Money-Saving iPhone App #14: ZipList

There’s no question that shopping lists help to save money by keeping you from buying food you already have at home, which is especially good as it relates to perishable items, like milk, eggs and produce. So, of course I love the free ZipList app for iPhone and iPod Touch users.

The free ZipList app has a shopping list as well as a recipe search component, which is useful for meal planning. From your iPhone or iPod Touch you can create shopping lists, sync your lists with your spouse or kids, and filter your lists to show items only for specific stores.

The nice thing about ZipList is that it also automatically categorizes items you add to your list. You can even mark certain items as important, which is great for quick shopping trips. If you have an iPhone 3GS or higher, you can also scan in product barcodes to add items to your list (iPod Touch users and users of the iPhone 3G and lower can add products by keying in barcodes).

As for recipe search, ZipList lets you search 100,000s of recipes and add the ingredients to your shopping list on the spot. You can even these recipes to a universal recipe box, which is nice for menu planning purposes.

Have you tried out any other free or paid iPhone shopping list apps? I’d love to hear about other apps you found useful.

Be sure to check out all of the posts in my 30 Days of Money-Saving Apps series.