Supermarket fuel dockets

Today was grocery day and seeing as we were going to be over the other side of town I decided to go to Pak n Save Wainoni. I love that store second only to my local New World. The only problem with the PnS is that it is miles away and not very cost effective. Otherwise I would go there a lot more often.

This weekend the supermarkets were advertising spend $200 and get a 25c/ltr off your petrol coupons. This is a fantastic deal however with only having a grocery budget of $80/week not particulary practical for our family. I thought about doing the hugest shop and then very little for the next 3 weeks but it would mean a pitiful $40 leftover to cover this period. Hmmm that may be challenging. Then I came up with a much better idea.

My Dad drives a company car and doesn't pay for fuel, my Mum only puts in $20 fuel at a time and that lasts almost forever so neither of them benefit greatly from discount coupons. I however have to allow about $80 every 12-14 days to get me from A to B. So today Mum came with us to the supermarket and we both went through the same checkout. At the end of my groceries we asked the checkout operator to do a subtotal and then put Mum's through. Wouldn't you know it we easily made the $200 spend and next time I fill up I will get about $12 discounted off my fuel.

One thing I noticed at PnS was their trolleys seem larger than I am used to. It seemed as though I hadn't brought all that much but when it was put into reusable shopping bags and put in the car it looked much better value. Something else was that my Mum and I have very different habits when it comes to grocery shopping. I am a far more frugal shopper and my trolley was much better value for money being a bit fuller than hers but costing about $30 less. Ok so she had told Mr7 she would buy him an icecream cake for his party and that alone came to $19 but even still there were big differences. I buy whatever is the best value - generally I wait until the brand I like is on a good special and I stock up. I also take the time to read where my food is coming from rather than just tossing it into the trolley and I use things like free range eggs.

So all up I spent $122.24 meaning that for next weeks groceries I have a grand sum of $37.76 to spend. It's likely however that I will get away with a simple fruit, vege, bread and milk shop so it shouldn't be too difficult.