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Groceries, glorious groceries…

So… it’s been a little while since I last posted a grocery haul. Keeping grocery spending in check is something I’m really trying to tamp down on, and we’ve been doing really well on that front. This month we’ve stayed under budget every week! Behold, last week’s buys:

$13.00 – Eight litres of milk
$3.99 – A block of butter
$5.99 – A tub of Collective Dairy yoghurt (our splurge)
$4.59 – Three fresh “Bush Tomato” sausages
$5.65 – 160g of fresh mozzarella
$6.57 – 120g of St Paulin cheese
$17.99- Whole cornfed chicken
$7.52 – Half a kilo of rump steak
$6.59 – 250g of pork schnitzel
$3.20 – 1.2kg bananas
$5.00 – Two bunches asparagus
$1.76 – Five onions
$7.00 – Two punnets of mushrooms
$2.20 – One head garlic
$1.99 – One red capcisum

(From Nosh, no less.)

And that all comes down to how our shopping and eating habits have changed. We rarely ever buy readymade and frozen items. We’re eating more vegetables, less meat, and I’m making food stretch further and cooking more from scratch. We still have dessert almost every day, but more often than not it’s something that I’ve baked. (Yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking about, making and consuming food, but that’s totally, more than, okay with me.)

So even though we have to buy expensive lightbulbs due to the fittings in our house, and even though we’re buying more quality foods – think better cheeses in small quantities, and cooking with olive oil – T commented that we don’t seem to be purchasing all that much anymore, or blowing out our budget.

In fact, we’re even shopping at Nosh more often – once a month or so. Nosh weeks mean buying only the best. Their produce is great and affordable thanks to great sales – we’ve been lucky timing-wise so far. The meat is pricey (though not much more than at, say, Countdown) but organic and of outstanding quality, so we buy small amounts and do more with it. Ditto with the cheese – and the staff actually know their stuff and can recommend types. And the Ponsonby store, at least, seems to do 4 litres of milk for $6.50 regularly, so as long as we have a good stock of staples at home, we can get everything we need there. Bonus: no huge aisle of sweet treats or ice cream freezer to tempt us.

It’s safe to say I won’t be giving any business to supermarkets like Countdown or New World unless I absolutely have to (eg, picking up emergency supplies on the way home). I might as well go to Nosh and get everything else at Pak n’ Save for rock bottom prices. Oh, how I love being central to everything…

3 thoughts on “Groceries, glorious groceries…

  • Reply Serendipity October 10, 2011 at 16:46

    Living next to grocery stores you love really makes a difference in how you shop. And like T pointed out, you’re buying better quality so your less tempted to buy junk to make up for what you feel like your missing. Yay for being under budget too!

  • Reply Kellen October 12, 2011 at 07:16

    Good grief – is that how much chickens cost?? And I thought we were into grass-fed these days… hmm. I can get a whole rotisserie chicken in Whole Foods here for only $8 or so…

  • Reply What To Do About the Rising Cost of Food | Living With Less Money October 14, 2011 at 04:03

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