s-jmelbournewannabe

Anyone ever thought of putting a few seeds in the ground and watching em grow??? will be doing a bit of that myself with my 4 little blighters!! I'll let you know how i get on.. do you know if you can grow teabags????

S-j xx

gobbyjock

Our last Woolies shopping bill was $182.31, it is usually between $150 - $190 a week, there is just me, hubby & daughter, however we have started buying stuff we wouldn`t normally , to stock up for Christmas (mixed crackers etc). No Aldi`s in WA that I know of, but we do have the local Spud Shed which is pretty cheap for vegies & stuff (trouble is it means another trip)We do our shopping on a Thursday evening (late shopping night)when hubby gets in from work (I don`t drive, only one car anway) as the last thing he wants to do on his weekends off is go food shopping and most shops are shut on Sundays anyway). You also have the local IGA`s & Super IGA`S which are the INdependent Grocers of Australia, they usually have some good deals on you get the brochures each week through the mail box telling you whats on offer. Back in UK we spent between £50 and £70 a week on groceries (Tesco Direct, 10 minutes online, no impulse buying plenty of good BOGOF`s)-plus we`d get a monthly stock of meat from the butchers van down the market & freeze it. I do think the food is better over here - you don`t have as much choice in some stuff but more in others and the meat is good - I have`nt had a tough or gristly bit of meat since we arrived, you have to make more meals from scratch, which is healthier than processed, pre-packaged stuff too. We don`t live extravagantly, our grocery bill doesn`t include any alcohol (very rarely drink) but you have to stop comparing what stuff cost in the UK once you are actually living in Oz earning the Aussie dollar because it`s irrelevent, you are not in the UK anymore so who cares how much it cost there.

Wendy

I haven't seen one in SA. If you're living North of the CBD then go to Munno Para shopping centre for your shopping - you can cut about 10% off your bill there (that's comparing a woolies to a wollies, with exactly the same stuff ). Don't know about the other area's.

There's also some great markets about for Meat and Veg, if you can be bothered (which I can't ).

We go shopping at Woolies every two weeks and spend approx $300 - $320, that's for 4 of us.

Fly Away

Thanks Wendy!!

You're always full of good advice!

We're not due in Adelaide until next year, but I've copied your post into my file of tips!

Wendy

When you get here, you can come to one of our coffee meets and I'll tell you loads more

MartinLuther

Yep. I've had great success with potatoes in the past. Will try and get some in this year but may have left it a bit late. I've not had much success with carrots. We've planted 9 apple trees this year (for an espalier) and 2 nectarine trees. We have plans for more but it's worth doing things a bit at a time.

We've got chickens and guinea pigs as well. The eggs from the chickens are lovely. I've not yet found a decent recipe for the guinea pigs

MartinLuther

I must admit that I've had trouble finding the ready peeled oranges you used to see in Tescos

As you say the meat is good. When you fry it you don't get that watery scum that you used to get in the UK.

Fly Away

Looking forward to it!

Thanks again!

Nicstids

I'll second that. We have 2 Aldis in Toowoomba and they're brilliant
Wouldn't have been seen dead in one in the UK but their prices are so much cheaper. I do most of our shopping in there and then just get the stuff (eg herbs and spices) they don't stock from Woolies/Coles.
A lot of their own brand products are actually really nice - eg their pasta sauces are a lot more tasty/less sweet than the likes of Dolmio.
Try the Maser Roth chocolate - so much nicer than Aussie chcocolate

s-jmelbournewannabe

Excellent, defo gonna give it a whirl.. will cut the shopping bill down a bit and will all help.. Did wonder why the Guinea pigs were useful though thought about the chucks too, they easy to keep?? how many would you need for a dozen eggs a week do you think.. will have to research it well. . . (good for you)

S-j x

MartinLuther

Chucks are real easy. We built them a dome (4m diameter) so that they can be protected but we used to let them out in the day. We've stopped that for a bit as something (probably other birds) have been going in and eating the eggs. Currently we're averaging about 2 eggs a day off 4 hens but they do stop laying in the winter and when it gets very hot in the summer. I would like more (probably 8-10 hens) so we got a rooster a couple of months ago and we're just waiting for some of them to go broody.

If your neighbours are not keen on a rooster then you can easily buy fertilised eggs and rent an incubator. Note that hens are terrible mothers so this way can be less distressing as well.

themerlin

We are getting more and more stuff from Aldi.
Still have to go to woolies for some stuff though

nightnurse2

In the UK my weekly wages (2 nights) covered the mortgage (small) and the food bill. Over here, my weekly wage for 2 nights covers the mortgage (larger) and the weekly food bill.

jad n rich

[QUOTE=Wheeler-Jones;5477075]

Sure sounds like things have changed since I left Oz! All I can remember from the past 5 years of living in the UK is that I cannot wait to get back to Oz were the cost of living was better?!

(QUOTE]

LOL, I know the last 5 years V well, we arrived in mid 2000. Australia was cheap as chips, our food bills were around the 140 odd, now thats over $250 and thats with one child having left home now (well left for most of the week he keeps dropping in). $60 bucks in any supermarket will get you 2/3 bags of food now, nothing much at all. I honestly check my receipt every time, just cannot believe how say 6/8 items can be $30, like this morning, milk,paper, bit of meat, couple of other things so insignificant cant even remember $28.

Houses were around the high 100's, poms crack when we tell them that now, stuff round here starts at high 400's. Blocks of land were 60's 70's now if you can find one 330 up, in fact the 330 ones last year were 220 - massive increases.

Petrols still cheap compared to UK but we all know were not in the UK it was 60/70 c now its 120 ish but more in other states as qld has subsidy.

Private health went from 122 in 2002 to 280 month now, same cover fees more than doubled.

Income taxes have fell tho, top rate now kicks in around 150,000 not 68,000

We lived in Uk and all the aussie partners mates would rave about cheap old australia, it was true too, well back then anyway, a few of them still live in Uk and still talk that way but when we were over in january found much stuff cheaper in UK they wouldnt have a word of it no way, mind you my family are the same always telling us how lucky we are to live somewhere so cheap and they are poms who only came here once

Hutch

Aldi rocks - nothing tacky about it - to be honest I prefer the food on palettes arrangement to the fiddly shelves of the bigger supermarkets. The Aldi near here was recently extended and is now the biggest in the state. We do all the standard items there - tinned tomatos, pasta, bog roll etc ... and buy our bread, milk etc at the little local shop (helping to support local outlets). Then we source fresh meat from the very reasonably priced and award-winning local butcher and veggies/fruit from the mobile van.

Aldi have given the big two a wake-up call, and with Costco's arrival in this country looming - things will only get better.