The hot cross bun. Once a decadent indulgence that appeared on store shelves only a few weeks before Easter. Now an almost half yearly sweet, yeasty snack available the day after Christmas. Yes, that's correct.

Hot cross buns are already available at Coles and Woolworths around Australia.

Jesus wept.

Shopping for groceries is one of those universal chores most of us could do better at. Here are ten common mistakes at the supermarket -- and how to avoid them.

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.

Alongside roses and exciting underwear, chocolate is one of the most popular gift ideas on Valentine's Day. Retailers know this - and most of them are now trying to clear an abundance of leftover stock.

According to new research, three in five Australian adults get sucked in by promotions and specials on junk food and sugary drinks at the supermarket. The research for LiveLighter – a health education campaign delivered by the Cancer Council and Heart Foundation – found 53% of shoppers visit the supermarket several times a week or every day.

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.

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.

Want to stack the nutrition odds in your favour? The key is good food so here are five things to never let into your shopping trolley. Known as discretionary foods, all five are high in either added sugars, saturated fat or salt. Discretionary foods provide kilojoules but not many nutrients. Here's an overview of what to avoid.

Supermarket giant Woolworths has announced plans to offer free food to children, completely catch-free. Under a new national program, kids will be able to pick up fresh seasonal fruits and start munching away while their parents shop. Items on the menu include mandarins, apples, pears and bananas sourced from local farmers and suppliers. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Five years ago, I undertook the Mastercheap challenge: trying to eat a healthy (enough) diet with a weekly budget of $25 and an entirely empty pantry. Would that still be possible in 2015 -- and which supermarket would offer the best deal? Let's find out.

If speculation that German discount supermarket, Lidl, is preparing to launch into the Australian market is correct, it will be the biggest shake up in the grocery sector since Aldi's arrival in 2001. With potentially five viable combatants in the mix, the way we shop and how supermarkets and suppliers compete, will fundamentally change.

Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers, including: Lidl supermarket poised to enter Aussie market, get a 14-inch Acer laptop for $214, 10 skills that are hard to learn but pay off forever.

We're constantly bombarded with advertising for supermarket specials, but is any one chain consistently cheaper than the others? A new investigation by consumer advocate CHOICE suggests not -- and highlights again how much more we pay for brand-name goods rather than house brand alternatives.

Woolworths' initial attempts at selling its own branded mobile plans using the Optus network ended with a quiet withdrawal from the market back in September 2013. Now it's planning to try again -- this time with Telstra.

While Aldi's launch of their new "trial" stores may seem to be an attempt to capture middle income shoppers, it may end in disaster.

On first glance, it seems that supermarkets are offering consumers great deals these days. Many do save us money and the majority of consumers manage the task of judging the value of a deal. However, our new research shows confusion among some consumers about how much they're saving through price promotions.

One of the most frequently expressed concerns about supermarket house brands is that they will squeeze out rival products. If that bothers you, you won't like this: Woolworths is planning to expand its range of house brands even more -- including more products at the pricier end of the market.

So this is strange. Coles is running a trial of a device that lets you essentially dictate your shopping list to a device attached to a fridge magnet, and then automatically transmits that into information a Coles shopping list app or into a Coles Online order.

Self-checkout at the supermarket can be very convenient. If you want to speed up your self-scanning game, here's a tip: Stop looking for the barcode, just swipe it. If you get good at it, you can walk out with a cart of shopping in less time than it would take a checkout assistant to scan and bag them for you.