How would I be able to delete an element in my shopping list and delete the \n with it so it moves the list up and doesn't leave gaps

I am trying to make a shopping list, however every time I delete an item it leaves a big gap and looks very awkward, please can someone help, I am still very new to it all and I have only been learning a month or two so a simple answer would be very much appreciated:

def subtract(user):
x = 0
while x == False:
answer = input("What would you like to subtract?")
if answer in user:
user = user.replace(answer,"")
y = 0
print("your list is:" + user)
add_or_subtract(user)
x == True
break
else:
print ("sorry, I do not recognise this, please try again.")
def add(user):
x = 0
while x == False:
answer = input(str("what would you like to add?".lower()))
if answer in user:
print ("sorry, this is already in the list")
else:
user = user + "\n" + answer
print ("Your list is: " + user)
answer = input("are you finished adding?".lower())
if answer in ("yes", "yea", "ye"):
answer1 = input("do you want to subtract or finish?")
if answer1 in ("subtract"):
subtract(user)
x == True
break
elif answer1 in ("finish"):
print (user)
x == True
break
else:
print("Sorry I do not recognise this")
def add_or_subtract(user):
x = 0
while x == False:
answer = input ("do you want to add or subtract or finish?".lower())
if answer in ("add","addition"):
add(user)
x == True
break
elif answer in ("subtract","takeaway"):
subtract (user)
x == True
break
elif answer in ("complete", "finish"):
print ("your final list is: " + user)
x == True
break
else:
print ("sorry i do not recognise this")
def initial(user):
x = 0
while x == False:
user = input("please type out your first item:".lower())
content = input(str("your first item is "+ user + " are you content with that?".lower()))
if content in "no":
user = ""
continue
elif content in "yes":
add_or_subtract(user)
x == True
break
shopping = ""
initial(shopping)

Also is there a better way of doing this, I feel like there is, could I use a list to record all the items and is there a way I can store the existing list into a database and then re-use that when updating?

The reason why you have a gap is because you are forgetting the \n character (newline character), so when replacing put '\n' before answer:

def subtract(user):
    x = 0
    while x == False:
        answer = input("What would you like to subtract?")
        if answer in user:
            user = user.replace('\n'+answer,"") # where it is edited
            y = 0
            print("your list is:" + user)
            add_or_subtract(user)
            x == True
            break
        else:
            print ("sorry, I do not recognise this, please try again.")