Shopping at a supermarket should save you money since you won’t be eating out as much. But if you tend to overspend at the supermarket, try shopping at a store with less choice.
Photo by bark
You can try to spend less time shopping, but supermarkets have so many interesting things to buy. (That bakery sure smells nice, but you didn’t plan on buying bread.) Smaller or budget grocery stores offer much less choice. That can be a downside if you need less common items, but for the basics, it’s perfect: you’re more likely to buy just what you need, instead of what you want.
In Australia, that leaves you with two main choices: ALDI or IGA. ALDI definitely has a more restricted range, so the tactic can work well. Pricing and range at IGA stores varies more widely (and for basics it’s often a little more expensive that Woolworths, Coles or ALDI). Note that shopping at a smaller branch of Woolworths or Coles won’t work out as well: in that context, it’s often the cheaper products that aren’t available.
Check out the link for other quick tips to avoid overspending.
How to Find Your Money ‘Leaks’ (and How to Plug Them) [The Simple Dollar]
Comments
3 responses to “Shop At A Smaller Supermarket To Avoid Overspending”
You overspend anyway, because the mark up on the products at the smaller places is insane compared to the big ones.
Example: IGA where I am is good at that, normally coles, woolies, aldi sell loose mushrooms for the 8-10 dollars a kilo price, IGA on the other hand, take that most expensive number and double for their kilo price.
My preference is to do all of my grocery shopping online. You can maintain a persistent shopping cart of necessities, make sure you benefit from all of the specials, and it’s far easier to stick to a budget when you have a realtime total cost. If you go slightly over you can always remove or replace items in your cart, which in the real world would be time consuming and incredibly embarrassing.
What sites do you normally use?
lol “AN Smaller Supermarket”, hey?