Here’s some food for thought to save money shopping for meals
FRUIT, vegetables and meat prices are rising — but not as fast as takeaway food and restaurant meals — but shoppers can still get stung if they don’t follow these money-saving rules.
PRICES of some groceries have been falling while the cost of restaurant and takeaway meals rises, but home-cooked food shopping can still waste money.
A lack of understanding about bulk buying and unit pricing can be costly, while the modern trend of prepping a pile of meals in advance can also have drawbacks.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows the cost of takeaway food and eating out has jumped more than 10 per cent in the past five years, but several popular grocery items — including bread, poultry, eggs and milk — are lower.
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Trolley Saver founder Sam Lee said people shouldn’t bulk buy something for a discount if they were not likely to use it all.
“When unused products are thrown away, so are the savings,” he said.
Mr Lee said surveys of Trolley Saver app users had found that almost half of shoppers had thrown away their prepared meals.
“The main reason is that eating the same prepared meal lacks variety and they do still end up ordering takeaway,” he said.
“Another reason is some ingredients in prepared meals will spoil quicker after being cooked than if the ingredient was stored in the pantry and cooked at a later date.”
Queensland Consumers Association spokesman Ian Jarratt said unit pricing — how much a product costs per 100g, 100ml or similar — was the key to spotting savings.
He said the price differences between different package sizes for the same products “never ceases to amaze me”. Some items cost 100 per cent more if bought in smaller pack sizes.
“Consumers can get much better value than many of them do at the moment,” Mr Jarratt said.
“People have also got to remember that some rules of thumb we use don’t work all that well. Bigger is not always the best value because quite often the special offers are on small and medium packages.”
Some packaged items — such as carrots — were cheaper than buying them loose, so always check unit pricing, Mr Jarratt said. “People can freeze more things than they realise.”