Cartee

How to share a shopping list with your partner

A woman lying on an ottoman at home, adding to the shared shopping list on her phone.

It is half past six. One of you is standing in the dairy aisle, phone in hand. The other is on the sofa and has just remembered the yoghurt.

We have all been both of those people. The list lives in one head, the shopping happens in another pair of hands, and somewhere between the two the yoghurt goes missing. Nobody is to blame for that. Two people simply cannot see inside each other’s heads, so the list needs to live somewhere both of you can.

Three ways couples share a list

A chat thread. The easiest start, because you already message each other all day. It works for three items. It stops working when the list scrolls up past the photo of the cat, and when neither of you can tell which items were already bought.

A shared note. Plenty of households run on one, and if it works for you, keep it. It works until the list gets long: ticked lines pile up, the order has nothing to do with your shop, and the eggs end up on it twice.

A shared list app. Made for exactly this. Everyone adds to the same list, and a tick in the shop shows up on the other phone straight away. That is the part that stops you buying the milk twice.

What makes a shared list work

Whatever you use, a few habits do most of the work.

  • Add it the moment you notice it. The last yoghurt, the empty bottle of olive oil. If it waits until later, it waits until you are back from the shop.
  • Tick as you go. A tick is a message to the other person: got it, do not buy it. It only works if it happens in the aisle, not at home with the bags.
  • Write the quantity, not the item twice. “Eggs, 2” says more than two lines that both say eggs.
  • Put the list in the order of your shop. Group items the way your store is laid out, so you walk it once and never double back for the milk.
  • One list per kind of shop. The weekly supermarket run, the hardware store, the party on Saturday. Mixing them is how the light bulbs end up next to the bananas.

Doing it in Cartee

Cartee is a shopping list made for exactly this, so here is how to set it up for the two of you.

  1. Download Cartee, create an account and make a list. Lists on your own phone are free and stay free, with no limit on how many you keep.
  2. Share it. Open the list and choose to share it. Sharing needs a plan: Duo is made for two, one of you subscribes, and it covers you both. You can see what it costs on our pricing page.
  3. Invite your partner. Enter their email address and Cartee sends them an invitation. They tap Accept invitation in the email, sign in with that address, and the list is on their phone too.
  4. Set your aisle order. In the list’s settings, under Categories, drag the categories into the order you walk your shop. Items sort themselves by it.

From then on, every list you share is there for both of you, with no new invitation each time. When one of you adds something or ticks it off, the other sees it straight away, and Cartee can send a notification when the list changes. It keeps working with no signal in the shop and catches up when you are back online.

The short version

Keep one list where both of you can see it, add things the moment you notice them, and tick them off in the aisle. However you do it, that is the whole trick. Cartee is just our way of making it easy.