1. Shop around. Oh no, what a pain! I hear you say, but if you’re serious about saving it can be done without too much trouble. For example, today I did a large shop at Coles – where I look for specials and clearances. Not many of the items I buy there are full price. Then I walked over to the Indian grocers in the same shopping complex, and instead of buying 1kg of natural yoghurt at Coles for $6+, I bought a 2kg bucket of good quality natural yoghurt for $6. Indian or Asian grocers also have bulk spices at excellent prices.
2. Share the burden. Following on from the first point, shopping for a family is much easier if the burden can be shared. Although I do the regular supermarket shop, my husband’s work is in an area with many Asian fresh food markets and ethnic stores. Most of our fruit and vegetables come from these markets (he shops during his lunch break or when he gets a spare minute) at roughly half the cost of the supermarket! The added benefit of this is that the markets have a massive turnover and produce is so incredibly fresh that it puts the supermarket fruit & veg sections to shame.
3. Meat is so expensive. And don’t even get me started on fish (I could write a whole other post about the terrible waste and inflated prices within the commercial fishing industry). Meat is generally cheaper and fresher from the butcher. There have been times we have had the opportunity to buy very affordable meat through buying a whole sheep slaughtered, cut up and packaged and then sharing the cost with someone else and dividing the meat between us.
We also at one time had our own cows that were kept at my husband’s family farm and had some fabulous fresh and economical meat that way.
If you have a deep freeze, you can always ask a butcher whether there would be a discount for bulk meat.
It goes without saying that meat consumption on a budget comes down to the cuts you choose. We choose the cheapest cuts and cook accordingly, steak is a special treat.
We also have at least a few meat free days each week. Doing this allows us to afford organic free range chicken and pork (we refuse to eat caged animals pumped full of hormones or intensely farmed animals – in my opinion it’s not natural and not what God intended by providing animals for our food).
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So what do you think? Could any of these points save you some money on regular grocery shopping? There are so many other points to make, but perhaps I’ll save them for another post š
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