Grocery shopping is a necessity for every family, and we want to provide our family with meals that are tasty, nutritious and not boring. This can often lead to unexpectedly high grocery bills that leave you feeling burdened instead of excited about preparing a delicious family dinner.
Let’s start off by taking a look at some very interesting stats on the average Australian’s expenses. The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has devised the following infographics which really put Australians’ annual spending into greater perspective.
Luckily, we have a list of easy tips that are guaranteed to help you get more for your Dollar and fill your family’s tummies with healthy, yummy, affordable meals.
Stock the Basics
Make sure that your kitchen is always stocked with the basic dry goods: rice, flour, spices, oil, sugar, etc. This makes it easier to become familiar with what staples exist in your cupboard so that you can plan meals and grocery shopping accordingly. It also ensures that your cupboards are not crammed with expired food products while you keep buying more.
Shop Less
Buying just enough food for tonight’s dinner means that you are shopping almost every day. This is a very fast way to run up grocery bills as it’s too easy to throw in a few non-essential extras with every shop. Buying two loose carrots, for example, also costs a lot more than buying a 1kg bag that will last you for several meals.
Reduce Waste
Become more familiar with how much food your family really eats, especially regarding perishable items. While we encourage more sporadic shopping that consists of bulk buys, it is also wise to only buy as much as what will be eaten before the expiration date.
Farmer’s Markets
The price of fruit and veg at farmer’s markets and veggie shops is significantly lower than at supermarkets. Plus, the items are mostly organically grown and fresher. Try to get into the habit of buying non-perishables from supermarkets, and then stocking your fridge weekly with an array of fresh fruit and veg from a farmer’s market. It’s an easy way to get more for your Dollar and also inspire you to eat healthier.
Compare Prices
Every price label will always indicate the actual price, as well as the price per 100g or per kg. This is an effective way to compare prices between brands. While the unit price may be cheaper, the quantity may be less and the per kg price is actually higher. Don’t be drawn into all the advertising campaigns by the leading suppliers. House brands are much cheaper but very often contain almost identical ingredients to the more expensive brands.
Never Shop When You Are Hungry
This is a very important tip to remember. If you are famished, every single item will find its way into your trolley. Plan your weekly shopping trips ahead of time so that you can have a well-balanced meal first. Not only will it give you more energy for the task ahead, it will also make you choose items more objectively.
Pay with Cash
Buying groceries on your credit card is not a smart plan; it is just too easy to take every item that looks delicious. Withdraw a specific amount of cash and leave your credit cards at home. This will restrict you to what goes into the trolley and make you critically assess prices before selecting items.
ASIC has also devised a very helpful app that can help you to keep track of all your expenses.
TrackMySPEND helps you to:
- Calculate your weekly household budget
- Plan for special events like weddings or celebrations
- Budget for work or travel expenses
- Keep track of coffees, lunches and any other cash expenses that you find hard to record
TrackMySPEND allows you to:
- Nominate a spending limit (per week, fortnight, month or year) and track your progress
- Separate ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ to identify opportunities to save
- Create ‘favourites’ so you can track frequent expenses
- View your expense history
- Add ‘tags’ to categorise expenses and set spending limits for each category
- Create expense reminders sent as text messages to your phone
- Auto-fill expenses based on past entries
We really hope that these helpful tips assist you in getting more for your Dollar when buying groceries. And, once you see how well it works with groceries, you’ll soon start implementing similar strategies with your other weekly household expenses.