My New Money-Saving Shopping Strategy

I put a new grocery shopping plan into action today. I'm trying to get the cost down, because it was really starting to get out of control, to the tune of nearly $400 a week. Shopping online (with Coles) and getting the groceries delivered was easy, but expensive, and when we added in a few extra trips for things we'd forgotten, they didn't deliver, etc., it was really starting to add up.

So first I cut out the delivery and started doing my own shopping again. That doesn't just save the delivery charge, but the in-store prices are usually cheaper than the online prices. The next thing I did was start shopping at Aldi as well as Coles. Then I started doing some online price comparisons and then shopping at Coles, Aldi, and Woolworths. And today I added Supabarn into the mix, too. Four shops in five hours, and I spent $303. 

That's a little more than I've been spending lately, but it's because I bought a lot of things that were on sale, so hopefully it'll pay off in the future. I bought 3 12-packs of Fake Zero (that's what we can Aldi's zero-cal cola Coke Zero knock-off), 16 cans of diced tomatoes (80 cents a can at Woolies), 9 jars of pasta sauce (3 for $3 at Supabarn), and that sort of thing. All good bargains (except the Fake Zero, which was regular price, but they've been out for weeks so I thought I'd stock up). 

My plan is to keep an eye on the sales at Coles, Woolies, IGA, Supabarn, and Aldi, hit 'em and load up when I can, and build a stockpile. Then one week each month, do as small a shop as possible (I haven't run any numbers yet, but I'm hoping for $50-100) and get the rest from the stockpile. 

The other part of the plan involves getting to the point where we're spending around $200 a week, and putting the extra $100 away in savings to pay for a vacation next summer. If we can do it, in 8 months we'd save $3200.