How much do you
spend on your weekly grocery shop for the family? $100, $200 maybe even $300? Do you feel as though your grocery shopping
is eating through your wallet, leaving you with little to save at the end of a
month? What if I could show you a better
way to shop, where you’re guaranteed to get on top of this often missed opportunity
to really improve your budgeting, so that you have more money to save or to
spend on what you really value. And you
won’t compromise on the quality of your meals – in fact they are more likely to
improve!
I started
shopping this way when I was on maternity leave with my second baby. I had wanted to take a full 12 months off
work and had to plan for the loss of income during this period, and really
tighten the belt and make every dollar stretch.
This was the time that I learnt the most about budgeting… and I’ve made
a real effort to maintain the principles now that I’m back at work again. If we could live off a lower cost of living
then, there’s no reason why we can’t do it now.
One book I read at
the time gave me fantastic ideas for following the loss leader cycle of
supermarket chains specials. It detailed
a method of looking through the catalogues that come in the post or can be
found online. Then start keeping a notebook
to record each grocery item you regularly buy, the price and date. It’s amazing how quickly you can go from not
really taking any notice or remembering grocery item prices, to knowing prices
and recognizing a decent special. You may
even be able to predict when a particular item is likely to be on special!
Another book I
read was Cath Armstrong’s Debt Free, Cashed Up and Laughing. Cath describes stacks of practical ways to
save money on many facets of daily living.
Her blog is also full of ideas, recipes, crafts, gardening tips and
other advice to help you meet your financial savings goals. You can check it out here.
Now that I have
two growing school-age children and I’m working full-time, I have very little
time to go shopping. So I have switched
to ordering shopping on line and having it home delivered. Through Coles Online, if I book a delivery
for Wednesday it’s free of charge.
Wednesdays soon sell out though, so I need to make sure I order
groceries on the prior Sunday.
Not only am I
able to get free delivery, I have also found that I save a LOT more money by
sorting items by unit price and recognizing real value. For the past year, I have found that my
weekly grocery shopping is always less than $120 per week, and I often save $30
- $50 off usual prices! This grocery
shopping excludes fresh fruit and vegetables and meat, as I prefer to buy these
from growers markets or our local Farmer Jacks which sells particularly good
value local meat.
This is the
method I use for shopping:
1.
Don’t be brand loyal – buy what’s on special,
the best value by unit price
2.
When
buying an item like flour, sugar, rice etc I buy cheap store brands as they don’t
involve a recipe and quality is just as good as name brands.
3.
During
the week/fortnight make a list of items that are running out or low that I need
to buy. Have a plan in mind for the
meals that my husband or I will cook over the next week, and add items for these
meals to the list.
4.
Don’t
be loyal to one supermarket … if not inconvenient shop for the week/fortnight
where you get the most savings for the items on the list.
5.
Look
through catalogues (in the letterbox or online) and check products and prices
against my list so that I can determine where I’ll shop for the week/fortnight.
6.
If I’m
going to physically shop, I mark the prices next to each item on my list
(usually rounded to the nearest dollar) then add them up so I know how much to
expect the shop to be.
7.
If I’m
shopping online I’ll see the tally of the total value of the shop before I
commit to buy. If I’ve ordered something
that’s stretching the budget I have the opportunity to remove it.
8.
I
always sort the list of items online by their unit price so that I can easily
see the best value.
I had intended
this year to shop fortnightly, instead of weekly but I haven’t yet been able to
make this discipline stick. I do want to
make an effort to do this though, and get out of the habit of a weekly shop, as
I think the longer I stretch the shopping trip the more opportunity I’ll have to
save.
My last two
weekly shops have been ordered online with free delivery, been within budget
and show considerable savings on usual prices:
Do you have some
tips to share about your successful shopping strategies? I’d love to hear them, so send me a post or
comment below or you can email me at livewelllivesmart@gmail.com
.
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