Yesterday was Grocery Shopping Day

My baking supply and condiment pantry looking good with full canisters and restocked baking supplies

Yesterday was my monthly shopping day.

I made up my shopping list, using my usual method of deciding what I needed to buy. I went through the pantry, fridge and freezer to see what staples were running low. I like to keep about three months worth of staples on hand all the time, using my shopping day to replace what has been used from the stockpile.

This month I made my shopping list using the Aldi online shopping list. I love that it has the unit price, the item price and adds it all up for me - I know to a cent how much I'm going to spend at Aldi. As I only shop at Aldi and Coles for the bulk of the groceries (and the Coles list only had 3 items on it, easy enough to scribble on the bottom of the printed list) it was really easy.

Off Hannah, AJ and I went. Hannah went to Coles for me while AJ and I whizzed around Aldi.

But this month it wasn't as easy as it normally is.

For a start there were empty spots on the shelves. That meant items I couldn't buy, and that frustrates me no end (and why I love my stockpile - they just get put on the list for next month). Then I noticed that two of the items I wanted had different shelf prices to the price on my printed-just-before-I-left-home shopping list, and those differences were not in my favour.

The items in question by the way were tuna and grated cheese (and yes I know I could buy a block and grate it myself, and I do, this cheese was for a specific purpose). I circled those items on my shopping list and kept them back when we unloaded onto the conveyor.

Before they were scanned I asked the woman on the checkout about the difference in price between the website and the shelf. Now all credit to her, she asked how I knew they were different prices, took my word that I'd printed the shopping list straight off the Aldi smarter shopping website that morning and adjusted the price, all the while apologising for the inconvenience.

She dealt with the problem perfectly and I'm still a devoted Aldi shopper.

My point in mentioning this is check your prices. Whether you get them from your price book or straight from your supermarket website it really does pay to know your prices. If I'd just had a simple shopping list and hadn't bothered to check prices I'd have paid an extra $5.60 on my shopping!

That may not sound like much, but if that happened every month it adds up to $67.20 - almost a week's grocery money!

And in case you are curious (I know some of you are because you email and ask) the Aldi shopping cost $184.27 and the Coles shopping cost $25.63, leaving $110.10 for milk and fruit and veg top ups in August.

We are eating the veggies from our garden and freezer so I'll only need to buy fruit and perhaps potatoes.

I didn’t need to buy meat this month. The freezer is full of meat, chicken and fish bought last month, using the slush fund, when Tasman Meats had some really good specials. There is enough meat in the freezer for three months.

I did restock some groceries we have run down (tomato soup, tuna, baked beans, spaghetti, dishwasher powder) to bring them back up to three months worth in the pantry, using up the meat portion of the grocery budget.

I really enjoy doing the grocery shopping. I get a great deal of satisfaction seeing the canisters full and the shelves stacked with food, knowing that I can feed my family even if things do go pear shaped.