I got my annual visa summary from the bank the other day, which breaks down how much we spent on food and groceries over the last year. To say I was in shock is an understatement! $50 here and $80 there doesn’t seem huge at the time but over 12 months it’s massive!

After the cost of housing, for most of us food is our next biggest expense. According to a study by the University of Otago it costs as much as $100 a week to give one NZ adult a balanced diet (less for kids naturally).

So a family with 2 adults, a teenage boy (who costs more to feed than an adult male according to this study, and probably seconded by every mother of a teenage boy ever) and a younger child could spend between $247 for a ‘basic’ diet and $394 for a ‘liberal’ diet.

Sadly in NZ (and all over the world) people must manage on far less than this. In the US celebrities such as Gwynth Paltrow having been taking part in the ‘food stamp challenge’, where they aim to survive on just $29 for a week’s worth of food (approx. NZ$38.50), which is how much people in their SNAP (formerly food stamps) programme receive. (She failed miserably by the way, seriously who buys limes when they have $29 for the week?!).

So having had the shock of my life I’ve resolved to do better when it comes to my spend on the grocery shop. Here are some things that I am going to do to try and keep the grocery spending down:

• Never go shopping on an empty stomach (this applies more to my husband than me, he is terrible for getting lots of little ‘extras’)
• Always have a list and never go shopping with less than 10 things on the list, because seriously, who has ever made it out of the supermarket with just milk?
• Buy online – this will help me stick to my list and not get tempted by the specials and extras, plus it will save me time and preserve my sanity since I wont have to drag a toddler around with me. If I use the click and collect service at Countdown I wont have delivery fees either.
• Buy in bulk and buy multiples of things that are on a really good special. It will be more expensive on the week I do it on but over 12 months it should work out cheaper.
• Buy own-brand supermarket goods. I already buy a lot of own-brand items (like flour and sugar etc) but I’m going to start looking at other own-brand items to see how the quality and cost compares.
• myfoodbag. We currently do myfoodbag which sounds like it would be the expensive option but for our family (it’s just the three of us, 2 adults, 1 kid) it works out great because a 5 meal food bag lasts us for 10 meals and because I have the recipes I know I’m going to use everything so there is very little wastage, especially of fruit and vege.

This post was first published on Nested, republished with permission.