Guide

A meal planner that writes the grocery list

A meal plan only saves time if the shopping list comes with it. Copying ingredients from seven recipes, adding up the onions, and remembering what's already in the cupboard is half the work of planning. Ulivo plans your family's dinners for the week and writes the grocery list from the plan, so the list always matches what you're cooking.

What goes into the list

When you ask your assistant for the shopping list, Ulivo builds it from the week's dinners:

• Combined across recipes. Lemons for Monday's chicken and Thursday's fish become one line, not two.
• Scaled to your family. Quantities follow each person's portion size and who's eating each night. If someone's away on Wednesday, Wednesday's quantities shrink.
• Minus what you have. Pantry staples you keep on hand are left off, and so is anything you tell your assistant you already have.
• Minus nights you're not cooking. Mark a night as eating out, or skip it, and its ingredients leave the list.
• Grouped by aisle. Produce, meat, seafood, dairy, bakery, pantry, frozen, spices and so on, so the store run follows the shop's layout instead of zig-zagging.
• In your units. US measurements or metric, whichever you set.

Here's a typical exchange:

You: Can you make the shopping list? We already have rice and olive oil.

Assistant: Done, 18 items grouped by aisle. Rice and olive oil are off the list. Want it split between the supermarket and the butcher?

More than one store

Lots of families buy meat at the butcher, fish at the fish counter and everything else at the supermarket. In Ulivo you can set up to five stores and choose which aisles go to which store, for example meat and seafood to "Butcher" and everything else to "Supermarket". The list then comes out split by store, with each store's part grouped by aisle.

You can also add things that aren't in any recipe, like milk for breakfast or paper towels, by telling your assistant. They go on the same list.

The pantry

Ulivo keeps track of two kinds of things you already have:

• Staples you always keep, like salt, olive oil or flour. These stay off every list.
• Things you have this week, like half a bag of rice or a jar of tahini. Tell your assistant and they come off this week's list.

That way the list is what you actually need to buy, not every ingredient in every recipe.

A weekly grocery budget

If you want a ceiling on spending, set a weekly grocery budget. Ulivo plans the week within it, using estimated costs per recipe. If your family's strict rules make that impossible, for example because the only dinners that fit everyone cost more than the budget, Ulivo tells you instead of quietly going over. Estimates are estimates: prices vary by store and season.

Sending the list to Instacart

In the US, you can send the list to Instacart if you'd rather have groceries delivered or ready for pickup. Ask your assistant for an Instacart link, and it opens your list on Instacart's site. From there you choose your store, review the items, and check out with your own Instacart account.

A few honest details:

• Ulivo doesn't place the order. The link only opens the list. Nothing is bought until you check out on Instacart.
• Instacart is optional. You can copy the list and shop anywhere, in person or online.
• Ulivo may earn a commission from Instacart on orders placed through links it creates. This doesn't change the price you pay or which recipes Ulivo suggests. See our affiliate disclosure.

Instacart is a trademark of Maplebear Inc. Ulivo is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instacart.

Why plan-first lists work better

Lists written from memory miss things, and lists copied from recipes double-count. A list generated from the plan avoids both, and it changes when the plan does: swap Friday's dinner and Friday's ingredients swap with it. And because every dinner in the plan has already been checked against everyone's allergies and food rules, so has everything on the list. (Always check product labels at the store, though: see allergy-friendly meal planning.)

If you're new to Ulivo, the family meal planner guide explains how the planning part works.