Like I do every new year, I spent the first few weeks of 2026 dreaming up idealized versions of who I might become. You know, to be someone who is more organized, more intentional with my cooking (and shopping), and so on. I found myself thinking a lot about groceries — partly because it’s my job to think about them five days a week, but mostly because the grocery store is where so many intentions are set.
There’s so much talk about the new food choices people are making in the new year, but what about the grocery shopping habits that are being left behind? I spent a few hours outside two grocery stores in New York City (Trader Joe’s and Key Food, a regional chain in the northeast) to chat with shoppers IRL to find out. Turns out, they’re ditching a decades-old golden rule of grocery shopping.
The One Grocery Shopping Habit People Are Quitting in 2026
I heard a few things people are continuing to do in 2026: Some are sticking to a firm budget amid rising grocery costs, while others are splurging on groceries because it feels like a little luxury they can afford. There’s also a rise of “European-style shopping,” which means picking up the groceries needed every day or two instead of doing a big weekly shop.
The one thing many have stopped doing? Writing out full, or even any, grocery shopping lists.
Clara, a Trader Joe’s shopper, said she used to make very “structured lists, but no longer even bothers because of the time and effort it takes.” She also noticed some groceries on her list would be entirely out of stock, making advanced planning more challenging (as someone trying to track down Trader Joe’s Protein Cottage Cheese Pancakes right now, I totally relate). She does, though, have notes in her phone app to remind her to get produce, meat, and grains broadly.
Another shopper, Devin, almost never grocery shops with a list anymore, and when he does it’s only for big occasions “like Thanksgiving where it’s important to not forget anything.” Otherwise, he thinks making lists is generally a hassle, and would rather wander around the store, and specifically the frozen food section, to see what “looks good in real life.”
Outside Key Food, Matt, who works in tech and rarely shops in person, has never carried around a grocery list. Most of the time, he orders groceries online “through an app like Instacart that has integrated lists [and] remembers all of my preferences.” He added, “I’ve never manually made a grocery list in my life.” He was only running into the supermarket to grab two limes he needed that day.
Between rising prices, sold-out shelves, and apps that remember for us, the grocery list has become less useful than it once was. I chatted with a few more shoppers, and it sounded like that idea of making lists feels like an excess chore to them — especially with subscription-based services like Amazon Fresh and Instacart that keep track of your past purchases.
What grocery shopping strategies are you ditching in 2026? Tell us about it in the comments below.
