$150 Grocery Spend Per Week

[MLR1901]

If you can visit Aldi, most of the products are made by the same companies that make for the other big 2 chains. And most of the fruit and veggies are from local growers so kind of supporting communities.

Or farmers markets! They rock too!

[fionas]

Aldi is a fair way from us and I'm not sure it's cheaper than buying the staying down prices TBH. It's a lot cheaper for packaged things but we don't buy a lot of those anyway. Not sure - will compare in catalogues.

When I start doing this, I'll do a bit of shopping around in terms of markets/greengrocers for fruit/veggies. I may be able to buy my smoked salmon yet!

[wysiwyg]

I started this after starting using budgeting software (YNAB) - but unfortunately started in December and we had visitors so we went over but December was a 4.5 week month really and we only went over by one week worth so maybe didn't do so bad.

I also find it hard to plan more than a couple of days in advance. I tried online shopping in an effort to spend less - but once took into account delivery costs then I don't think it saved me any money. I can get to Aldi quite easily but I don't find I want alot of what is cheap and if anything am tempted into buying stuff I don't need.

For your smoked salmon if you wanted to make a trip to Melbourne every now and again I have heard good things about the smoked salmon at Costco!

I actually find I spend less if I only buy when I need something - buying in advance when specials are on only saves you money if you then actually use the thing and more often than not I forget, tastes change etc etc.

I put everything on credit card and pay off each month, including all childcare costs and health insurance this means I make about $300 a year in Caltex vouchers for petrol which I exchange my credit card costs for. That is about a third of my petrol costs a year.

We only have a small freezer e.g. one that is just a third of normal fridge (bottom half) and we do still cook in bulk alot - DH makes up all his meals for lunch time for probably 3 weeks in one go - but adds rice or pasta the night before.