Inflation hacks: How to save money on groceries as cost of living soars

With an increase in the cost of living expenses, many Australians are considering ways to cut down on costs, especially for fruits and vegetables.

As the cost of living in Australia rises, how can shoppers save at the checkout? Source: Getty

Key Points

• Shredded carrot sells for five times the price of loose carrots.
• Australians are turning to a variety of different services to find cheaper groceries.

How much do you think about the cost of individual items you place into your trolley when doing grocery shopping?

With inflation pushing up the price of everyday items, including groceries, many people are looking for ways to reduce costs.

While the cost of day-to-day essentials bites harder in some parts of Australia more than others, many are taking steps to do what they can to bring down their household grocery spending.

Think about what you’re paying for

Katelyn Cameron from consumer advocacy group CHOICE suggests people should consider if small conveniences are worth the extra cost.

She said whole fruits and vegetables are often cheaper than pre-prepared and packaged produce.

“In October last year, Woolworths was advertising loose carrots for $2 per kilo, whereas if you bought their pre-packaged shredded carrot or sliced carrot, it was $10 per kilo, that’s five times the price,” she said.

Consumers are paying for convenience when it comes to packaged pre-cut produce. Source: AAP / Elaine Thompson.

Ms Cameron said as well as being more expensive, pre-chopped food spoils faster too.

CHOICE also suggests consumers consider the unit price of grocery items when shopping.

“All grocery retailers, they have to display the unit price for each food, so that gives the price of the product based on a standard unit of measurement,” Ms Cameron said.

By providing the price per 100 grams or 100 millilitres, shoppers are able to compare the value of items of different weight or volume to determine which is better value.

Shop as part of a group

Sydney mother Sarah Peachman shops at a co-op when she can in order to keep her costs down.

Sydney mother Sarah Peachman. Source: Supplied

Her annual membership to Manly Co-op costs her $5, which goes towards running the not-for-profit, volunteer-run whole-foods shop, where she gets a 10 per cent discount on her shopping.

While her everyday grocery needs are met by shopping at regular grocery stores, she said buying her main pantry items from the co-op reduced the overall money the family spends on food.

“I know that the family is always going to need oats, flour, rice, couscous, things like that,” she said.

Ms Peachman admits it takes some planning, travelling the 20 minutes to the shop to stock up on staples, but said it was worth it.

"I find them cheaper than a supermarket as a lot of what I'm buying there are things like spelt pasta, which is quite expensive at the supermarket,” she said.

Co-ops do not have to make profits for shareholders or owners, so can sell at slightly reduced prices.

Ms Peachman gets her groceries from a number of different places to meet all of her needs, one of which is a food delivery service, Delish deliveries.

Such services, which connect producers with consumers, can often provide groceries at a slightly reduced cost as they cut out the physical retailer.

Use what you have first

While it may be hard to believe, in Australia, one in five bags of groceries goes in the bin without being eaten.

The food from one in five grocery bags in Australia never makes it to the table. Source: AAP / Ben Rushton

That is the equivalent of 312 kilograms of food per person each year, which equates to a cost of more than $2,000 per household.

Admittedly, a portion of this is at the supply level, but it is also made up of the food that ends up in household bins.

Addressing this wastage on a household level could reduce the amount of groceries people purchase.

Waste educator and author Lindsay Miles suggested instead of throwing out fruit or vegetables that may have seen better days and adding them to the shopping list, think about how they can be used in another way.

“You may have some apples, and you're going to eat them in a lunchbox, and now they've gone all wrinkly, and they don't look great; you can still cook them up into an apple sauce, you could chop them up and put them in a crumble or you could just them on chuck them in a smoothie,” she said.

Choose local and in season

Ms Miles said people often did not realise that different fruits were grown in Australia only in certain seasons, and prices were reflective of this.

Waste educator and author Lindsay Miles Source: Supplied

She suggests shopping at independent grocers, where you are more likely to find produce that is currently being grown in the local area, rather than in supermarkets, where fresh produce is often imported throughout the year when it is not grown locally.

She said the closer the fruit and vegetables were grown, the fresher and cheaper they usually were.

“For example, being in Perth, you might have bananas from Carnarvon and bananas from Queensland, and the ones from Carnarvon tend to be cheaper because they haven't had to travel across the entire country and all of the fuel costs that are associated with that,” she said

Grow your own

Strathalbyn man Andrew Barker pays for less than half of all the fresh produce he uses in his cooking.

Grow Free founder Andrew Baker gets less than half of his fresh produce from a store. Source: Supplied

The fruits, vegetables and herbs he uses either come from the garden in his backyard or for free from others in his community.

Almost a decade ago, he started the Grow Free movement, which has seen communities across Australia sharing their excess produce with others for free via carts at specified locations.

"I sort of look at the prices and see a bunch of kale and go, well I could buy two packets of seeds for that and get 200 seeds and then thousands of kale and leaves,” he said.

While he admits there are often some set-up costs, he said in the long run, they are far outweighed by the value of produce that will be sown in a garden.

Get more out of your food

Making fruit and vegetables go further means having to buy less and, therefore, more savings

Ms Miles said many people throw away parts of vegetables such as broccoli stalks, thinking they are not edible, when in fact they are edible and, in some cultures, preferred parts of the plants.

She said when following a recipe, by switching the way you think, food can go further.

“You might need the white part of the leek only for whatever you're making, but you could use the green part when you make a risotto, or you can freeze a lot of vegetables and put them in a stock,” Ms Miles said.

Ms Miles said it is also worth considering what ‘best before’ labels actually mean.

"Best before is about quality, and the use by date is about safety. Usually, a best before date is on something that's long life and the use by dates are on things that are high risk, so meat, fish, and dairy products, best before is a guideline,” she said.

“In the UK, they're now doing a trial where they've actually removed the best before dates from milk, I think they're just putting a ‘produced on date’ like we do with bread.”

Many Australian supermarkets drastically reduce the price of items that are close to being past their best before date towards the end of the day.

Don’t be picky

While supermarkets used to only stock the best-looking fruit and vegetables, Ms Cameron from CHOICE said a push to reduce wastage has seen them offering produce which may not have previously fit their aesthetic requirements but at lower prices.

“You can buy these at most major supermarkets now for up to half the price of regular fruits and vegetables,” she said.

Many supermarkets now sell 'seconds' fruit at a lower price than their other fruit and it is perfectly fine to eat. Source: Getty / Picture Alliance

At the major supermarkets, these are often marketed under a specific brand such as ‘Imperfect picks,’ ‘I’m perfect fruit’ and ‘The odd bunch.’

Home brands and shopping around

Ms Cameron said for those who always buy name-brand food items, it could be time to give home brands a try.

“We regularly compare a really wide range of premium household products with cheaper counterparts to work out which one is the best for taste and value; a lot of our testing has found that not only are house brands cheaper, but they have also improved in quality a lot.”

Ms Cameron said those who aren’t keen on giving up on branded food items should look at where they could buy them the cheapest.

“Some of the work that we've done has found that products from popular national brands such as Kellogg's or Cadbury are on average around 20 per cent, cheaper at Aldi when compared to Coles or Woolworths,” she said.