soulflour

Yep, that's toiletries and stuff (well, toothpaste, shampoo etc... if I want new makeup I have to buy that from 'my' money! )

I do it by using my chest freezer a lot - and I've spent the last 2 years figuring out how to do it by quizzing friends of my grandparents generation and reading sites like moneysavingexpert.co.uk (see the 'old style' section).

We make everything from scratch, make our own bread etc. Use the slow cooker, bulk cook and fill the freezer. (i make all our lunches as well - and I'm very lazy so I like to have the freezer full of things like mini pizzas and banana bread and carrot cakes and cooked drumsticks etc. etc. so that in the morning I just grab three things, add a couple of pieces of fruit and i'm done!!).

I used to 'menu plan' which is where you work out what you're going to eat that week before you shop... but tbh I've got the stage now where I don't need to do that anymore.

I use cloth nappies (although we're only using them at night now! hurray!).

We both started to cook this way because we had a year when my dp did his post grad teaching cert and we had a 100k mort (uk) and a baby and I was preg! :scared: once you've managed on 20 quid a week you think 'what was i DOING spending all that money before?! bummer, I wish I'd saved it' and that's what started me off.

I'm not quite as bad as my old neighbour in the UK who would pour any left over boiled water into a thermos for later, eat lots of 'wild' foods (including pheasant and bunny) and go to bed early to save on electricity... but then again they had a beautiful huge house with an acre in Devon with no mortgage even though both of them had only ever worked part time!!! they also now spend half the year in goa, and are coming to NZ next month for a few month's holiday.... actually, writing this, I'm starting to realise just how clever they were!!

good luck! I love discussing saving money on stuff, i'm still useless with money but one day i want to be mortgage free too!

x

southerner

Yeah they would say that!

kwprwn

I found fruit and veges quite pricey when in Melbourne at christmas and this was buying at a vegey shop not a supermarket, strawberries seemed mega expensive for the time of year, $5 for a small tub of them....we were told by the locals that veggies are expensive because of the drought

weres the beer smilie gone???

dlmckay

I'm not as good as soulflour, but I have a budget of $150 to spend at Countdown, $30 to spend in Mad Butcher and $10 in Fruitworld each week. This is what I spent in December...
2-Dec Countdown 131.64
9-Dec Countdown 165.69
16-Dec Countdown 159.88
23-Dec Countdown 133.27
23-Dec Turkey 47.30
23-Dec Countdown 24.64
2-Dec Mad Butcher 47.12
9-Dec Fruit World 22.86

This doesn't include milk however, because I buy that at the local dairy. We feed two adults and three kids (one of whom is a small boy with hollow legs).

soulflour

I sometimes spend $500 a month too - i'm not perfect!!!!

haha haha - so far from it

Nerine

Foodtown has to be the best supermarket round here for choice and quality but I sometimes go up to the shops at Silverdale to buy good quality fruit, vegetables, fish and meat (last two eaten by the others in our household) pet food, nice bread etc.

I'm not partial to Pak n Save (hate having to pack my own shopping ) and find that despite its size there really isn't much variety.

Average week's shopping including food for the pets probably in the region of $180 - $230 but not spent all at once and we might eat out once ot twice a week on top of that, lunches on the weekend for instance. Plus kids' school lunches and after school treats during term time.

My weakness at the moment has to be the delicious large fresh dates which are selling at $9.99 for a good sized box.

thebears

We discovered what looked like rotting meat in Countdown described as "butchers special". The locals were all over it - had to run out.

Didn't find Pack N Save that bad - but we were only after essentials like milk tea and nappies.

Foodtown was where we used to shop but just never around when we suddenly needed - "Nappies" or another bottle of milk. Foodtown in Takapuna was well stocked (even for a Sunday afternoon).

We did stuff ourselves with Banana's (you will have to live in Oz recently to appreciate their worth).

poppets

someone after my own heart, i to cook from scratch, my aim is to do $100 a week but haven't done it yet.

Batty

I did our shopping last week (including delivery) for just under $120 AND that included stuff for our lunches this week too. I'm gobsmacked actually - I even got some cleaning stuff. I actually thought about what I was ordering rather than just clicking on 'specials' willy nilly

pixi-dust

I dont know how much we spend - but it's probably more on the animals than us but we do ( when I say we, I mean my DH) pretty much make everything from scratch - it's the best way! We had home made pizzas last night
( again) and my dad who hates them said they were the best things ever.

We only have a New World where we are ( I have never even been in a foodtown )but an excellent farmers market, veg and fruit places galore and we are growing everything we can, we have a big veggie bit. And bananas
Have to say, though, that we think the standard of things in supermarkets is excellent.

helinuk

I'm still in uk - got gas bill of over £400 today and I only have it on twice a day, altho we did have it on over xmas. P'haps the last bill was very under estimated
Apart from that shock, I am trying to be organised and write a menu plan- then write a shopping list and shop online too so I'm not impulse shopping. I spend less time online than in a shop and its delivered to my kitchen!

are there online home deliveries in NZ?

I cook from scratch too most of the time. (I bake bread with a bread machine)and make pizza dough in it then add topping, so delish' and cheaper than shop bought- no additives either

I'm not concerned by NZ shops lack of pre prepared meals.

Is there a good selection of spices, sauces to make oriental, Asian, Indian food?
Helen

karonious

Is there a good selection of spices, sauces to make oriental, Asian, Indian food?

Here in Hamilton there are several Asian supermarkets - I imagine it would be the same across the country. If they don't have what you want, including fish heads, chicken feet and things I can't even identify, I would be surprised.

dlmckay

It would be cheaper for you to have your CH on a low setting 24 hours a day, than on twice a day.... heating up a house from cold twice daily is expensive! We didn't have expensive gas bills like that and we had the heating on low all day in our 3 bed semi.

Nerine

I'd read that gas prices were on the up in the UK, but as you say the previous one could've been estimated. We used to have ours on twice a day and in a well insulated house that was fine.

We don't have gas in our place here, bills are normally in the region of $100 - $160 for electricity a month depending on time of year.

This covers cooking, an always 'on' water heater (which isn't on a timer as they sometimes are in the UK) underfloor heating (in summer just the bathrooms come on for a few hours early every morning to dry out after showers etc.) lighting etc.

soulflour

Our first online shop came yesterday - it was so sweet, there was a hand written note welcoming me and hoping I had a nice day and apologising for the one item that they didn't have in stock (which I'd already had TWO phone calls about)... and they also gave me a complimentary tube of toothpaste ha ha ha...

i love new zealand!

I ordered from a shop in Whangarei, which is half and hours drive away from us - so it's a real bonus to be able to do that when it's so hot and humid and you'd rather be chilling out than shopping!

Waipu also has great veggie shops and butchers. The only thing I find frustrating is the lack of fish shops - i know this is because EVERYONE round here happily catches and smokes etc. their own fish... but my dp is STILL rubbish at it even though he goes all the time (i think he probably just takes a beer and stares at the water and writes music in his head!) so we only ever have shellfish we can get from the shore! Unless a fisherman takes pity on me, which happens occasionally...

x