--- title: Shopping Lists description: Building shopping lists in Essential Budget. Fast entry with autocomplete from your own purchases, a running basket total, aisle grouping, where each item is cheapest, check-off, and sharing a list with your household. subtitle: A list that prices itself from what you actually buy. sidebar: order: 81 section: Bringing in transactions canonical_html_url: https://eb.app/learn/shopping-lists/ --- # Shopping Lists A *shopping list* is a list you check off as you shop, kept inside one budget. You add items, and once you have scanned a few receipts the list fills in your own prices, totals the basket before you leave, and tells you which store is cheapest for what you are buying. After you shop, the receipt you scan checks the list off and learns the new prices. Shopping Lists live on the budget **More** screen, alongside [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md) and [Receipts](https://eb.app/learn/receipts.md). Open a budget, tap **More** in the bottom tabs, then tap **Shopping Lists**. You can keep as many lists as you like in a budget: a weekly grocery list, a hardware-store run, a party list. A list works on day one with nothing scanned: you add items and check them off like any list. The prices, the basket total, and the cheapest-store suggestions are the part that grows with your receipts, so the first card you see invites you to scan. Everything on this page is free. ## Creating and managing lists The Shopping Lists screen shows the lists in this budget, each with its name and how many items it holds. Tap a list to open it. Tap the **+** button at the bottom right, or **Create your first list** on an empty screen, to make a new one. The **New shopping list** dialog asks for a **List name**; type it and tap **Save**. Swipe a list row to the left for three actions: - **Rename** opens the **Rename list** dialog with the current name filled in. - **Archive** moves a list you are done with out of the way without deleting it. An archived list can be brought back with **Restore**. - **Delete** removes the list and everything on it. Deleting a list is immediate. There is no confirmation step and no undo, so delete a list only when you are sure; archive it instead if you might want it back. > **Why archive instead of delete?** A finished list (last week's groceries) is worth keeping: it is a record of what you bought, and you can re-add it later. Archiving tucks it behind the **Archived** tab so your active lists stay short, while keeping the list intact. Deleting is for lists you truly do not want. Once you have archived at least one list, an **Active** / **Archived** toggle appears at the top so you can switch between the two. To reorder your active lists, press and hold the handle on the right of a row and drag it. The new order is saved for everyone on the budget. ## Adding items Open a list and type in the **Add an item** bar at the bottom. Press the return key (or tap the **+** beside the bar) to add what you typed. The item appears in the list right away. As you type, the bar suggests items from your own shopping history, with the most-bought first. These suggestions come only from products you have actually bought on past receipts, never from a generic catalog, because a list is personal and is not always groceries. Tap a suggestion to add it; it arrives already knowing its aisle and its usual price, so it groups and prices itself immediately. If nothing in your history matches what you are typing, the bar simply stays quiet and adds exactly the text you wrote. To change an item, tap its row. The **Edit item** dialog lets you adjust the **Name**, the **Quantity**, set a price by hand, and add a **Note**. The quantity and unit show on the row whenever the quantity is more than one (for example "2 gal"). To remove a single item, swipe its row to the left and tap **Delete**. Like deleting a list, this is immediate. ## Checking off and aisle grouping Tap the checkbox on the left of a row to check an item off. Checked items move to a **Checked off** group at the bottom of the list, so what is left to grab stays at the top, the way a paper list gets crossed out. Items are grouped into aisle sections, using the aisle each product was recorded under on your receipts. An item the app does not yet have an aisle for sits under an **Other** section at the end. The aisle for a product fills in once you have scanned a receipt that includes it, so a brand-new item may start under **Other** and move to its aisle later. ## How prices appear Each row shows an estimated price on the right. Where that estimate comes from is shown next to it, so you always know what you are looking at: - **your price**: the typical price you have paid for this product, taken from your own receipts. - A community estimate, shown with a `~` and a label like **near you**, **in your area**, **in your state**, or **nationally**: what shoppers near you typically pay, used when you have not bought the item yourself yet. This appears only if you take part in community prices (see [Receipts](https://eb.app/learn/receipts.md#community-prices-comparing-with-your-area)). - **set price**: a price you typed in yourself on the **Edit item** dialog. - **Scan to see your price**: shown when the app has no price for the item yet. Tapping it opens the scan flow. When your most recent price for a product is clearly above your own usual price for it, the row flags it as **above usual**, so a pricey week stands out. This flag is based only on your own history, not on a community estimate. > **Why does a new item say "Scan to see your price" instead of $0.00?** A made-up zero would be worse than honest. Until the app has either a price you have paid, a price you typed, or a community estimate, it says so plainly and shows you the one action that fills the gap: scanning a receipt with that item on it. The number you see is always a real estimate, never a placeholder. ### Setting a price by hand If you want a basket total before you have scanned anything, open an item with **Edit item** and fill in **Set a price (optional)**. That price counts toward the basket total and is labeled **set price** on the row. Clear the field to go back to the estimate from your receipts. ## The basket total A bar above the add bar keeps a running **Estimated total** for the list, summed over the items it can price. Beside it, a count of how many items are **not yet priced** tells you how complete the total is; that count shrinks as you scan more receipts. Before anything on the list has a price, the bar invites you to scan a receipt instead of showing an empty total. An empty list shows no bar at all. ## Where to buy, and what you are due to re-buy Once a list has priced items, a set of cards appears at the top with the intelligence built from your receipts. **Where to buy** names the single store that is cheapest for a one-stop trip, and offers a per-item breakdown. Tap **See where to buy each item** to open the **Where to buy** sheet: it shows the cheapest store for each item, the total if you buy everything at the one cheapest store, and the total if you buy each item wherever it is cheapest, with how much splitting your trip would save. The comparison is grounded in your own per-store receipt history, so it covers the stores you actually shop. Until you have scanned enough to compare stores, the card shows a locked preview that invites you to scan a few receipts. **Due to rebuy** shows products you are about to run out of, judged from how often you usually buy them. Each is a chip you tap to add to the list. Nothing is added for you; the suggestions come from what you actually buy, and adding is your choice. When nothing is due, the card does not appear. **Budget forecast** estimates how much this list will draw from your budget, broken down by the budget items your products are tied to (for example, "this list pulls about $80 from Groceries"). It appears once your products are matched to budget items and have prices. ## Building a list from a recipe or a past receipt You do not have to type a list from scratch. Tap the **add-circle** button at the top of a list to open **Add to list**, which has two tabs: - **Recipes**: pick one or more of your saved recipes. Their ingredients are added to the list and combined, so three recipes that all call for eggs become one egg line with the amounts added up. See [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md) for building and scanning recipes. - **Past receipts**: pick one or more receipts you have already scanned to re-add what you bought, the "buy this again" move. The receipt's products are added at the quantities you bought, and discount or tax lines are left out. Select what you want and tap **Save**; the items merge into your list and price themselves in your context. ## When you scan the receipt from your shop After you check out, scan the receipt the usual way (see [Receipts](https://eb.app/learn/receipts.md)). When that receipt finishes reading, the app checks off the items it matches on your list and records what you actually paid. A banner appears at the top of the list: "Your receipt checked off 6 items. You planned about $40.18; the receipt comes to $42.93." So you can compare what you planned with what you paid. This is a suggestion you stay in control of. The app checks the matched items but never deletes anything and never un-checks an item you handled yourself, and you can uncheck any item it got wrong. It only acts when the budget has exactly one active (non-archived) list, so it never has to guess which list you meant. A receipt that is not groceries simply matches nothing and changes nothing. ## Sharing a list with your household A shopping list belongs to its budget, so it is shared exactly the way the budget is. If you keep the budget to yourself, the list is yours. If you share the budget with your household ([Sharing](https://eb.app/learn/sharing.md)), everyone with access sees the same lists, and changes show up live: an item one person adds or checks off appears for everyone, and each person sees prices figured from their own receipt history. Reading a list needs view access to the budget. Adding items, checking them off, assigning them, and deleting need edit access. ### Assigning and claiming items On a shared budget you can split the shopping up. Each row has an **Assign** action. Tap it to open a sheet titled "Who's getting [item]?", then choose **Me** to claim it, pick a household member to hand it to them, or choose **Unassign** to clear it. Anyone with edit access can assign any item to any member; the choice takes effect as soon as you tap, with no extra step. The row then shows who the item is for. ## Publishing a list You can publish a list to a public link so anyone can open it and add it to their own budget, without sharing your prices or which stores you shop. Tap the **share** button at the top of a list to start. Publishing, and importing a list someone shared with you, are covered on [Publishing and importing lists and recipes](https://eb.app/learn/publishing-lists-and-recipes.md). ## Quick reference | If you want to | Do this | |---|---| | Open shopping lists | Open the budget, tap **More**, tap **Shopping Lists**. | | Create a list | Tap **+**, enter a **List name**, tap **Save**. | | Rename, archive, or delete a list | Swipe the list row left, tap **Rename**, **Archive**, or **Delete**. | | Bring an archived list back | Switch to the **Archived** tab, swipe the list, tap **Restore**. | | Reorder your lists | Press and hold the handle on a row and drag it. | | Add an item | Type in the **Add an item** bar and press return, or tap a suggestion. | | Edit an item or set its price by hand | Tap the row, change it in the **Edit item** dialog, tap **Save**. | | Check an item off | Tap the checkbox on the left of the row. | | See where the basket is cheapest | Tap **See where to buy each item** on the **Where to buy** card. | | Add a recipe's ingredients or a past receipt | Tap the add-circle button, choose **Recipes** or **Past receipts**, select, tap **Save**. | | Share a list | Share the budget it lives in; see [Sharing](https://eb.app/learn/sharing.md). | | Hand an item to someone | Tap **Assign** on the row, pick the person, or pick **Me** to claim it. | ## Related pages - [Receipts](https://eb.app/learn/receipts.md): scanning receipts, which is what fills in your prices, checks your list off after you shop, and powers the cheapest-store and re-buy suggestions. - [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md): saving meals as recipes, what each costs to make, and adding a recipe's ingredients to a list. - [Publishing and importing lists and recipes](https://eb.app/learn/publishing-lists-and-recipes.md): publishing a list to a public link and importing one someone shared. - [Sharing a Budget](https://eb.app/learn/sharing.md): sharing the budget a list lives in, and the view and edit access levels that decide who can change it. - [Subscription](https://eb.app/learn/subscription.md): what is free and what Premium adds. Shopping lists and everything on this page are free. --- ## About this document This is a markdown mirror of [https://eb.app/learn/shopping-lists/](https://eb.app/learn/shopping-lists/). The HTML version is the canonical form. This file exists so AI/LLM tools can ingest the content without HTML parsing.