I think Saturday has become our default shopping day. It used to be Sunday, but somewhere along the line we started running out of food earlier in the week and now need to buy food by Saturday. Today we went to the Lim Asian supermarket in Mt Albert, and I love it! It was inspiring – all the sauces and gravies, all the different spices and world flavours….it actually got me excited to food shop! We got SO much for $50….and then we swept through Pak n Save, expecting to come out happy as Larry, because we didn’t need much after getting our meat and veg.
HAH! Apparently not. We spent $150, instead of our usual $120. Was I gutted! I freaked out at the checkout
But I figured I really need to get a grip and stop being so depressed about going over budget. Realistically, if we want to eat remotely well, it’s going to cost more. I need to rework the budget. Sure there’ll be weeks when we eat pasta, and nachos with beans, and chili, but weeks like this we want to make stew (which includes produce, which jacks up our bill) and curries and so forth. And we just can’t do that on $120. (Plus I want to start eating better lunches once in awhile. I thought mac and cheese was an acceptable lunch, but apparently not! But you know, a girl at work was heating up chicken nuggets one lunchtime, so at least I’ve never got that bad.)
We also got way overcharged at the checkout for my Nice and Natural muesli bars. Now, they were on one of those massive aisle end displays for 2.79. There were two kinds of bars, original, and the sweet and salty (or whatever it’s called). I snagged the second kind. They came through at 3.69 on checkout. The girl made a call, told me that it was only the ORIGINAL flavour on special, and got a guy to run and bring me one of the boxes that WAS on special. He was there in a tick, beaming and holding it out to me. Except by then I’d had so much time to freak out over the fact that we were $30 over budget, and I couldn’t work out why, that I just brushed him off and told them to forget it.
Seriously, if you advertise something at 2.79, MAKE it 2.79! There were a TON of the new flavour on that display, so they should honour it or take them off the shelf.
Here’s some of what we bought at the Asian supermarket, and some of what we got at Pak n Save.
6pk pork buns 7.70
550g pork mince 4.96 (8.99kg)
870g chuck steak 7.86 (8.99kg)
410g diced beef 4.55 (10.99kg)
390g pork rump 3.52 (8.99kg)
Onions – 1 bag 1.49
Leek 1.30
Parsnips 2.99kg
Shanghai veg 49c bunch
Honeydew 1.89
2 Royal Gala apples 28c (89c/kg)
500ml Lee Kum Kee soy sauce 2.99
Spare rib sauce 350g 4.90
Some ridiculously good prices!
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At the supermarket…
Norths bread 2 for $3
Budget coco puffs 4.29
Sealord tuna, plain 1.99
Pams fruit salad 1.29
Just creamed corn 1.09
Watties pasta sauce 1.69
1L Just Juice 1.75
12 Farmer Brown eggs 4.00
Beef stock 1.89
Coconut milk 1.49
10 Pams tortillas 3.95
1kg jasmine rice 2.99
Watties soup 2.59
Green curry paste 99c
Kraft peanut butter 1.99
Self raising flour 1.5kg 3.59
750g cheese 5.99
3L milk 4.45
680g kumara chips 3.99
1kg potato mash 4.95
Flora margarine 2.79
Pams fresh ravioli 3.29
On the upside, we should eat fairly well this week and our cupboards are stuffed full.
BF is funny. He started talking about how he would just eat noodles for lunch all week, and how he’d make Two Piece meals like he’d seen on Oprah. I’m still not sure what he was on about, but apparently it’s a way of cooking, designed for people who’ve just moved out on their own/into the city/something like that. How sweet of him.
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