Friday, January 29, 2010

Grocery Shopping Day

Well, a successful day today, with grocery shopping totalling $80.00. That includes everything we need to feed the family (4 adults) all meals, including lunches being taken from home and all dinners until next Friday. I have $20 left for incidental expenses until then. I never do the shopping without having planned what's going to be cooked for dinner or baked for adding to school lunches etc. It's when you don't take the time to do this that you end up  impulse buying. I also never buy pre made cakes/biscuits, bakery items. I ensure I put time aside to do all of these things myself. A good bread maker helps!


We recently had a camping trip down the Great Ocean Road for 4nights. Unfortunately I needed to do the grocery shopping once we got down there. As usual all meals had been carefully planned, although I was unable to bake!
I budgeted my usual ~$100, thinking it would cost a little more than usual, but to my surprise when I got to the register, I had spent a grand total of $230 for only 5 days worth of food. I was in absolute disbelief, but then realised that this was probably the "norm" for a good number of Australian families who buy significant amounts of processed food. Not only is it clearly not good for your bank balance, but not good for your waistline either,(or that of your children).


It was a proud moment for me to see that even though our financial status isn't great at the moment, it would probably be significantly worse if I wasn't a frugal shopper. 


Off now to make some Sticky Cinnamon scrolls and Banana & Choc chip muffins ready for next weeks lunches/snacks!


Happy saving!


Martha







 

No comments:

Post a Comment