Shopping Day: 8 June 2012

Woolworths: $44.05
Aldi: $75.17
Supabarn: 8.80
Coles: 93.94
Costco: $53.03

Total: $274.99

This week didn't involve any exciting bargain-hunting. It was more about getting all the weird little items that people (mainly Karen) have been asking for and I've been holding off on buying, week after week. A new dish cloth. Plastic gloves. Stuff you can't eat. Stuff I don't care about. So I keep putting them off in favor of doing things like buying a dozen jars of peanut butter or 5 lbs of cheese. But not this week. This week I bought all the crap I don't care about and made my family happy.

And also kept the whole thing under $300, which will help me hit my target of a $240/week average.

One thing I thought about this week is that I haven't been figuring in the cost of petrol (gas) involved in driving out to Costco (nearly 10 miles), or even the IGA (over 4 miles) and Supabarn (nearly 8 miles). That's compared to the three shops in Gungahlin (Coles, Woolworths and Aldi), which are all about 1.5 miles away. I'm going to need to work out just how far I drive, and also how much it costs per mile/km to work it out, but with petrol over $1.50 per litre ($5.80 per gallon), I think it's clear that it's going to be a significant cost. Just guessing, but I think that if I'm not saving at least $5 by driving out to Costco, I'm losing money doing it. Because some of the thing I buy at Costco aren't available elsewhere, it's hard to say exactly how much I saved this week, but it was around $12, so I came out at least a little bit ahead.