fragile things, such as salad goes last.
My recommendation is to wait until you get home to make the salad. That way you’re not eating a big salad out of a backpack in the park like a crazy person.
Definitely drink milk from the bottom of your bag though, that’s fine and normal.
One trick I’ve learned over the years is that it doesn’t matter what order you pour your milk into your backpack in. It will always end up at the bottom.
Strange. I always access the milk from the top.
Check your backpack’s orientation
Just as nature intended
I put the heaviest and least breakable things first in line so they end up at the bottom of the bag(s). Canned food, stuff in plastic bottles, then all the cold/ frozen stuff altogether, light and delicate things like bread, chips etc last
If I have a large cart of groceries I don’t like self checkout. if i have time I turn all the items so the bar code is on the bottom and stack them so they are easy to drag over the scanner. I also only use the first 2/3 of the belt that’s closest to the checker so they don’t have to lean over and reach for anything.
Staggering produce items introduces slowdowns so best to put them all at the end so you can do your payment info while stuff is being weighed.
My checkouts are fast af.
Items in perfect order of robustness on the conveyor, but more than one bag…
Nope
Oh absolutely. They are arranged in the trolly before even getting to checkout too but you are querying a crowd on Lemmy that is going to be biased towards programmer / engineer types that tend to function well in their world due to compulsive features often considered pathologic by others.
You reminded me of when a partner and I entered a grocery store to buy sun screen lotion. I narrated my thoughts figuring out where it would be and found it immediately. She commented on how she’d never have found it that quickly. All I did was make logical deductions based on my knowledge of grocery stores.
Truly, people think differently. What is natural to me might be alien to another.
The only logic I can think of is to look for it in the same place where all the other lotions are located. I guess that section should be close to the toothbrush section. I wonder if deduction would actually work in my local supermarket.
you are querying a crowd on Lemmy that is going to be biased towards programmer / engineer types that tend to function well in their world due to compulsive features often considered pathologic by others.
I feel personally attacked. :D
Edit: also to answer the question. Yes I absolutely arrange things on the checkout belt.
I group these items: Liquids. Fridge. Cans and bottles. Fruit and veg, heavier ones first so the potatoes don’t crush the berries. Frozen gear near fridge gear. Chemicals / cleaning gear separate.
I should add that I’m buying for a lot of people so the shopping trips tend to be large and there would be a full bag of most of those groupings.
Initially I felt bad about being considered pathologic, but it’s right there in the word: path o’ logic. I know it’s not the etymology but I’m going to embrace it. To hell with those pathodumdums.
Heavy stuff in the backbag (Eastpak Student style),
Others stuff in the two handbags,i’m Urbanized.
When i lived in a rural zone, wasnt the same at all.Well at the Prisma I go to we just scan products into bags in the store (you have your bags open the shopping cart)
I tend to do my primary shopping at a place where you bag your own. The order is generally produce and bulk items first (it tends to be the bulk of the purchase), then frozen things, boxed/canned things, and finally squishy things like bread, eggs, and uh, delicious Hostess fruit pies.
I don’t organize them with a mind as to how they’ll be bagged, but I usually put vegetables down first as they take the longest individually to process and put fragile things like eggs last.
What I do wonder is if the cashier is judging me as to the quality of my purchases. Like if it’s all fresh vegetables and grains do I get an A? If I add in a frozen pizza does the score drop to a B-? If it’s just trash like chips and processed junk do I get a D?
I was a cashier at a department store decades ago, the answer is no. When I started I’d judge people on their purchases, after a few shifts I couldn’t care or remember anything anyone got.
What grade does the guy getting 4 cooked whole chickens in a bag get? What if he’s getting a case of miller lite too? Asking for a friend.
As a former cashier, I literally did not care what anyone purchased.
My only hard rule is refrigerated/frozen items together so I can handle that bag first when I put groceries up.
my mother was always weird about putting all the same items together on the conveyor belt, as if not doing it were some incredibly rude faux pas.
there’s no way it possibly makes any difference to anybody. I do try to make sure that the crushable items go last however
Soft and fragile things on top, heavy things on the bottom, square things in the middle, circular things on the outside, cold things in one bag, non-cold-things in another bag, and anything that can’t be organized in this way in a third bag.
