Monthly Food Shop
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Category: General Chat
Forum Name: General Chat
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URL: https://www.ohbaby.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=42672
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Topic: Monthly Food Shop
Posted By: sem
Subject: Monthly Food Shop
Date Posted: 07 October 2012 at 5:52pm
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I've decided to give this another go. Does anybody else on here do this and manages well? Does it actually save money? My plan is do get a monthly shop at PNS, local butcher and fish shop done. I will buy fresh fruit and vege on a weekly basis from Fruitworld, get milk and eggs from a lady up the road and make my own bread, yoghurt and some other basic dairy products I've made a very simple meal plan based on us cooking 5 meals a week. We try to eat one of each of these per week: chicken, red meat, pork, fish and vegetarian. After last weeks shop I have 14 portions of meat and fish in the freezer. It will be interesting to see how it goes. ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way! 
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Replies:
Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 07 October 2012 at 6:53pm
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I am interested to see how it works for you. I have spent time this weekend trying to do a shopping list with a fortnight meal plan & am also trying to cut the budget or at least stay in it. After writing out the list I now see why I can not stick to it. Will the monthly shop save you $ & will you do a monthly meal plan. I find I am seriously over spending if I don't plan & do extra shops for those little things I shop at pns & will try the new veg shop that has just opened up the road. |
Posted By: MrsEmma
Date Posted: 07 October 2012 at 7:16pm
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We do our shopping monthly and have done for over a year now and it's great. I do online shopping with Countdown so that helps again with not impulse buying as I just stick to my list. We buy bread, milk and veges from a fruit shop across the road and very rarely have to go into Countdown to pick up extras as I meal plan for the month before I shop. I recommend it, I used to be reeeeeally bad at calling in for one or two things and coming out $80 lighter each week lol. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 07 October 2012 at 10:52pm
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my husband gets paid monthly and has done for years now and i just cant get my head round the monthly shop. I even got a chest freezer but still never seem to buy more than a fortnights worth at a time. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker"> 
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Posted By: pumpkino
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 8:44am
Me too - that's why monthly shopping didn't work for us. We don't have a grocer nearby, or anywhere else to buy things like milk & bread, so have no choice but to go to the supermarket for them each week. I inevitably ended up buying other stuff (eg if something was on special I would rationalise by telling myself I was saving money in the long run) and blowing the budget. So we went back to weekly shopping and I am not allowed to buy ANYTHING in between shops, lol. I meal plan and make a shopping list that I stick to religiously. Overall we actually saved money compared to trying to do a fortnightly/monthly shop with topups inbetween. However, you no doubt have greater willpower than me (wouldn't be hard!) so will probably work for you. Do let us know how you find it - might inspire me to have another go! ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker"> 
Created by MyFitnessPal.com |
MrsEmma wrote:Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 10:04am
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I think the reason why I pop in or don't get everything I need in week one is so I can see what is on special...it would be ok if I stuck to my list I guess. We are a family of 5 & I budget $400 a fortnight on paper but never stick to it, maybe its too unrealistic.. |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 10:25am
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I was wondering about the specials which you'd be missing out on when only shopping once a month. Especially the fuel savings to you get with PNS.
Jazzy your grocery budget works out to be $40 per person per week. That doesn't sound like a lot. We are a family of 3 and our budget works out to be approx $60 per person per week.
------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: sbeach
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 10:30am
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We did monthly shops when down to one income when I was off with DD and will start them again soon when my PPL runs out this time round. DH gets paid monthly so it is just easier to budget. We use 10 meals and just times the menu by 3 to get a monthly menu... We buy everything but milk and fruit and veg... Buy meat and bread monthly and freeze it, dont eat a lot of bread so have in freezer normally anyway...If we hit sales on meat at pak n save we save heaps!!! We budget $400 a month at the supermarket and up to $50 a week for fruit veg and milk, which is a lot and we hardly ever spend that much... My only worry is that it takes two trolleys to buy and now we will have to wrangle two kids this time round... Be interesting to hear how others do it... Takes a lot of planning! ------------- http://lilypie.com" rel="nofollow">  http://lilypie.com" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Kellz
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 10:35am
| We spend way way too much on food- maybe cutting back to fornightly shopping would help, cant imagine only shopping monthly! |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 10:36am
------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 11:11am
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Do you add non food items in your budget? How much does everyone else spend... Going through my list now I know why it never adds up, even when I don't need everything. DH said this morning I should just do a full fortnight shop & see how much everything comes to. |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 11:40am
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Yes I also include items like washing powder, soap and shower gel.
My last shop at PNS came to $130, it included mainly pantry stables such as flour, oil, tomato sauce/paste, pasta, rice etc.
The butcher and fish shope came to $150 which gave me 14 portions/meals.
Milk and eggs are $64 a month, fruit and vege I will budget for $160 per month. So this totals to $500 per month which is very very low and I doubt it will last us. But I will track our grocery spending over the next 3 months to get an average and see how we go.
------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 12:26pm
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wow you are all so good. I have no idea how much i spend a month on the groceries. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 12:30pm
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Bizzy, one of the reasons I want to change to monthly is so I can keep better track of how much I spend!
DH gets paid monthtly and we have recently changed to a revolving credit mortgage (what a nightmare - off topic but does anybody else do this? How do you manage? I find it so hard getting my head around it) so ideally I like to have a few transactions as possible. ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 12:34pm
Unfortunately I do cause I went through bank statements & it was at least double+ than my $400 budget  & that is why I need to trim it big time...Do you have a budget or just buy what ever... I'd love to do that lol 
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Posted By: pumpkino
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 12:36pm
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We are a family of four and I *try* to spend only $60 per person per week. That includes everything - fresh fruit & veg, meat, toiletries, cleaning stuff, nappies etc. Having two kids in nappies is a bit of a killer. re online shopping, dummy shops etc - I did this experiment a couple of weeks ago. I had been getting deliveries from Woolworths (Countdown doesn't deliver to us but Woolworths does) but only things that were on special, and getting the rest from New World. I was considering switching to PNS which is a bit further away so would need to be cheaper to justify the extra time/petrol etc. I am a bit of a nerd so I had this spreadsheet which had my usual shopping list on it with the prices I would pay at Woolworths and New World, and went to PNS to do a comparison, with DS2 in the pram. Within 5 minutes I was approached by a manager who asked me whether I was "price surveying". For some reason I took leave of my senses and said yes. I was stupidly proud of my wee spreadsheet and my mission and thought he was going to congratulate me on my organisation and perhaps hold me up as a paragon of budgeting to other customers (I know, laugh it up). I hadn't really given what I was doing a name in my head but "price surveying" sounded about right so I proudly said "why yes, yes I am" and started to show him my cool/geeky spreadsheet. He nearly threw me out of PNS!! He was all "we don't allow price surveying here" and asked me who I was working for (just like in a spy movie, lol). He looked mega confused when I said "me" and I could almost see the cogs turning in his head as he tried to work out where I was on the crazy spectrum. When he clicked that I was just a nerdy/bored SAHM his attitude changed and he started explaining why PNS would always be cheaper than its competitors etc etc. ANYWAY one of the things he said is that in addition to the delivery fees at Countdown/Woolworths for online shopping, the online prices are often a bit more expensive than instore. Now obviously he is working for the competition but I doubt he would outright lie like that - would be worth checking out before changing completely to online shopping. And if you're going to do a dummy run at PNS be more discreet than I was or expect to have to explain yourself! ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 1:04pm
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OMG pumpkino that is so funny ha ha, love it. You have given me an idea  I am going to do my list online at countdown to get a price check there & then when I do my shop this week will see the difference & see how far off $400 I am.here is the countdown shop if anyone wants it http://www.countdown.co.nz/" rel="nofollow - countdown |
Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 3:31pm
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i dont have a budget for food... i know how much i expect or want to spend though. Meat seems to be my biggest problem. I dont do chicken unless it is free range (apart from the fact it tastes nicer) and it is the same for bacon, has to be free farmed. i only do free range eggs as well and when i buy nuggets for the kids they are only ingham - cause they have a higher percentage of actual chicken in them. I also dont do sealord products and wont buy fish previouly frozen. I also dont buy Chinese garlic and try to get NZ grown fruit and veges. Bit fussy i am. I think the other thing i have the biggest problem with is breakfast cereal. I hate how much they charge for something we need. I dont do coloured cereals so no fruit loops and such but i try and get the kids a "treat" cereal occasionally like the chocolate O's or something similar. My husband doesnt like weetbix or rice bubbles and after spending so long convincing him to eat breafast i feel i should buy him something he likes too lol! So sometimes i have four cereals in my trolley - weetibx, cornflakes, Choc O's and maybe Just right (but only if it is on special). ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 3:33pm
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Oh dear Pumpkino, i wonder who was more confused?! lol ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 6:05pm
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Ok, so I have just used my PNS docket and 'bought' the exact same products at Countdown online. PNS $127.55 Countdown $139.74 plus $13.25 for delivery. I think I will stick to my monthly PNS trips for now! Bizzy, I am quite similar to you in the way I shop and what we eat. I only buy free range meat and eggs and get fish from the local fish monger. I occasionally buy weetbix and standard cornflakes for DH. Normally I just buy oats to make my own muesli. ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 7:20pm
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I'm getting inspired to try the monthly shop idea again. I know i should do meal plans but i am not very good at forward planning that much. But if i break it down into one week then duplicate four times i should be okay. Cause at the moment we usually have one mince meal a week, a chicken or pork one and one night of nuggets etc. One of my kids is a vegetarian though and that some times makes things difficult. Might have to clean out the cupboards though and make room to store some stuff. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: Kellz
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:43am
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We plan our meals for the week and shop each Sunday. But lately Ive been popping to the shops inbtween our weekly shop for extras. Since the beginning of last term I dramatically cut back on snack types foods I was getting for the kids lunches, after reading another post on here. We seem to be getting more of these again tho. Bizzy- we spend heaps on cereal too - usually 3-4 boxes a week. I cant remember who said they spend $60 a week per person, but thats about how much we end up spending too. That includes everything tho, but not the takeaways or coffees out we get. Really need to reduce that ammount for when we back to one income when the next baby is born. |
Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 11:13am
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I have completely changed my kids lunch boxes so now they have sandwiches/buns/wrap, at least 2x fruit, raw veg, home baking & pop corn that I do. Before I was buying heaps of packet stuff which made it easier but with 3 kids it was getting too expensive & not good for them & now that I don't have that stuff in the house they don't ask for it. DH agrees with the $60pp & I spend way more than that but budget way less so working on that. I am trying to cost out a month & also need to store the extra & not go crazy & eat more so it doesn't last. |
Posted By: Kellz
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 11:55am
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Yeah I dont feel like we have room to store a months worth of food- and dont want to get a chest freezer. We are not as good as u with school lunches yet, stick buy one packet of snack stuff a weeks, and plain crackers, but have made a big improvement! |
Posted By: skiltz
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 7:24pm
| How do you people keep track of what you've spent? In a spreadsheet?? |
Posted By: pumpkino
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:04pm
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Yep, I love me some spreadsheets :) I used to be incredibly nerdy and break it down by category like meat, fruit & veg, cleaning products etc but don't have time for that anymore. It was useful to see not only how much we were spending but also what we were spending it on - so we knew where we needed to make cuts when we were a bit short. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
Created by MyFitnessPal.com |
Posted By: skiltz
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:09pm
| I really wish everytime I swiped my onecard I could logon to countdown.co.nz and they would have all the info broken down for me... Seems like they love to collect our data but don't want to share our own data with us... Guess they don't really want us to know :) |
Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:21pm
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I'm a list person, love writing them & doing spreadsheets. I went thought my online bank statements for a fortnight & wrote down the date, amount & where the money was spent like pns, countdown, veg shop, DH's lunches etc, then I colour coded them & added them up & found out how much was spent at the separate stores. I did this going back several months & it shows that we spend nearly double what we should be IMO. |
Posted By: jazzy
Date Posted: 09 October 2012 at 8:29pm
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So true on their data collection, I was doing an online list to see the prices & it had my favs as things I had bought now & then. I am interested to compare the prices at pns when I shop, so looking forward to see a savings fingers x'd. |
Posted By: SMoody
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 8:15pm
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I know exactly what we spent on food and I must say it is a lot more than the amounts been said here. All up every month we budget $1000 and that gets put into a seperate account. That include all food, fruit and veg, in between shops, animal food (2 cats and one dog on not the cheapest food as well as wet food), toiletries as well as unexpected birthday gifts for parties. Everything is colorant free. Extra milk as Andrew is lactose intolerant. Where we can we buy free range chicken. We do spent a lot on fruit. My kids eat a minimum of 3 fruits a day. this also includes Take Away if we dont want to cook but that is a max of once a month (but only about every third or fourth month) Would love to know how others keep it so low. We however dont do cheap sausuges and things like that. ------------- http://lilypie.com"> 
http://lilypie.com"> 
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Posted By: AandCsmum
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 8:32pm
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Hmmm I might see how much we spent. I've just done our meat shop  $900 later  but it is a whole freezer full!------------- Kel http://lilypie.com"> 
A = 01.02.04 & C = 16.01.09 & G = 30.03.12 |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 8:49pm
We don't include takeaways and birthday presents in my budget. We only have one cat so that food doesn't count for much either. Kel, I'd LOVE to get my hands on homekill and avoid supermarkets/butchers for meat but we can't fit a decent size freezer anywhere so unfortunately this isn't an option for us atm. Out of interest though, how long does that last you and what do you get for $900? Does that include the beast and the butchering?
------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: AandCsmum
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 9:38pm
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I told DH that it better bloody last us at least 18 weeks cause that makes it $50 a week! I think it usually lasts way longer than that for some of it. The whole beast was $700 & then $500 I think for everything else. Works out at $5.48 a kilo approx. This is everything from Mince right up to fillet steak We were lucky a few years ago now we were given an upright freezer so everything is super easy to get too. Now just to meal plan the rest of the month I do buy milk from the farm gate too so that is cheaper than at the supermarkets & not far out of my way when I drop A to school. ------------- Kel http://lilypie.com">
A = 01.02.04 & C = 16.01.09 & G = 30.03.12 |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 9:41pm
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Of course - an upright freezer! Why haven't I thought of that one yet?? Must go and have a look into this again. I have too just started to buy milk from the farm gate, at $2 a liter it isn't cheaper than the supermarket but that wasn't my motivation to buy it anyway. It's all the things I can do with the milk that get excited about lol! ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: AandCsmum
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 9:46pm
Ahhh ok, we're paying $1.50 for ours. It's raw & full cream so am KEEN to try and make butter as well  ------------- Kel http://lilypie.com">
A = 01.02.04 & C = 16.01.09 & G = 30.03.12 |
Posted By: sem
Date Posted: 11 October 2012 at 9:50pm
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Yeah I love the cream on top. I buy 5l of milk a week and get more than enough cream of it. So I figure in the long run it does work out cheaper for us. Be keen to hear how you get on with the butter. I haven't gone there yet but did see a recipe the other day. ------------- Here we go again, another baby on it's way!
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Posted By: pumpkino
Date Posted: 12 October 2012 at 8:40am
Actually I don't think you do spend more - if anything it sounds like you do better than I do. Your $1000 a month works out to about $250 a week which is approximately my weekly budget for two adults and two pre-schoolers (and works out to be about $60 per person per week). I don't know how many children you have but it sounds like at least two, plus you have animals to feed which we don't. Also my budget doesn't include birthday presents or the occasional takeaway (which we have more than you by the sounds of it, about once a fortnight but only DH & I have it, for date night!). So you are in fact definitely doing better than me, and if you have more than two children you're doing extremely well!! I'm so jealous of you girls that have chest/upright freezers. We have very limited storage space and I'm now realising that I could never really do a monthly shop arrangement as I wouldn't have enough room for all the food. Also how do you fit it all in a trolley at the supermarket? Does DH have to go with you and do two trolleys - plus kids??? At the moment I do the shop on a Saturday morning while DH stays home with the kids. He would HATE having to come with me and push a trolley around and with the boys I know it would take a lot longer (plus I would probably get bullied into putting extra treats in the trolley to keep the peace!). ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 12 October 2012 at 10:21am
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well i have gone through our bank statements for the last 3 months and it averages out at about $1000 a month including cafe visits and fruit and veg and takeaways. We are a family of five with 2 cats and i don't think that is too bad at all. So Smoody i think your budget is pretty good. ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: SMoody
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 9:57am
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Yip have two kids, One in school and another preschooler. (BTW on birthday gifts for others, I look around all the time and when I find something really nice and crafty I buy a few of them and just put it in a gift box for when we need it) Normally it comes to under $10 but on average about $6 and people think that I spent about $20 on the gift but got it on sales. So not much of it is on gifts for other kids or anything. If we get guests over from South Africa then it will increase to another 100 dollars over that but it is normally for extra stuff they eat that we dont normally have. Like fizzy drinks. ------------- http://lilypie.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: AandCsmum
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 2:38pm
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I must go through and see what we actually spend...avoiding doing it though lol ------------- Kel http://lilypie.com">
A = 01.02.04 & C = 16.01.09 & G = 30.03.12 |
Posted By: Bizzy
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 5:38pm
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Does anyone here use New World as their main grocery shop? ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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Posted By: SMoody
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 5:52pm
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Bizzy at Waiuku we only have a New World. I however drive twice a week to Pukekohe for the kids swimming and rather shop at PaknSave over there as I come out a lot cheaper there. On average it is about $50 cheaper for me to get the stuff at PaknSave and the one fruit shop there than what it is to do the shop at New World over here. ------------- http://lilypie.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: SMoody
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 5:54pm
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Just as comparison. We had friends from South Africa that came over to check lifestyle out etc to see if they will come out with the salary package he was offered (in hubby's team). They did a mock shop at New World, Countdown online and then PaknSave for the exact same items (sometimes a different brand if they could not find the same stuff). They came out a lot cheaper at PaknSave by $200 for the whole month shopping compare to the other two. ------------- http://lilypie.com">
http://lilypie.com">
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Posted By: AandCsmum
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 11:19pm
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I have shopped at all three & I've found no difference. It is cause I won't compromise on brand cause of ingredience/preference, those things seem to be a much of a muchness ------------- Kel http://lilypie.com">
A = 01.02.04 & C = 16.01.09 & G = 30.03.12 |
Posted By: pumpkino
Date Posted: 14 October 2012 at 8:25am
I did until about three weeks ago when I switched to Pak N Save, which is a bit further away than New World from our house. I didn't think there was a difference (or at least, enough of a difference to warrant a switch) which is why I stuck with NW since we moved here two years ago. BUT I have found a BIG difference in the last couple of weeks. There are still a couple of things I get from NW because PNS doesn't stock them (or at least not the brand I want) but it's easy to stop in on the way home from PNS. I have been really surprised that the fresh fruit and veg are quite a bit cheaper at PNS despite being exactly the same product in terms of quality. Also there are some things that I'm not fussy about re brand like rice and pasta - those are a lot cheaper at PNS as well. Also herbs and spices are cheaper at PNS, as well as a bunch of other things I frequently buy. Nappies are generally cheaper too, particularly when PNS does a special. I would say it has been saving us at least $25 pw or $100 per month. It is a bit of a bummer not collecting Fly Buys but at least PNS also does the petrol vouchers (at our one, anyway). ------------- http://www.myfitnesspal.com/weight-loss-ticker">
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