Grocery lists hurting the pockets of CQ families

With two kids under four, Leesa Clark says the cost of living in Central Queensland is no longer matching people’s wages.

Leesa Clark and her kids

WITH two kids under four, Leesa Clark says the cost of living in Central Queensland is no longer matching people's wages.

The Yeppoon woman posted in Facebook group Yeppoon Families last week with one simple question - how much do you spend on groceries each week?

And the community responded, with over 40 comments in the space of a few hours.

Leesa said some of the comments left her very surprised.

"I spend $250 to $400 a week, so I wanted to gauge if I was spending too much money, and to see if other families are spending the same amount of money," she said.

"General consensus was between $250 to $400 a week on groceries, so I was a bit shocked.

"There are some mums that were on there saying they spend about $300 a fortnight for themselves and three kids, and there was on lady on there who had nine kids and was spending around $300 a fortnight. I wish I knew how to do that."

Leesa, who works for health company Healthy Mummy and utilises their plan, said having two children with specific dietary needs made the family reliant on unprocessed foods.

"I have two children who are gluten and sugar intolerant, so our family has a very strict diet that we have to follow," she said.

"To tell you the truth I think we spend the same amount of money with our two kids as what we were as a couple. In saying that, budgets have gotten tighter since having kids.

"It comes back to budgeting... I will admit, especially with the mining downturn, there is not a lot of money in our region so a lot of families are struggling."

But Central Queensland families aren't alone in their struggle, with Australia topping Deutsche Bank's global list of expensive countries last year.

At the time, Australia was more than 12% more expensive than the US.

Leesa shared her own saving tips, and said it was all about relying on the same old tricks.

"Obviously the general ones of shopping for markdowns," she said.

"I try to shop online because it avoids temptation because you aren't putting extra stuff in the trolley."

Originally published as Grocery lists hurting the pockets of CQ families