Shopping Day, 5 April

Shopping day came early this week because all the shops are closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Aldi: $78.68
Coles: $88.03
Woolworths: $43.05

Total: $209.76

My original plan this week was to buy as little as necessary, but that was quickly vetoed by the rest of the family. They figure they can't fully enjoy their four-day weekend without some treats, and my vote doesn't count. But to be honest, even with their junk food, the total could've been a lot lower if I hadn't stocked up on a few sale items.

I've been thinking that once a month, I'd try to do a very minimal shop. But today I started thinking that, with the stuff we buy on a regular basis, it makes sense to buy it when it's on sale, and that means hitting the sale items every week.

I'm also starting to think that when I find a really good deal, I need to buy more items. The $1 pasta sauces I grabbed a few weeks ago were an excellent bargain. Sure, somebody's running pasta sauce on sale every week, but I haven't seen it at $1 since then. And at the time, buying nine jars seemed like a lot, but three weeks later, we've used half of them.

So the key is to make sure it's really a good deal (by checking my price book to see that it not only beats the regular price, but it's a good sale price, too)

As it turned out, this I could get potato chips at Woolworths for $1.50 a bag if I bought four of them. So I did. And Aldi three 12-packs of "Fake Zero" available, so I bought them all. They also had the sugar-free chocolate chip cookies, so I bought eight packets of those. And Coles had big jars of Kraft peanut butter on sale for $6 and 100 pks of Earl Grey tea bags for $7, so I bought two of each. Oh, and fat-free salad dressing for $2, so I grabbed three bottles. Five bucks here, seven bucks there, and by the time I was done, I'd spent an extra $50.

Still, I'm $90 under my usual $300 a week, and at $1071 in four weeks, I figure I've saved about $300, or nearly 25%, in a month.

Now I just need to figure out a way to make sure that the next $300 I save is actually sitting there in the bank a month from now. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty confident that the $300 I saved this time has already been spent (by those who shall remain nameless) on other things.