How to Save Money on Your Food Budget

By Allison Dando, Marketing & Communications Manager, Institute of Civil Infrastructure

For a lot of people, times are currently tough! Families are needing to find ways in which they can be thrifty to ensure their very survival, especially with the continued rising costs of living and salaries remaining stagnant. Most would agree, a large chunk of any family’s income goes towards the weekly grocery bill, we are going to provide you some simple ways to change the way you do your groceries and reduce your costs.

When looking around for information about how you can feed your family on a budget, we came across a report¹ on food wastage in Australia and the results of that report had a significant impact when you thought about it over the course of 12 months. It was reported in 2019 that the average Australia household would spend $7,973.50 a year on food, with around 13% or $1,026 of that going to waste². A thousand dollars may not be lifechanging in the immediate future but add that up over the course of your life!

Read on if you would like some strategies on how to save not only on your grocery bill but also on how to use all the food you purchase.

Step 1: You have to plan and prepare. If you do not do this step, you will potentially undo any advantage from the following steps. How do you plan and prepare? Each week, allocate time to sit down and write down the meals you plan to prepare for the coming week. There are a variety of places you can go to for recipe ideas including supermarket websites and free magazines, taste.com.au, Pinterest and bestrecipes.com.au.

Some additional points to consider in this phase include:

1. Check your fridge and pantry and see what meals you can make using what you already have – then only purchase the necessities for that meal.
2. Preparing on one day where you have all appliances going at once – oven, stove, slow cooker, Thermomix – whatever you have. Then dish amongst containers and freeze for during the course of the coming week.
3. Look to use the same recipe a few times through the month to ensure you use up all the ingredients you have purchased, especially if you have bulk bought through the month. Another feature to this is to create freezer friendly meals and then you have a “go to meal” for those nights you don’t feel like cooking.
4. When doing your shop always check the unit price, a lot of the time this one thing can be a big cost saving mechanism and just because something is on sale does not mean that it will be cheaper than other brands on offer.

Note: If you are up for a challenge, try doing this monthly and change your grocery shop to monthly, then only purchasing the staples such as milk and bread in between.

Step 2: Shop online. Once you have the list of items that you require for your meals, do your groceries online – go between the different supermarkets Woolies, Coles, Aldi and Costco and look for who has the best deal. By shopping online, you avoid wondering up and down aisles buying things because they’ve caught your eye.

You can then either opt to have your groceries delivered or select click and collect which is free.

Step 3: Look at alternative options. What we mean by this is to look at different brands, usually households will have a brand preference which has usually passed down from generation to generation. Don’t be afraid to try something different, a lot of foods will now be of similar quality regardless of the brand. Look for what you could buy whole to then turn into the ingredient you are after – for example almond meal is around $50 a kilo but you can buy almonds much cheaper and whizz them up in a food processor, or using stale bread to make bread crumbs.

Step 4 – Fresh produce- there are a number of ways you can reduce your weekly bill. Firstly, look for recipes where the ingredients are all in season, nothing can get the dollar amount up more than if you need to buy imported foods because a particular item is not in season. Secondly, add a veggie garden at home – not only is this cost effective but kids love nothing better than to plant their own seeds and see what grows. Simple things to grow are herbs, tomatoes, corn and cucumbers.

Step 5 – Finally, use left overs for the next days lunch, this will save on lunches being bought and provide more savings.

We would love to know how you go with implementing these steps and how they have saved you time and money. Hit us up at in the feedback section with your success story.

1. source: https://www.rabobank.com.au/savings/2019/11/25/02/16/financial-health-barometer-food-waste-infographic-2019/
2. source: https://www.smh.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/the-real-cost-of-your-weekly-food-bill-20200127-p53v1x.html