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News Releases Fort Worth Star Telegram Updated: Sunday, Apr. 16, 2000 at 23:17 CDT Shoppers' helper: Web site simplifies grocery lists By Bryon Okada Star-Telegram Staff Writer Usually it's a messy cluster of ink scribbles on the back of a used envelope or a napkin. Diapers, dog food, corned beef, toilet paper ... Making a grocery list is one of those things that nearly every adult, particularly every parent, does weekly. And usually the list isn't the epitome of organization. Enter Gina Thomas of Salem, Va., a former North Richland Hills resident, a mother of four, a shopper for six and the creator of a Web site called My Grocery Checklist. The idea is simple. Click onto the site at www.mygrocerychecklist.com, and a list of common grocery items appears. Check the items you want and leave blank the items you don't want. Click the print button and you will get a convenient half-page grocery list with items grouped according to type. No more going back to the deli aisle for that overlooked item. "It's easy to hold, and you also have the option of e- mailing someone," said Thomas, who worked in the mortgage business in the Metroplex before moving to Virginia and becoming a homemaker. "Say you're at the office. Your wife can go on there and check the items and email it to you." The Web site also contains a virtual cookbook, although there aren't many contributions yet. The site has been the talk of local media in Virginia, Thomas said. In the past month, it has had 3,600 hits. "Before, I would write stuff, jotting it down as it came to me," Fort Worth resident Suzanne Walter said. "At the store, I would go here and there. Me, I was backtracking a lot." Now, when Walter goes to an Albertsons in Fort Worth, there is no more backtracking, she said. "Instead of me writing down every little thing, I can have a list and check things off," Walter said. "And each day I can go in there and pull it up and put down what I need. She has it all in groups, so I can do it all here, here, here." Waco lawyer Susan Kelly agreed that the site has made a difference. "I'm not very good about these things," she said. "Usually I'll take a dirty napkin on the floor and start writing down. I'm so busy with my job that it's very difficult to tend to these domestic things. I'm a single mom, and it's great if I can do this at my office before I leave." There are, however, some organizational mix-ups that a list can't handle. "You can have a nice little organized grocery list," Kelly said. "Sometimes I do that and then I lose it in my car." Bryon Okada, (817) 685-3853 Send comments to okada@star-telegram.com Lockergnome.com My Grocery Checklist http://www.mygrocerychecklist.com/ {Make your shopping list online} "Chris, are you going out? Could you pick up a couple of things? All I need is some tomato soup, shampoo, green beans, a box of Kleenex, a few carrots, and some boneless Ostrich strips." Why in the world do they always ask for that one item that's impossible to find? Who the heck has green beans, anyway. I blame this lively lister that lets you create a printable grocery list with just a few mouse clicks. It's perfect for a guy like me who is more accustomed to a monitor than paper. You know, lugging your PC to the corner deli can really put a strain on your back. Hey, quit stepping on my cord. "Earl... clean up in aisle twenty-seven." The only question you're left with at the end of the day is: paper or plastic? Roanoke Times and Daily News Copyright (c) 2000, Roanoke Times DATE: Thursday, March 9, 2000 - TAG: 0003090132 SECTION: NEIGHBORS - PAGE: S14 - EDITION: METRO SOURCE: JENNY KINCAID THE ROANOKE TIMES CHECK OUT THIS GROCERY LIST Carol Brittain never used to plan ahead when it came to grocery shopping. She would roam the store aisles, struggling to remember what she needed. But a new Web site has hooked Brittain, of Salem, on grocery lists. In November, her neighbor Gina Thomas created a Web site designed to make compiling a grocery list faster and neater. On www.mygrocerychecklist.com, shoppers discover a long index of meats, vegetables, fruits, cleaning supplies and other grocery items. They can create their grocery list by clicking boxes beside each desired food item. They can personalize it by entering their name in a blank space at the top of the page. "Instead of looking at a blank sheet of paper and thinking, 'What do I need?' the items are on there and sometimes that can trigger your thinking," Thomas said of the site, designed by Roanoke Valley Webworks. Once shoppers complete their grocery list, they can click on the "format my checklist" option, which compiles all of their items into an organized chart. In an "additional comments" box under the chart, they can add extra items or plan menus for the week. Users also can print or e-mail their final choices. Thomas occasionally e-mails a list to her husband if he's going to the grocery store on his way home from work. "This is a fast and easy way to do something that everyone does," said Thomas, a mother of four. "It's a cumbersome chore that you have to do and especially if you have children, you are going to go to the grocery store each week." Brittain, also a mother of four, said she often prints the list each week and puts it on her refrigerator. Throughout the week, members of her family circle what they want at the grocery store. "I don't have to write it down," she said. Thomas targets mothers like Brittain with her Web site, explaining that along with having busy lives, families' grocery bills are often high. "To save on the grocery bill, they always tell you to make a list," she said. "That cuts down on impulse buying." She hopes users will find this process quicker as they become more familiar with the site. "When you first look at it, it looks overwhelming," said Thomas, who organized the grocery items alphabetically. "But it's kind of like going to the grocery store. If you go to the same grocery store all of the time, you know where everything is. That's what I want people to do with this. When they get familiar with it, they can check all of the things that they want and just go." On the Web site, grocery items are arranged in three long columns, with fruits and vegetables appearing first. The products are arranged according to the way they are typically set out in the grocery store. Thomas also has included blank boxes at the end of each item category for users to enter products not listed. "There are over 10,000 items in a grocery store and there is no way that I put them all on here," said Thomas, who looked through her own kitchen cabinets and visited the grocery store to decide on items to include on the site. Thomas' next step is to attract advertisers. Once her site receives about 1,000 hits - the site has had about 850 so far - she plans to talk to advertisers about including banners for the products listed. She is working with Roanoke Valley Webworks to put recipes on the site. "I meant for this to be a handy tool and for everybody to be able to use it." Jenny Kincaid can be reached at 981-3255 or jennyk@roanoke.com Raleigh News and Observer North Raleigh woman wins raves for shopping-list site Raleigh -- "Grocery list" usually conjures up an image of a crumpled receipt or used envelope with goods like apples, toilet paper and fish sticks quickly scribbled on the back. Is that any way to shop? Gina Thomas, a North Raleigh homemaker, didn't think so. So she devised a Web site, MyGroceryChecklist.com, to help shoppers worldwide enter grocery stores organized and prepared. Before they set out to shop, visitors can enter her free site and peruse a list of common products. Users simply click on items they need, and the site compiles their selections. Her list contains about 300 items and includes blanks where a user can type in additional products. When finished, the list of needed items can be printed or e-mailed - a feature perfect for spouses or personal shoppers. It contains no brand names. "I don't think that creates too big of a problem," Thomas said. "Most people know if they're going to buy Peter Pan or Jif." Since the site debuted a year ago, more than 77,000 visitors have accessed it. It had 20,000 visitors in January. Laura Strickland, who lives in the Cross Gate subdivision in North Raleigh, began using it when typing a list into her Palm Pilot became cumbersome. Michelle Derebeew has been using the site from her Texas home ever since she discovered it last year. "It's like the most simple thing in the world," she said. The service has also received several accolades. USA Today selected it for its "Hot Sites" page and declared it one of last year's most useful Web addresses. It also was a site of the day for Lockergnome, an Internet technology newsletter. Last week, a Brazilian woman requested that the list be translated into Portuguese. There are no plans for other languages - yet. Thomas, who lives in Brookhaven, said she got the idea because shopping for four young children became a detailed task. She got tired of forgetting an essential item and of having to write out a lengthy list. There are other grocery checklists in cyberspace, but many of them require the user to print out a list of hundreds of items and then circle the goods they need. "I just thought I'd write a program where I just had the list of items I needed," explained Thomas, a graduate of Baylor University where she studied finance and information systems. The site also hosts user accounts, so created lists can be accessed multiple times, and a bank of recipes. Thomas, 38, said she's invested about $5,000 into the venture. She's now recruiting advertisers. Amazon.com and BestoftheWeb.com have already signed up.