Eating well on a budget…
Our average weekly grocery bill is about 200, which is about $10,000 a year, ever since I started working full time with Little Panda, I tried to only go shopping once a week and in general form Coles. The grocery bill also includes the toiletries and household cleaning products.
According to CHOICE website, if you are willing to forgo brands that you are familiar with, you could potentially be saving 50% of your grocery bill. For the next 2 weeks I set myself a challenge to shop primarily from ALDI and I will report back if ALDI is the way to go 🙂
Feedbak after shopping at ALDI
- My average shopping bill from ALDI is about $100 dollars per week. It is a significant saving to the weekly shopping bill compared to shopping at Coles or Woolworths.
- We cook a lot of seafood and Asian based dishes which ALDI does not stock much variety of these. For more choices I often go to a fish monger and Asian grocery store just for these items, which is a bit painful and I end up still having to spend another $20 dollars a week for this.
- The Lack of fruit variety. I really love good quality fruits and ALDI fruits are a bit hit and miss! The range and freshness of them can be hard to get often at all stores.
What is my take? As much as I would like to save as much as possible in order to get FIREd, I think I still prefer to shop from Coles or some of my local farmer market and I figured so long that I cut down the budget for dining out, I would continue to shop at my local shops. Plus, eventually once I achieved FIRE, I have all the time to go to different shops for the best deal in town.
The FIRE Panda Family 