I hate pak n save, i?d rather listen to parliment tv than go to pak n save and that's saying something.

I read a book called the ?four hour work week?, by Timothy Ferris, it talked all about automating stuff to make life easier. So here?s how we (the Wife and I) automated the groceries.....

We?ve had a cleaner for a while, $50 per week. I gave her a call and asked if she?d do our weekly shop and pak n save, she said yep and we agreed on $20.00 per shop.

Now the fun stuff.

We created a database of items that we buy, mainly stuff with barcodes, (we get greens at the market weekly). The database has fields for barcode, reorder levels etc.

This is a mysql database and a php (codeigniter), jquery mobile front end, (written by the wife), ah, married a geek gal !

So the process now, is that when we finish an item, coffee for example, we barcode it using an iPhone application called Zbar, this app has a neat feature where it?ll add the number of the barcode it scanned to a querystring parameter and call a preset URL.



So we scan the empty coffee jar and click ?add to shopping list?, and it calls:
http://myserver.com/shopping/add?barcode=97816737815361

This pops up safari on the iphone and shows an ?add? screen if the item is unknown, or the item details if it?s already in the database, basically we then click submit and it?s added to the ?order table? in the database.



A cron job running weekly then takes this order table and emails it to the cleaner at 11pm on monday night.

The cleaner prints the email tuesday morning and purchases our groceries on the way, she even puts them in the cupboard !

So now if I run out of coffee at 9pm on Monday night and barcode it, it?s in the cupboard Tuesday morning ! Nice.