Stretched

Does this feel like you?

A little bit on the crazy side?

Not-quite-in-control?

 

Grocery shopping on a budget, huh!?  It's not for the faint of heart.
 
I’ve done some interesting things in the name of stretching our grocery budget.

Like blending chickpeas into the meatballs (tasted quite good, but were a bit mushy).

Or eating weeds in our smoothies (they actually have higher nutritional value as well as being free!).

Or cutting all the codling-moth infested bits out of apples to make what’s left into apple crumble.

Or asking if anyone has unwanted feijoas.  Yahoo, a friend replied and we've had 4 supermarket bags of feijoas!!!  Bliss on a budget, what more can I say?!

Or turning all the lurking leftovers in the fridge into Bottom Barrel soup.  Yum.  I love soup!

Sometimes it’s not necessarily a matter of going without, more that you decide on areas you can compromise on. 

We only buy Watties peaches in natural juice.  It's one of our (few) no compromise items.  Sounds snobby, right?  But we only buy them on special at $1 a tin.  We just buy 24 tins at a time, about once or twice a year.  Only when they are $1 though.

One week I bought chocolate.  It’s an almost necessary study-food! Grin.  But, I also bought bananas and cucumbers at our local fruit and vege store (conveniently located very close to New World!).  Their bananas were $2/kg, as opposed to New Worlds at $2.50/kg.  Not a big deal?  But in a family that eats about 20 bananas a week (around 4kgs!) simply by popping next door rather than shopping only at the supermarket I am probably saving around $2.  I saved $3-5 by buying cheaper cucumbers (2 for $3 instead of $3 or $4 each elsewhere).  Sometimes the quality at discount places can be shocking, so you do have to be careful and only choose what will actually be worth eating!  And sometimes I don’t bother looking at all.  If time’s at a premium and I don’t have many items to buy, sometimes 20c or $1 is worth less to me than the ten minutes to look around.  But it does all add up.  It means our grocery budget can stay low.  Or at least that we have more money to spend on the things we want (aka chocolate!) or need (spelt flour!).

What novel ways have you come up with to spread your grocery $$ further?  What things do you have a 'no compromise' rule on and what are you not fussed about?

It’s just sad that the fruit shop has put its banana price up.

Amy