Playing the shopping game

I love when you save more than you spend! I’m doing a four-week shop at Woolworths at the moment, spend $30 for 4 weeks to get 4000 bonus points, plus a $90 offer at Coles for 15000 bonus points. The Woolies shop this week was entirely markdowns and half price specials (the WW meals and the Vege Chips were half price in the catalogue). I got meat, pizzas (we ate two for lunch and one is in the freezer), a big bag of coleslaw with dressing, some vegetarian ball things, yogurt, pastries, Parmesan cheese, juice. Spent $30.80, saved $50.76!

Calculated carefully at Coles too, and spent $90.85, saving $50.76. That included staples that weren’t on sale like eggs, milk, plain flour (homebrand) and toilet paper (homebrand), plus more marked down meat and lots of catalogue specials. $43 at Spudshed (strawberries, apples, kiwi fruit, broccoli, kale, bananas, bread, pears, whole watermelon, 1kg of frozen mango, pasta 3 for $2, beef burgers) means we are about $14 over budget but the freezers are absolutely full, and the bonus points will be more than worth it.

One more week of the Woolworths one, two more weeks of the Coles one (next week I’ll buy $30 of phone credit from Coles so that will free up more grocery money), and that’ll get us $95 in rewards points. So far we already have about $350 in Flybuys dollars, plus I have $100 in gift cards on the way from surveys.

Saving it up for February when I have to take unpaid maternity leave. If we get to $600 in rewards dollars/gift cards that’s four weeks of grocery shopping we don’t need to pay for 🙂

Cheesy kale and potato

I forgot to take a photo but I’m blogging this so I don’t forget how to make it!

Ingredients

—

half bunch kale, chopped

4 potatoes, sliced thinly

half brown onion, sliced thinly

1 clove garlic, chopped/crushed

little chicken stock

salt & pepper

oil

handful grated cheese

 

Method

—

Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan, add onion and garlic. Saute until softened. Add potatoes and continue to saute for a minute or two. Add enough chicken stock to deglaze the pan and give some cooking liquid, keep stirring potatoes, making sure they get coated in liquid. Add kale and keep cooking, stirring frequently. When potato is almost soft enough, add cheese and chuck in the oven for five minutes.

 

Yum! This was dinner tonight with some silverbeet and feta triangles that I made yesterday. Super-cheap.

Life stinks sometimes.

I was happily looking forward to a tax refund this year, based on the fact that:

1. My employer until May overpaid me as they pay by the month and I didn’t finish May with them; I obviously repaid the overpayment but it means I was taxed more than I would otherwise have been.
2. I then started a higher-paying job for a month, where they withheld at a rate assuming I’d been getting paid that much all financial year.

So I plugged my figures into MyTax (by the by, it’s an EXCELLENT tool for uncomplicated tax returns) and could not work out why it was saying I OWED the ATO well over $1000. I put my thinking cap on and the only answer seemed to be that my former employer had not been withholding my tax correctly.

Suffice to say, one very pissed-off phone call later, I discover that even though I had ticked on my PAYG withholding declaration that I have a HECS debt (HR confirmed this for me), they had not selected that option on their payroll software, so extra tax wasn’t being withheld for that. NOT HAPPY – I budgeted within what I was getting paid, assuming Payroll were doing it correctly. $2200 in HECS repayments scuppered my tax refund and have left me with a debt that I have no hope of paying off in a lump sum.

Moral of the story: check and double-check! I went straight to my current Payroll person and asked nicely if she could double-check it was correct here (it is). I honestly could have cried though, I’ve been working so hard to live within my means only to discover it wasn’t my means after all!

Add to that a big car repair bill and our joint savings for the council rates in August are also decimated.

I put in the figures and as long as utility bills don’t go over the estimated amount (and since I did that budget, the water bill came in $30 under estimate), we stick STRICTLY to the $150/week grocery budget, and no additional expenses, we will have enough for the rates by August. No takeaway, no household purchases, if the pets need food that will have to come within the grocery budget.

Coles sent me another four-week FlyBuys offer, spend $110 for four weeks to get 10000 points. I’m in two minds, the first week is actually 10 days so we could just skip Coles this week or do very minimal so that we can do a bigger one for the Week 1 shop, but it would only leave us $40 to spend at Spudshed each week.

The freezer is full!

I’m still going with my Woolies gift card, just popping in and picking up markdowns only, got some good stuff this week, especially since I’m not feeling the best at present and therefore not very creative with dinners. Three pizzas from the supermarket still beats takeaway. When we have stuff like the chicken kebabs I just serve with a simple salad or steamed/roast veg so there is still fresh food in there – I just don’t have to think much about it.

This lot cost $166 all up, slightly over budget but M was well under last weekend when I was away, so we’ve had two weeks well under budget. The freezer is really full now, I rearranged and it was a bit like playing Tetris.

Here’s what we got:

The prepacked fruit and veg at Spudshed was:

• big bag of apples $1
• 2 sweetcorn $1
• 2 bunches Chinese greens $1
• 2 heads broccoli $2

Vague meal plan with these goodies/other freezer stocks:

• tonight we’re having a chicken and vegie stir-fry. M froze the chicken breasts in bags of 2 so I’ll poach one for sandwiches/lunches too
• quiche and roast veg – there will be leftovers for lunch
• chicken kebabs, rice and roast veg salad using leftovers from previous night
• hamburgers (vegie burger for Emma)
• chicken schnitzels, potatoes, broccoli
• chorizo/chicken/tomato pasta

I’m having a lot of porridge for breakfast at the moment; really can’t beat it when the weather’s cold.  I just use the recipe from the bag of quick oats: 1/3 cup quick oats, 3/4 cup liquid (I use a little full-cream milk and the rest water). Microwave 1 min, stir, microwave until done to your liking. Add brown sugar to taste.

Cheap but not very frugal …

 

… that’s this week’s shopping. We had to go to the shops with my two stepdaughters as the elder one needed some more clothes that fit her properly. She has a difficult shape to fit. Lucked out with some clearance items at Kmart: a 3/4 sleeve top that’s much longer in the body than most (room for her belly) and because it’s 3/4 sleeve won’t swamp her arms – she’s 9, just under average height for a 9 year old, and wearing a size 14, and a pair of trackpants that I’ve chopped a few inches off the bottom. Since we were at the shops anyway we did the grocery shopping.

There were lots of things we didn’t need this week as we still had plenty – any cleaning/toiletry products (except toilet paper, not in the picture), potatoes, apples, pears, carrots, spinach. The freezer was still pretty full of meat, I just picked up a couple of satay chicken thigh packs half price, and the fake meat was a good price.

Only $102 spent, so well under budget, but the other half picked up a couple of full-price items in the bakery section because, well, children.

There weren’t many good lunchbox items on special apart from the Vege Chips but I still have some in the pantry and can bake if need be. This sort of ‘low’ week is an important part of the grocery shopping cycle for me, no point in spending $150 just because it’s our budget. Staying under this week gives the leeway we need for weeks where we might need a lot, and we also have the council rates to save for.

This week’s meal ideas:

• vegan nachos (bought vege mince marked down last week, so I can just do one lot that the whole family will eat, yay!!)
• satay chicken with rice and steamed greens
• chicken/chik’n tenders with homemade chips/wedges

The kids and I are off to Bali Thursday night so I don’t need very many dinners. Yay!! Hopefully that will mean another small shopping week but I may have to trust M to do the shopping without me!

I also have my last day at my current job on Wednesday so I will bake them some cupcakes – maybe lemon meringue as the lemons on my tree are ripening.

‘Best before’

These are the Brussels sprouts I bought for 80c on Sunday (down from $5), with a best-before date of tomorrow.

I don’t know about you, but they look pretty good to me – nice and bright, firm, no wet bits. On the other hand, I’ve seen fruit and veg not marked down that looked awful – use your eyes and nose, no point buying food that needs to be thrown out. These are perfect and will easily last the rest of the week in a Tupperware FridgeSmart.

Tonight we had a tray of these, cut in half and roasted until crispy. We also had zucchini slice, and spicy lentils – there are easily enough leftovers for work lunches all week.

There were only two of us for dinner tonight, but here’s a cost breakdown:

Brussels sprouts (20c), olive oil, herbs and spices – negligible, always have in pantry.

1 cup dried lentils (50c – my Coles sells these heaps cheaper in the Indian grocery section than in the soup section), 500g sweet potato (90c), 1 brown onion (5c), 1 bunch kale (30c – got 3 for $1 in a markdown bag), rice bran oil, turmeric, garam masala, chilli, salt (always have in pantry) = $1.75

2 zucchini (50c – 4 for $1 in markdown bag), 6 eggs ($2), 1 red onion (10c), 4tbsp flour (negligible), half a chorizo sausage (50c – markdown tray), 100g grated cheese ($1) = $4.10

So, $6.05 plus pantry staples. It was delicious, fed two adults for dinner, and there are at least 6 lunch serves.

 

Just squeezing under budget this week at $148, IF you don’t count the $20 we spent on apples that we picked yesterday – I kind of don’t as that falls under the ‘family outing’ budget, it just comes with the bonus of 10kg of delicious fresh Sundowner apples. More about that later.

The $16 at Woolies is also kind of free money – I got a $100 gift card from my credit card rewards points (no annual fee, never pay any interest), but I don’t want to do my weekly shop there, so decided I’d pop in whenever I have time and just shop for markdowns. No photos today as I got home at lunchtime and everyone wanted lunch!

Woolies didn’t have any meat markdowns that I wanted but lots of others:

• 4 meat pies for $3.50 down from $5.99
• a 400g tub of green beans for $1, down from $4.98
• 500g of brussels sprouts for 80c (I love them roasted)
• sliced mushrooms $2.12 down from $5.30
• 24 cookies for $2 down from $5
• 1kg of ‘odd bunch’ avocadoes for $4.90, avos have been way out of our budget lately
• a My Little Pony toy for $2 down from $10, which will go in the present drawer.

I had a FlyBuys voucher for bonus points if I spent $90 and managed – without adding up – to spend $90.37! Also used bonus vouchers for buying Coles frozen veg and mini marshmallows.

All the meat at Coles was half price or better:

• 600g of chuck steak for $1.75 (75% off)
• 2x500g Mt Barker red thai curry chicken steaks $4.95 each (my kids’ favourite)
• 2 trays of rissoles
• a tray of chorizo sausages

The two younger kids and I went to the footy this afternoon so the chocolate milks, chips, lollies and some of the biscuits were for that. The $1 bags at Spudshed were 2 bunches of kale, and 4 zucchinis. Zucchini slice with chorizo will be tomorrow evening’s dinner, beyond that I haven’t really thought. Maybe a slow-cooker casserole with the chuck steak and mushrooms?

 

Home-made Cornish pasties

Most Cornish pasty recipes involve raw meat, but I remember them from my childhood as a way to use up leftover roast meat. I used leftover butterflied lamb from the slow cooker, shredded.

Just make a batch of basic shortcrust pastry – my recipe is 100g chilled butter, 200g plain flour, bit of salt, 50g cold water. Pop it in the fridge and make filling while it chills.

Saute a chopped leek in some oil – because I got leeks cheap the other week, otherwise use onion. Add diced carrot and potato and cook until just starting to soften. Mix through the meat. I added a little silverbeet from the garden too, to make them a bit healthier. Season with salt and pepper (plenty of pepper!).

Roll the pastry out thin, and cut circles – our cereal bowls worked perfectly – re-rolling to make as many circles as possible. Place filling in the middle of the circle and crimp/roll the edges. Brush with egg wash. Place on a baking tray and baked in a preheated oven at 180-200 Celsius.

These have been my work lunches this week – super easy, delicious and filling. I don’t understand buying frozen shortcrust pastry at all; puff yes but shortcrust is so easy.

This week’s dinners have been:

Monday – Cornish pasties

Tuesday – frozen fish (bought half price this week) with homemade chips and broccoli

Wednesday – frozen pizzas (bought cheaply 2 weeks ago, for nights like this where I couldn’t be bothered), homemade garlic bread

Thursday – chicken chow mein-style meal (500g of chicken mince bought at half-price $3.23, frozen peas, onion, broccoli, curry powder and a flavouring sachet from chicken 2-minute noodles, with rice, fed 5 of us for around $5 and the kids loved it. Bit bland for me so I just added some chilli sauce).

It’s been a stressful week with work so a couple of lazy meals snuck in there, but still better than takeaway.

Under budget this week!

Bit of a smaller shop this week. We still have quite a lot of vegies from last week and winter fruit gets more boring so the kids don’t eat as much of it (we still have some oranges and green apples).

It  was the last week of having to spend $110/week to get 15000 bonus FlyBuys points (which will equal $75 off our shopping when we choose to use it), I also had a voucher from last week’s receipt for 1000 bonus points if I spent $120, and a voucher that came in the mail for triple points if I spent over $70. So this $123 shop will be 1369 FlyBuys points plus triggering the 15000 points.

I bought $10 pyjamas – Mother’s Day is the best time to buy women’s PJs – which I paid for with a $10 gift card from doing surveys. In addition to this $113 we spent $4 at the fruit and veg shop (broccoli, capsicum, pears) and $1 at the bakery, so under $120 from the grocery budget.

The meat was all half price – the cheap BBQ sausages aren’t great for us but make a nice easy meal that the kids like and at $4/tray each meal will only cost us $2 (of meat) for the 6 meat-eaters. The Old El Paso chili con carne ($3) we had for dinner tonight just the two of us, with brown rice & peas and corn. It was okay, wouldn’t pay full price for it. The lamb is in the slowcooker now for meals through the week.

$2 for 2L of choc milk which will get frozen and made into choc milk slushies in the Thermomix – the kids and I love this. The freezer is pretty full now and the pantry is stocked up with baking supplies and lunchbox snacks so next week should be a small shop, probably just Spudshed for fruit, vegies, milk, bread and a couple of other things.

Over the next few weeks I will have the $75 in FlyBuys $$, a $100 Woolies gift card  I got with my credit card points – I pay in full every month and pay no annual fee so the rewards are a bonus – and another $20 Coles gift card from a survey site, so that will help us save more towards the council rates due in August.

Got cucumber that needs using up, olives in the fridge and a bit of feta with this week’s shop so I think tomorrow night I’ll serve some of the lamb with a Greek-style salad. Other than that I am still thinking about the week’s meals!

This week’s food shopping

Oh no, we went $10 over budget again! Ran around like a chicken with its head cut off at Coles just before they closed so we could get up to the $110 spend for FlyBuys, but probably should’ve just got milk, bread & eggs there to save buying them at Spudshed. However, I stocked up on laundry liquid (half price) and dishwasher powder (the Coles brand does as good a job as the more expensive stuff, in my experience) instead, so it will all get used.

Here’s the haul:

Receipts:

 

Scored 1kg bags of bananas at 49c each again to restock the freezer. The week’s shop also includes:

• 1kg chicken breast (full price at $8.99/kg)
• one pack chicken schnitzels marked down to $4.89, still quite expensive but was our Sunday dinner treat and I’ve saved some of mine to have in a salad for lunch tomorrow
• 5kg carrots
• 3kg potatoes (we can go through this in a week)
• 2 frozen pizzas for a lazy night, at $3.25 for one (half price at Coles) and $1.99 for the other from Spudshed
• laundry liquid half price
• HEAPS of half price lunchbox items – GrainWaves, Vege chips, LCMs, vegan muesli bars. These will definitely last more than one week
• chia seeds at $8.45 – expensive but a good egg replacer and a good protein source for Miss 13
• 2 packs of Fry’s vegan thingys for Miss 13, again this will last at least a few weeks as I don’t like her eating soy meat replacements every night, but they were on special and rarely are
• frozen dumplings & spring rolls half-price – good to have in the freezer, never buy at full price
• half price Rice Bubbles – a staple cereal in our house and the real ones are preferred to the Coles brand. We’re not finished the previous box yet but will put this away so we don’t have to buy Coles brand next time
• Almond milk, again I still have some in the cupboard but I buy one any time it comes on a good special as Miss 13 prefers this brand
• pack of pads marked down to $2 (I mostly use reuseable but sometimes use disposable and Miss 13 only uses disposables. I foresee a time in the future where I may as well buy shares in Kotex when the younger three girls start menstruating!!)
• 3 leeks for $2
• 2 bunches of kale for $1
• 4 zucchinis for $1
• 3 burpless cucumbers for $1
• some fancy mushrooms, $2, for a stir-fry tomorrow night
• 4 bunches Chinese vegies, $1, for the stir-fry

I probably could save even more by avoiding some of the packaged items, however as we both work full time the trade-off is less time to cook. So when I buy packaged items, I buy the brands we like, but only when they’re on special. By being organised we rarely have to pay full price for them.