Some Things I Know For Sure

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Travelling across the interwebs, I sometimes stumble on a Thing that makes me want to rant. Today, I am feeling ranty about grocery shopping. I will like to share a few things I have learned in my 39 years here on this planet with you –

The Less Often You Go, The More You Save

Unless you are incredibly determined and motivated, most grocery shopping trips will result in one or more “impulse” purchases. You’ll see something you had no intention of buying on special and put it in the trolley. For me it is usually crumpets, Starburst Babies, potato chips and dips. So if you go once every fortnight instead of once a week, less impulse purchases will = more $$ saved..

Junk Mail Is Useful

Those catalogues most of us get every week from the supermarkets – you can sign up to receive those via your email now, or you can view them online. Why would you want to do that? Because you can suss out the specials before you even leave home. If something is on super special at one place and you need to restock it, you can find out via the catalogue, and go in there with a very strict list of things you need.

In Australia? Here are links to the email sign up pages for – WoolworthsAldiColes (view online only)IGA (view online only)

Saving Can Be An Effort

There have been fortnightly shopping trips where I have been to IGA, Aldi, Coles *and* Woolworths, all in one day. Why? Here’s a hint. Supermarkets make more money because in general, people only want to go to one place to shop. The big specials are designed to make you pick their store that week, because they think you’ll buy everything else there once you get in the door. They even have a term for these specials – a Loss Leader.

Don’t play by their rules – there is nothing saying you have to do all your shopping in one place. If you will save significant money purchasing items you regularly use across two or more stores, then do that. :) I’m lucky where I live because Coles, Woolworths and Aldi are right next to each other.

Buying Many Can Save You Headaches.

Buying several of an item you regularly purchase can be a great idea, especially if the item is on special. If you know you use certain tinned items or items with a long shelf life regularly, it makes sense to buy those things in bulk when they are on special. You will buy them eventually anyway, having them on hand means less trips to the supermarket.

Buying In Bulk Can Save You $$

This should be obvious. I think anyone who has ever done a price comparison of things is well aware of this fact. I will like to talk specifically about some ways we use this in our household. I bulk buy things that I know we will use eventually and store them well, so they will be there when we want to use them.

Chicken Roasters

We like a Lenards chicken mini roast once a week, but the nearest Lenards to us is a 100km round trip. So when we go, I will pre-order 8-12 chicken roasters and bring them home in insulated bags with ice packs. We have a Foodsaver, and they go into the deep freeze. They cook up beautifully even after being frozen *and* I usually get a discount for buying them in bulk.

Toilet Paper, Paper Towel, Tissues, Anti-Bac Wipes

These are things I use regularly. I’m going to continue to use them regularly. I will be spending money on these things no matter what, so it makes sense to buy them in bulk and save the $$. Plus, there is nothing worse than Running Out Of Toilet Roll As A Surprise To Yourself.

Buying Cat Related Bulk Items

Cat Food

I have seen no signs that my cats plan to stop eating anytime soon. :) They will always need food. If I buy it in bulk from our local pet store, this is good for two reasons – it supports a local business *and* it is cheaper than the supermarkets. We save over 20 cents per tin of food, which is $20 per 100 cans. Plus, we buy kitty litter and chicken food there in bulk.

Kitty Litter

I *hate* running out of kitty litter. With 2 indoor only cats we use plenty of kitty litter. Recently we have discovered a new brand at our local pet store called Trouble & Trix Lavender Litter. This stuff is amazing. The cats really like it, when they bury their doings or you scoop it instead of bad smells, a lovely lavender scent is released into the air, and the litter clumps, which means it lasts a lot longer with regular scooping and just the occasional top up. We’re down to changing it once a week at most, which saves us money. Plus, this!

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Meats In Bulk Can Be Good, Too

The Other Half is the cutter up and Foodsaver of meats – in particular chicken – in this house, however, having to do this job regularly leaves him irritated and annoyed. If we buy 5-6kg of chicken breasts in bulk, and I ask him to do the chicken cutting up job once in a blue moon instead of regularly, then we freeze the results, it could be 2-3 months before he has to do this job again.

He cuts breast chicken into steaks – for me to eat when he has a red meat steak – pieces – for our regular Honey and Mustard chicken tonight dish which we enjoy – slices – for chicken and bacon pasta or stir fries.

Next time I am hoping to up the amount of chicken to 8-10kg and then we might go 4-5 months without a chicken cut up session. I’ll let him play some music while he does it, which will make him less irritated and annoyed. Happy times for all!

Pantry Staples Are Important

Right now I have everything I need in this house to make 2 weeks of Pizza. If we leave out the bases -I get a killer woodfired herby pizza base from Aldi and normally I buy 4 at a time because they are vacuum sealed and keep for ages – I have everything we need to make 5-6 weeks of pizza. I’ve got everything I need to make at least 8 recipes we regularly eat right here at home.

Sometimes Fresh Is Best

Sometimes you want something fresh cooked special. For me that is usually crumbed chicken with potatoes. I don’t like to use frozen chicken for that recipe, though I certainly could. There is something about the entire process of making crumbed chicken from fresh ingredients which is comforting to me, probably because my Grandma and I used to make it together a lot.

Also, you have to use fresh meat in the slow cooker. Those recipes get made close to shopping day, for obvious reasons. Which leads us to..

Meal Planning Is Awesome.

Sitting down and coming up with a list of meals you would like to make for the next week or two weeks seems like a daunting concept, until you do it. And once you do it, you’ll likely want to keep doing it. But this does not mean you have to eat all your meals on a set day. It just means those meals which you need super fresh ingredients for are best planned for cooking right after shopping day.

Regular Set Meal Days

Some people like to regularly meal plan a roast on a Sunday, or Pizza on a Friday. We’re not quite that regimented around here but we usually do eat pizza and a roast sometime around the weekend.

Things You Wouldn’t Usually Buy

This week I bought a large bag of red capsicum (bell peppers to some of you :) ) – they were on special, they were *not* on the meal plan, and suddenly I had visions in my mind of a roasted red capsicum and potato soup. The other half looked at me weird, when I picked them up, and he said wow, that is a lot of red capsicum. I’m about to go roast it in my new roaster, with some potatoes, and then make it into a soup. I’ll share the recipe! ;)

What do you know for sure about grocery shopping?

Share it in the comments! :)

Similar Posts:

food, kitties, life lessons, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo 2014, shopping

15 thoughts on “Some Things I Know For Sure

  1. The only thing I know for sure about grocery shopping is that I didn’t like to do it when I was in my 20s and I don’t like doing it in my 60s so all indications are that I’m never going to like it.

  2. Thanks again for stopping by my blog for NaBloPoMo!!
    Omg, I can’t stand grocery shopping!!! It’s the worst type of shopping to ever exist on the planet. For me, the entire process is overwhelming from start to finish. List(s) don’t work for me neither does a floor plan strategy (some people say you should shop around the outside first to avoid buying too much processed stuff) etc and couponing oh heavens no! Don’t even mention it!

    The crazy thing is I love to cook and I love food but I can’t get my patience together to shop in a grocery store. I agree with Pam J. I just don’t think I’ll ever like it.

    • The local grocery stores here – Coles and Woolworths – just changed the floor plans in the past couple of weeks and now nothing is where I know it should be. I ran in to grab a couple of items and I was stuck in there for 20 minutes. Thank the deities, Aldi has never done that to me. Plus, the Aldi floorplan has been the same in all the stores I have been in.

      I think the powers that be must be sitting upstairs having a great laugh watching the cctv cameras of us all running around like ants in a maze unable to find anything and getting more and more frustrated!

  3. I know for sure that I don’t like it! :) I feel like I spend 75% of my time each week at grocery stores and it makes me crazy! I try to stock up on items, but have to go back multiple times for fresh produce. Also, I have to divide my shopping into 4 different stores to get what I need. I’m horrible at paper coupons but use 2 different coupon app’s on my phone which helps out a bit.

  4. Ha, I am so with Pam. I do try and make one trip. which includes Aldi, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. They are all on the same road so it makes it easy. I really only go to Aldi for their gluten free bread so they ar first on the trip. Next stop is Whole Foods for their organic veggies. Finally Trader Joe’s for everything else. Then I bring it home and complain about having to put it away. :)

    • I can do almost my entire shop at Aldi for half the cost of a couple of bags of groceries at Coles or Woolworths. :) This might be an Australia only thing, though. I’m not sure what products they stock in the USA, but here I find the meats to be excellent quality.. for example, I do not usually like sausages at all, for Reasons, but the other half does, so I buy them for him and when I cook them I’ll make broccoli with cheese for me, and some potatoes. But these Aldi sausages were amazing and I would eat them again without reservation.

      Yesterday I did our meal plan for the next week, and we only had to pick up some milk, cheese, and a chicken roaster. Where Aldi screws me up is by stocking non-food items that tempt me. I got some paint by numbers there yesterday. :)

  5. Completely off topic, but thank you so much for commenting on my blog. I applaud your enthusiasm in trying to go through the November NaBloPoMo – I only hope that you do not die in the attempt!

    • I certainly would have not made it very far via the Blogher blogroll which opened everything in a blogher frame and you couldn’t get the actual link to the blog without closing the frame.

      Since the other half sorted the list for me, and I do have the actual links to the blogs instead of links to the frame, my process is now this –

      1. Add 50-100 blogs to Inoreader in one sitting

      2. Read through the posts that load into the feed reader and find one that resonates, that I can leave my comment on.

      3. Add blog into “commented” folder.

      What I will do, at the end of this project if it isn’t too difficult, I will put all the blogs into a “bundle” in Inoreader and make the link available, so if people want to find some new blogs they can add the bundle and then decide if any of those blogs are a keeper for them. :)

      Thanks for returning the visit! ;)

    • I love this piece of advice! However prices can vary so wildly here, it would be really difficult to work out in advance exactly how much I needed.

      I just have to be very disciplined and not put things like salted caramel fudge into the trolley. I am such a sucker for anything salted caramel. :)

  6. We go about once a week grocery shopping, we stick to our list, and it is a lot of bags to wear even if we are only two adults with three cats and a dog. But since our tab water has become undrinkable, add four bottles of mineral water per day: that´s a lot of water to do your extra weekly workout with. We try to store everything according to the date of expiry just to make sure everything is eaten in time. To us it has turned out to become the key to an optimal proportion of money and actual consumption.

    • That is a lot of water to be lugging back and forth. I used to do that myself, I remember it well. Sometimes I would make the trip just to get a months worth of mineral water and be freed of having to lug it every grocery trip.

      Can you maybe install a filter tap? That is what we did, and I have a soda stream so I eliminated the bottle lugging. ;)

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