My boyfriend and I are pretty horrible grocery shoppers. We always attempt to hit the grocery store to buy "meals for the week" but that meal planning quickly takes a complicated turn when we end up in discussions on what food might still have available in the house to contribute to that meal.

Food spending has always been my go-to for budgetary belt-tightening. Not everyone is laying out for luxuries that can be cut, but everyone eats, and almost everyone could spend a little less doing it.

I really dislike moving through a grocery store inefficiently. This month that dislike of inefficiency came to a head, because I'm spending the month in a place where the grocery stores are the size of football fields rather than my usual small and crowded local store.

I found myself wandering the shop from end to end and back again, like a stoned hippie at a Grateful Dead show, overwhelmed with choices and planning out my debut movie about consumer culture and alienation. So I made a grocery shopping map.

Hello, and welcome back to What's Cooking?, the open thread where you get to share all of your brilliant thoughts, advice, recipes and opinions on all things food-related. This week I want to talk about how you stock your fridge, with a focus on those foods, beverages and condiments you are never without.

OzHarvest Market is a Sydney-based "rescued food" supermarket that invites customers to pay what they can - even if that's nothing at all. The business follows a "take what you need, give if you can" model, with all money reinvested back into the charity.

Earlier today, we paid a visit to OzHarvest's flagship store to check out what was on offer. The sheer variety of supermarket goods on display astounded us. Here are the pictures.

Whether you're at a butcher shop or the grocery store, butchers will do all kinds of things to make your meal prep easier. For example, if you don't need all the meat in a package, kindly ask if they will split if up for you.

Australians toss out thousands of dollars in unused food every year. One of the simplest ways to save money on groceries is to make sure you're not wasting food. To avoid this problem, personal finance site Clark.com suggests keeping a list of stuff you toss.

Some products try to use phrases and tags like "Made in Italy" as a selling point, even if it's not entirely true. This app can tell you if that olive oil, cheese, or clothing item was actually made in Italy.

Pears, like many other fruits, keep ripening after they have been picked. Here's a simple way to test a pear and make sure it hasn't gone too far.

Watermelons come in all shapes and sizes, so knowing how much you need for a barbecue or picnic can be tricky. This simple rule of thumb will make sure you get enough for everyone.

Amazon shopping is coming to Australia - and it aims to have stores in every Australian state by 2017. If you have shares in Coles or Woolworths you should be worried. If you own an independent grocery store you should be very worried. Here's everything we know about Amazon's shopping strategy and how it will affect they way we buy goods in Australia.

Some people like as much fat as possible on their bacon, but if you're like me, an equal amount of meat and fat is best. If you want to check the meat-to-fat ratio, flip that package around.

The ever-increasing cost of groceries is currently burning a major hole in everyone’s wallet and has a lot of us frankly stressed out. A Galaxy survey of 1000 people nationwide conducted on behalf of debt solutions provider Fox Symes found that 52 per cent of all Australians are forced to use their credit card to pay for every day costs including groceries because they simply don’t have the cash available. As many as 2.9 million Aussies say they have to do this frequently.

Dark spots on fruits and vegetables can make them look unappetizingn and spoiled, but they're actually just as edible as the spot-free ones. Here's why.

That Parmesan cheese is actually wood, that honey has corn syrup and the cake is a lie. There's no guarantee the food you're buying at the store is what it says it is, so keep an eye out for these usual suspects if you don't want to waste your money on fake, inferior products.

A perfect porterhouse is the holy grail of the steak world, so they can be pretty expensive. Here are some tips on picking a good one so you don't end up paying porterhouse prices for sub-par beef.

Part of travelling is eating out, enjoying the city and experiencing local cuisine -- but eating out every night may not be in the budget, so you'll need some supplies for your hotel room or Airbnb. That's where TimeResQ comes in. They will bring you groceries, toiletries or other supplies.

No one wants to serve spoiled food to their families. Conversely, consumers don't want to throw food away unnecessarily -- but we certainly do. Australians discard up to 20 per cent of the food they purchase, which equates to one out of every five bags of groceries they buy. Plenty of that food is discarded while still safe to eat.

It pays to focus your frugality on your biggest expenses. For most of us, that includes groceries. Some stores have better prices on certain items, but it can be a waste of time to hop from one store to another. Instead, pick the store with the best deals on food staples, then stick to it.