Gina Makes Wheel + Kitchen
08 — Before

The groceries arrive. Now what?

Getting food into the house and into the right cabinet is a project of its own — often more physically demanding than the cooking itself. Here's how to make each step lighter.

On this page
  1. Shopping the store
  2. Delivery is a tool
  3. Unloading without losing a day
  4. Where to put what
  5. The freezer strategy

Shopping the store — when you go in person

  • Wheelchair-accessible shopping carts (motorized). Most large grocery chains have them — they clip onto the front of a manual chair or are electric mobility carts with baskets. Ask customer service; they're not always out.
  • Backpack on the chair. Frees hands for wheeling. A hard-frame bag is more comfortable than a soft one for grocery weight.
  • Shop the endcaps and lower shelves first. Save the high shelves (top-shelf cereal, canned goods on the top row) for last, when you can flag down a store employee. Every store trains staff to help.
  • Two smaller trips beat one heavy trip. A weekly shop for staples and a mid-week shop for produce is easier on your body than one giant weekly haul.

Delivery is a tool, not a luxury

Grocery delivery — Instacart, Shipt, Amazon Fresh, your local co-op — is one of the highest-leverage accessibility investments available. It removes the transportation, the parking, the store navigation, the reach, and the checkout line from the equation.

  • Order the heavy things. Beverages, cat litter, canned tomatoes, flour, cooking oil, laundry detergent. Save your in-person shopping for the things you want to see (produce, fresh bread).
  • Ask for kitchen delivery. Many services will bring bags to your kitchen counter, not just the door — mention accessibility needs in the delivery note.
  • SNAP EBT is accepted on many delivery platforms (Amazon Fresh, Instacart, Walmart), including in most U.S. states. Delivery fees may still apply but Amazon offers reduced Prime membership pricing for EBT holders.

Unloading without losing a day

  1. Freezer + fridge cold items first. Get anything that needs to stay cold into cold storage immediately, then rest.
  2. Take a break. Genuinely — 10 minutes off. The rest of the groceries aren't going bad.
  3. Sort at the cart, not at the cabinet. Bring the rolling cart to the groceries. Sort by destination — fridge, freezer, pantry, spice cabinet, produce bowl. Then move by category, not by bag.
  4. Leave what can wait for tomorrow. The canned goods do not need to be stacked in perfect order today.
Do this once, save it forever

Take 30 minutes on a good day and map your kitchen: write down what goes where. Tape a copy of the map inside the pantry door. On tired days, you don't have to think about where anything belongs — you follow the map.

Where to put what

The universal principle: frequency of use maps to accessibility. Daily items at your best reach zone; rare items anywhere.

  • The reach zone (roughly 15–48 inches from the floor): daily coffee mug, everyday plates, the pan you cook eggs in, the salt, the oil, the knife you actually use, your reusable water bottle.
  • Just above the reach zone (48–60 inches): weekly items you can get with a small stretch — cereal, backup dishes, sheet pans.
  • The reacher zone (60+ inches): holiday roasting pans, the big punch bowl, the ice-cream maker. You will get it down twice a year.
  • Deep lower cabinets: only with pull-out shelves. Otherwise you're reaching into a dark hole.
  • Refrigerator: daily items on middle shelves at eye level. The crispers become the "occasional produce" zone; keep an "in-play produce" bowl on the middle shelf.
  • Freezer: stackable clear bins with labels. Otherwise the back of the freezer becomes a graveyard.

The freezer strategy

Freezer space is accessible-cook gold. On good days, you cook a little extra and freeze it. On bad days, you eat what past-you cooked. Some ground rules:

  • Portion in singles. A one-cup container of soup is a meal; a gallon of frozen soup is an unusable ice block. Silicone freezer trays make portioning easy.
  • Label with a date and contents in Sharpie on masking tape. Real date. "Chicken curry — Oct 12" beats "Unknown brown thing — Nov?"
  • Freeze flat. Soups and stews in zipper bags, laid flat until frozen. Stackable, faster to thaw, easier to store.
  • Store the pre-cooked stuff you actually eat. Not the fancy things you feel like you should freeze. Real dinners: pasta sauce, chili, curry, portioned rice, individual pot pies.
  • First-in, first-out. Newer things go to the back; older things come to the front. Same principle as a store.

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