Shopping Day: 3 May, 2012

Big W: $17.98
Woolworths: $19.37
Aldi: $50.34
Reject Shop: $8.50
Coles: 45.43

Total: $141.62

I'm very happy with the shop today because I came in well under budget. To stay with the same 4-week average as last month, my max for this week was $168.48, and I beat that by $26.86. I also returned a roasting pan at Coles and got a $15 refund, so if that's included, my total goes down to $136.62 (but I won't, since the original purchase was before I started the whole bargain shopping thing).

So for the last four weeks, my totals have been $284.56, $304.57, $312.34, and $141.62, for a total of $1043.09 ($2114 over the entire 8-week period), and an average of $260.77 per week over the last four weeks ($264.25 average over 8 weeks). I'm very happy with that, but I'd like to eventually get it down to an average of $250 a week.

The limited budget wasn't a problem in terms of getting groceries needed for the meal plan, but it meant I couldn't stock up big on any bargain items. Which, as it turned out, wasn't really a problem since there weren't a lot of good bargains this week anyway.

At Big W, I grabbed a huge 10 kg box of laundry detergent for $10, and an 18-roll pack of toilet paper for $7.98. The laundry powder was an unexpected substitution, since went there to buy a 5 kg box for $12.96, and was actually headed to the check-out with it until I saw this Trix brand at less than half the price. It might suck, but I figured it was worth a shot.

No big bargains at Woolies this week, and after that I drove to Watson to get some things at the IGA--garlic bread, dinner rolls, and microwave popcorn. But the microwave popcorn turned out to be mini-sized bags (definitely no bargain), and I couldn't find the garlic bread or dinner rolls, so I left completely empty-handed. Luckily, I found garlic bread at Aldi at a better price than at IGA.

So really, the only big bargain today was the laundry powder. I'm hoping the stuff is okay (we're generally not that picky), because if so, it ought to last a while. I bought the 5 kg box six weeks ago, and it might last another week. If the bigger box works out about the same, we should be good for laundry powder until some time in August.

And the other thing about this week's shopping is that it's Thursday, and I'm done. Which means I've got 6 child-free hours tomorrow, and I don't have to spend any of them in the grocery store. Sweet!

Update 6/5/2012: I was afraid that $141 grocery bill was too good to be true. Sure enough, it turns out that I needed a lot more ground beef than I had in the freezer. Plus Karen needed another box of tissues, so tonight on the way home from work I stopped off at Coles and added $14.38 to my total for the week. So that's $156.00, which is still well under the $168 cap for this week. As long as I don't have to make any more unexpected trips to the grocery store, I should be alright.