Shared family lists — groceries, packing and to-dos in one place

There's a particular kind of Wednesday evening where Mia is standing in the supermarket and Olle calls from home. "Did you remember we need ground beef?" — and she doesn't know. She glanced at the sticky note on the fridge that morning but can't remember if ground beef was on it, or if that was dog food. She buys both.

That's the problem we set out to solve. Today we're adding shared family lists to FamilyBoard.

What it is

Four list types, all visible to the whole family in real time:

• 🛒 Shopping — the weekly grocery list, a separate one for the wine shop
• 🎒 Packing — the ski week, swim camp, sleepover at grandma's
• ✓ To-do — things that aren't calendar events but still need doing
• 📋 Other — book recommendations, gift ideas, restaurants to try

You'll find them under Lists in the iOS app and at /app/lists on the web. Whoever adds ground beef from home — Mia's phone in the checkout line lights up and the row appears.

How it works

A list is family-owned, not personal. When you create one it belongs to the family, and every member can read, add and check things off.

1. Create the list. Open Lists, tap +, pick a type, name it. "Weekly groceries", "Packing Åre", "Bathroom reno".
2. Add items. One line at a time. They appear instantly on every device — no loading spinner, no sync button.
3. Check off. A struck-through ground beef slides down to the bottom, slightly faded, easy to undo if someone forgets and buys it anyway.
4. Sort. Active items at the top, checked-off below. One tap to clear the done ones if the list is getting long.

It's deliberately simple. We've watched families give up on "smart" shopping lists that try to categorise by aisle or suggest favourites — because the small friction of teaching your partner how it works is too high. This should feel like a sticky note that happens to be digital.

Three lists most families will create

The weekly groceries. A rolling list that never fully empties. Mia adds milk Monday, Olle adds apples Tuesday, someone shops Wednesday and checks them off. The rest stays.

The packing list before a trip. Created the week before the ski holiday, dies when you come home. "Helmets?" — already on the list. "Thermos?" — Olle checked it last night.

The renovation. Not calendar events but must-dos. "Order tile", "Book electrician", "Buy new shower mixer". As things finish they get checked off — history sticks around for a month if someone wonders.

Trade-offs

We deliberately did not build:

• Quantities and units. "3 kg flour" — you type that in the line yourself. A dropdown for units is friction.
• Aisle categorisation. Smart but rarely right. Stores differ, habits differ.
• Recurring lists. The weekly grocery list isn't recurring — it lives on, and you clear it when you want.

It's a list. That's enough.

Under the hood

The lists and list_items tables sit on Supabase with RLS policies that verify the reading and writing user belongs to the same family as the list. Optimistic add — when you tap +, the row appears immediately and is reconciled in the background. The done flag on items drives sort order.

Migration 0054_lists_and_list_items.sql if you're poking around the schema.

Try it

Update the iOS app via TestFlight, or open familyboard.io and go to Lists in the menu. Create your first list in under 10 seconds. Invite your partner if they're not already in the family — the fridge note becomes redundant starting today.