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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
Is anyone else in sticker shock? 9.99 for 18 eggs, 6.00 for a gallon of milk., 4.99 for bread ... What are you paying for basic food supplies? ~ "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  The interest rates on my mortgage have just gone up astronomically. My monthly mortgage payment has gone up by more than $1,000 (US$650) per month. Which means I can't be lackadaisical about the budget any longer. To answer the specific question posted by the prompt, we're currently paying these prices: Eggs: $9.50 for 18 (that's US$6.14) Milk: $5.79 for what is approx a gallon (3L) (that's US$3.74) Bread: Probably an average of $3 or $3.50 per loaf but with quite a range (that's about US$2). I'm really surprised that our food prices are lower than what you're experiencing. I thought NZ generally had high food prices. That is very interesting indeed. I've set a grocery budget and last night Steve and I sat the kids down and explained to them that we were on a limited grocery budget. For them, that means less treats, but it also means they need to be more thoughtful about how they eat. Instead of consuming high quantities of 'snack foods' which they tend to do, they need to fill up on cheaper, more filling foods and have snacks less often. I've been doing some googling, as I do, to help make this period of limited financial resources easier to cope with. Some of the tips were really helpful and I'm going to try and utilise them.  Shop from your pantry and freezer first. To this end, I spent the weekend clearing out and restocking my pantry.    It's still a work in progress because I need more labels and more jars, plus we have surplus for some of the jars. For instance, we don't have a large jar for flour, and even if we did, we have way too much flour to fit in the jar. It's a good start though, and now I can see what we have. Doing this helped me see that we have plenty of baking supplies in particular. I still need to empty and sort through the chest freezer, which I might do next weekend.  Make meal plans. This is something that I started doing to help me with my weight loss, and it definitely makes a different to your grocery bill. I'm good at making the meal plan but useless at sticking to it though, which sometimes means I buy ingredients that I don't end up using. But last week we made five of the seven dinners on my meal plan, so that was pretty good. One night we went out for dinner (our 20th wedding anniversary) and one night we ate leftovers. Deviating from the plan isn't going to be an option going forwards really. My hope is that we can be a little bit flexible, in that we don't have to have A on Monday night, B on Tuesday night, etc., but each day can say 'What do we want tonight? We have a choice of A, B, C, etc. That way we're using our meal plan like a menu. A bit of flexibility without the waste. Shop with a list. For sure, and if you've done a meal plan, the list is easy. But I think the real secret is to shop online. That way you aren't tempted by extras, plus you maintain control of the dollars as you go. If you go over your budget, it's easy to take a few unnecessary items out of your cart, as opposed to in real life when you're at the checkout and all flustered about having to put things back that have already been scanned and packed into bags. Don't buy baked goods or ready-to-consume meals that you can make at home. When you're short of time, but not so short on money, convenience becomes hugely valuable. You buy things that are ready-made, rather than making them yourself because you're more worried about saving time rather than money. But right now, money is more scarce than time for me, so I need to go back to basics. I found 3 boxes of white bread mix, 2 packets of mixed grain bread mix, a packet of scone mix and a packet and a half of muffin mix in my pantry... And that doesn't even include all the flour, plus the dried fruits, nuts and seeds. So we could definitely be making our own bread, muffins, cakes, slices, bars, etc. And we need to start doing that. I mentioned that in our meeting with the kids last night, and Caitie's eyes lit up when I mentioned cakes. She was like 'Ooh, if I can make cakes, being on a budget doesn't need to suck so much!' Jayden, on the other hand, went 'Ingredients? Oh god.' He hates cooking. But after his time living on his own, he definitely understands grocery budgets better than he did before, and he was on the same page. He didn't like it, but he was on the same page, which is great. Buy in bulk. This is an interesting one. Because it doesn't just mean going to Costco or similar and buying the BIG bags of laundry powder, rice, whatever. I mean, yes, I should make use of those options when I can (you can probably see in my photos that I recently bought a pack of 12 boxes of almond milk at Costco because we use almond milk all the time, it doesn't go off, and it was cheaper than buying individual boxes. And yes, bulk meat is often cheaper and we have a chest freezer so that's an option for us. But it's also about not buying individually portioned things. Like, during winter I like to have porridge for breakfast, so I buy a box with individual portions of porridge inside. It would be MUCH cheaper to buy the rolled oats (which I actually already have in the pantry) and portion them out into reusable bags myself. I'd save so much money just doing that. So it's tricks like that too. The more 'bulk' something is, and the less packaging per portion, the cheaper it is. My pantry may look large to you, depending on what your own pantry space looks like, but I don't have the storage room for bulk shelf-stable products. I have a chest freezer and can make use of that, but not for dry goods. You may remember that during lockdown I started squirreling away supplies and I used Jayden's empty bedroom to store them in. Well, he's living back at home now, so that's not an option for me any more. But where it is possible, that's a good tip.I also need to start shopping at our local farmers' market again because while the produce might not be as pretty and perfect as the stuff we find in the supermarket, it's cheaper. And I don't really want to skimp on fresh fruits and vegetables, even though I know that they and fresh meat are where the highest costs are. So farmers' markets are the way to go I think. And I need to buy the fruits and vegetables that are in season. I'm pretty good at that (these days). And yes, I need to think about how we can go meat-free more often. We rarely eat meat-free meals, and if we could do so more often, that would make a different to our grocery costs. I'll have to experiment and find some meat-free meals we like. I know I can do a meat-free risotto and a meat-free fried rice that everyone will eat, so that's a start, but I need to find more options. Steve likes curries and I know there are loads of meat-free curry recipes out there, so I'll experiment until I find something he approves of. Do you have any tips for saving money on groceries? Share them in the comments! |
| I read 169 books in 2022. My goal was 120. Longest book: Heart of the High King by Jessamyn Kingley (530 pages) Shortest book: How Much For The Whole Night by RJ Scott (14 pages) Average book length: 262 pages My average rating for 2022: 3.6 stars (same as 2020 and 2021 – good to see I’m consistent!) Favourite series of 2022: The Magi Accounts by Michele Notaro Tales of the High Court by Megan Derr Wolf Moon Rising by Sam Burns Favourite authors of 2022: Michele Notaro E M Lindsey Megan Derr Nora Phoenix Claire Cullen My five star books from 2022: Worth a Shot by Lyra Evans Fated Hearts by Garrett Leigh Omega Required by Dessa Lux Omega Defiant by Dessa Lux The Purveli by Dianne Duvall Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid Roommate Arrangement by Saxon James Switch-Hitter by E M Lindsey You & Me by Tal Bauer The Shackles That Hold Us by Michele Notaro The High King’s Golden Tongue by Megan Derr The Pirate of Fathoms Deep by Megan Derr The Heart of the Lost Star by Megan Derr The Fallen King’s Penitent Soldier by Megan Derr Safe and Sound by E M Lindsey Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara A Purpose That Restores Us by Michele Notaro Hidden Scars by Andi Jaxon Most disappointing books of 2022: Dire Warning by Mary Rundle Hunting His Human by Charlie Richards My Lonely Shifter Match by Skye Alder Collateral Damage by Miski Harris Mending Noel by Charlie Cochet Some of my favourite quotes from 2022: I told myself I’d be ready today. I promised. And yet I’d gotten up early and then become distracted by, well, everything. As I look around the apartment, I can’t put my finger on exactly what I’ve been doing all day. My dirty clothes are sorted, but none of it made it into the washing machine, my dishwasher is full of dirty dishes, but the clean ones are piled on the countertops so I could wipe out the cupboards, and the toilet cleaner and bleach are sitting on the floor by the bathroom door, where I left them before I got an idea I needed to jot down. ~ Roommate Arrangement by Saxon James I cringe. “And now that I’ve epically screwed up a nice conversation, I’m going to spend the rest of the night going over and over it in my head, trying to work out what I should have said.” “Really?” His gaze slides over me. “Why?” “I can’t help it.” “But it won’t make a difference.” “I don’t do it because I think it will make a difference, I do it because I like to torture myself with all the ways I could have been better, funnier, sounded smarter or more interesting. I work out everything I would change if I could.” ~ Roommate Arrangement by Saxon James I set my jaw and move to open the front door. And fuck a duck in a pickup truck, Lee looks good. ~ Roommate Arrangement by Saxon James ADHD sounded like the thing you used to explain away a hyper kid in class—not an executive disorder. Not the reason why he was so goddamn good at some things but the rest of his life was a damn mess. ~ Switch-Hitter by E M Lindsey He felt like a disgruntled alley cat who was finally being given attention. He didn’t know how to say thanks other than shoving dead birds under the pillows of people who were kind to him. ~ Switch-Hitter by E M Lindsey The tender moment was broken when a yawn split his face. I echoed him, and we stared at each other like we were snakes unhinging our jaws. ~ You & Me by Tal Bauer Julien stalked from one side of the road to the other as if he’d find some clue as to what to do now. As if the animal might have left a note with a sad face and its insurance information. ~ Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara The right front corner of the car was flattened, as well. A pool of headlight glass was sprinkled like multicolored confetti in the snow. Congratulations! You fucked up big-time! ~ Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara I don’t think anyone could ever see you as inept. Not at anything. You positively ooze…ept. ~ Pack of Lies by Charlie Adhara Books I’m looking forward to in 2023: Tisak by Michelle Frost and Michele Notaro Only One Bed by various authors Aisle Be There by Charlie Cochet An Embrace to Hearten Me by Michele Notaro A Ruse to Unchain Us by Michele Notaro Nicked: Nordin by Nora Phoenix Dangerous by Charlie Cochet and Macy Blake |
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