Browsing tag: groceries

Darlings. Please, I love you all. But for the last time, THIS IS WHAT FOOD COSTS! I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. See last post and the numbers in the Otago uni study. One commenter wondered on my last post if melons were out of season; no, it’s summer here, they don’t get much more seasonal than that. Trust me when I say I don’t buy produce out of season, and that we really do spend as little as humanly possible on groceries – although we do sometimes buy too many snacks. From what I can tell from your blogs, we pay more relatively for EVERYTHING than you guys do in North America and elsewhere – on fruit, on vegetables, on flour and sugar, meat, dairy, toilet paper.

And with that, I bring you the final week of February’s grocery challenge. Amazingly, we came in at $89.95 (I also made an emergency stop for flour mid-week.) Why so low? Well, we already had quite a few staples at home. But mainly, I think it’s because – stupidly – I kind of forgot about lunches. T hasn’t been eating much at work, so we decided not to plan for his lunches. Consequently, I neglected to think about my own, so I guess it’s peanut butter or egg sandwiches all week. Also, it’s a shorter week than usual, as we’re off to Wellington for four days.

And that means we’re $25 under our $500 target for February. Amazing! Three cheers for short months.

(Apologies for crappy photos. I’m a bit short on time at the moment)

I’ve got heaps of great posts starred in Google Reader to share, but I don’t know when I’ll get time to do a link roundup. I’m halfway through a 9-day stretch of work, with no breaks, thanks to the earthquake. Busy busy busy!

The worst thing about weekend work is trying to fit in shopping on a weekend night or rushing it before work. It’s people like me who shop on a Saturday night at 10pm from time to time. At Countdown, what’s worse. (T likes it because he’s less tempted to buy snacks there, or so he says.)

We also did a mini shop for a picnic on Friday, which didn’t really help with cost-cutting. Roast chickens were $13 each or two for $19, so we went with two and will be doing chicken lunches all week.

(I’m not sure what that weird stain is on the first docket, either… Oh, and I should probably have explained earlier that where I haven’t uploaded separate receipts for meat/produce, it’s because T went shopping while I was at work, and he never holds on to them.)

Plus $23.48 at the Aussie Butcher…and the damage comes to $132.02. Which is fine, but not for this month! Next week really needs to be bare bones – no snacks, cheap lunch ideas, as we only have $115 until we hit $500. Plus, I’m pretty sure we’re going to need dishwash soap and possibly TP.

While we’re talking food, apparently Otago University in 2009  determined a “basic” food bill for a man, woman, adolescent boy and girl, ranged from $274 a week in Auckland, to $263 in Christchurch. Add in the use of convenience and imported foods, some out-of-season fruits and vegetables, more expensive cuts of meat and some speciality foods, and that grocery bill would grow to $426 and $411.

This seems to be the original study, in which individual costs in Auckland were:

*(“liberal” – ha! gotta love it! I can tell you if we threw things blindly into the trolley, it would blow out even higher than this)

Considering prices have gone up even more since then and we average around $130 a week for two, I don’t think we can save much more, realistically.

Also, I really hate clothes shopping, and tend to do it in bursts and spurts throughout the year. Last week I hit up my favourite place – Recycle Boutique – and made off with three work-appropriate tops for under $50. I figure I need 3-4 more bottoms and I’d like a couple more tops/cardigans…and I’d quite like new winter boots this year. I wonder if I can get away with maybe $300 for the year? Last year we spent less than $1000 for the both of us, INCLUDING skincare and the like…

(For non kiwis: We have a supermarket duopoly [So what else is new? It’s just like every other industry here]. Foodstuffs owns Pak n Save and New World, their super budget, no frills chain and their deluxe chain respectively. Progressive owns Countdown and Foodtown; the former is their cheaper chain, but it’s still more expensive than PnS.)

Since we moved to this area, we’ve only ever shopped at Pak n Save. It’s close, and of course, it’s cheaper. They also don’t advertise, so you never know what their deals are until you get there…but that’s fine by me, because I’m not the kind of person who sticks rigidly to a list anyway.

At our old place, we lived closer to Countdown, and would randomly split our trips between CD and PnS depending on, well, how we felt that week.

But the expensive Mt Eden Foodtown nearby has now been converted into a Countdown, its cheaper sibling. And I’m kind of tempted to see how well we might fare there. There’s more variety, and it will almost GUARANTEED be better stocked. Also, PnS produce is generally crap, and we don’t always have time to get to a separate fruit n veg shop. Also, the Progressive chain actually sends out flyers, so with a bit of forward thinking maybe it wouldn’t increase our bill by too much. Although…is more choice really a good thing here?

Anyway, chance – okay, traffic – led us to Greenlane Countdown this week. I have to say, I don’t really like visiting new supermarkets. I’m entrenched in routine and I like knowing where aisles are and where to find everything. And this particular supermarket is pretty big (although the aisles could be wider…are you listening?). Basically, the whole experience was nicer. Pak n Save = grey and concrete. Countdown = bright, light, tons of choice. I’ve been to tons of other branches before, but never noticed it quite as starkly. There were some good specials this week – part of the reason we spent nearly $10 on drinks. I’m a water drinker, but T is the opposite. Sadly, produce was not particularly cheap, and we refused to pay their meat prices fullstop.

Of course, the main question is how much did we spend?!

Sorry about the ugly/confusing docket. Countdown prints the original price and then a deduction for the discount. I do like how they show the unit price for produce, though.

Add to that $33 something for meat from the Aussie butcher and we clock in at $135 this week. Pretty average. And two weeks into February, we’re at $254 of our $500 goal. Can we do it? I remember, vaguely, a time when we could occasionally pull off a $100 weekly shop. Now I’ll be happy with $125.

So, do you shop at the same supermarket every time? And do you go to independent butchers/produce shops for fresh food?

This isn’t a post about reducing the cost of groceries. In fact, we’re more likely to be a little more lax about our grocery budget having returned to two incomes. What’s the point in living if you can’t buy feta or blueberries or garlic mussels or ice cream?

Vegetarians often say they save a lot of money by not eating meat. I don’t know if that’s necessarily true (I guess if I ate lots of filling carbs with my veggies, it could be), but I was interested to see just what portion of our spend is actually on fresh produce and meat.

I know that our total spend is about $130 a week, so this is definitely a smaller spend than usual. T didn’t go to the butcher/grocer when he was meant to, so I had to make do with the shops within walking distance on my day off. Also,  we had a bit of food left over from last week (and may run out a day early), but it’s a decent representation.

Meat:

$16 rib roast and two pieces of smoked hickory spare ribs. $11 also got us one massive size 20 chicken, which we’ll roast and use for several meals.

Produce:

$18 got a bunch of silverbeet, three onions, three apples, half a cauliflower, one capsicum, a couple of kumara, and 1.5kg of washed potatoes. (Okay, so the potatoes alone were $4.50. I wanted to make baked potatoes, so I paid for the convenience…)

Supermarket:
Vanilla essence – 1.39
BBQ sauce – 3.35
12 long rolls – 3.38
Small tuna can – 1.59
Canned pineapple – 1.29
Dried shiitaake mushrooms – 2.29
Canned lentils – 1.68
Pizza tomato paste – 3.49
Glass cleaner – 3.19
Pasta sauce – 2.99
Toothpaste – 1.99
Aloe vera drink – 3.99
10 eggs – 3.28
Hokkien noodles – 1.99
Rolling pin – 8.25
Sour cream – 2.29
6 pack yoghurt – 3.39
Margarine – 1.99
6 litres of milk – 10.35
Parmesan (125g) – 3.79
Frankfurters – 6.34

That’s just over $70. About $13 of that is on household stuff that isn’t food. I’d say on most weeks we’d probably spend another $5, maybe $10, on splurgey foods, or more if we need to stock up on staples. At the same time, we’d probably also spend another $10 on meat.

So at $45 for “fresh” vs just over $55 for “not”, we’re almost bang on an even split – which is about as good as I could possibly have hoped for.

What does your grocery bill look like? Are you happy with the proportions?