Similar to a New Year’s Eve resolution, the plans we make to save money when shopping sometimes fail to meet our expectations once we look at our grocery bill.

It’s not easy to stick to a shopping plan when supermarkets are practically falling over themselves to trick us into shopping. All that advertising, the variety, and the so many temptations eventually add up to a real big chunk of change from our wallets.

For cutting your grocery bill next time you shop at Woolworths Australia you need a handful of tips to get you started. Here they are:

Prioritize your shopping

This is definitely more of a general shopping rule. Cost conscious shoppers are those people who never leave the house to do their shopping without some sort of preparation and planning. If you really want to downsize the amount you pay for groceries, you have to become one yourself. [Read more…]

In 2009, Australian consumer organization Choice nominated Aldi as the cheapest grocery store in the country.

Six years later, the same organization found that Aldi was still the cheapest and that “by foregoing leading brands you can save about 50% off your grocery bill by shopping at Aldi.”

They compared the average price of a grocery basket from various retailers and found that “a basket of leading brand products cost $87.29 more at Coles and $89.09 more at Woolworths than a basket of equivalent products from Aldi.”

Source: choice.com.au

How Aldi can afford to provide low cost quality products

German discount store Aldi undertakes a number of strategies in order to keep prices as low as possible and offer customers best value for your money. [Read more…]

There’s a way you can make the most out of shopping at Aldi Australia, and it’s about getting more selective with Aldi offers for groceries.

While it’s true that the “home of the lowest prices” is cheaper that many or most other supermarkets, it’s also true that Aldi carries a much more limited stock line. Sure enough, the Aldi Australia catalogue has some reasonable bargains every week, but not every grocery product at Aldi is worth its value. For example, whoever likes his cream cheese soft and tasty, might not find the retailer selection the best there is.

Overall, you can buy so many other cheap products at Aldi that one bad cream cheese won’t probably make you want to swap to the local market down the street. [Read more…]

If you don’t shop at Woolworths Australia, you might just end up reconsidering your options after you read some of the benefits that shopping at Woolworths brings about.

# You can buy your groceries online

We have such little time on our hands sometimes that we’d much prefer having someone deliver all our shopping to the front door, maybe even the kitchen counter without us having to move an inch, except for when browsing.

Woolworths online supermarket has similar perquisites to the actual store.

• Prices are the same online as in store;
• Woolworths catalogue offers and bargains apply to online shopping as well;
• You can shop any of the store’s departments including fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood & deli, eggs, dairy & fridge, toiletries, beauty, health & wellbeing. Basically, all the aisles that are available in store are also accessible via online shopping.

Woolworths also offers $10 off your first online shopping plus free delivery. In addition, they throw in free delivery every Wednesday when you spend $150 or more.

# You can find organic products at Woolworths

Organics are no longer something only a minority of people can afford. As the competition among retailers gets tighter and tighter, there is something that organic savvy consumers will appreciate: lower costs for organic products. [Read more…]

From online shopping to home delivered groceries, Coles Australia is one of those supermarkets that give customers the perfect chance to save some time and effort when shopping for groceries.

In fact, choosing to buy groceries online rather than going to the shop does not only exclude travel time and long lines, but it also provides a good opportunity to cut back on some of the costs because you’re less likely to overspend.

So yes, stress free grocery shopping is indeed possible while also saving some money. Here’s how:

Home Delivery with Coles Online

Having someone turn up at the door with all your grocery needs is one of the advantages of living in the 21^st century.

When you just don’t have enough time on your hands or simply don’t feel like running the aisles in the supermarket yourself, online grocery shopping is the name of the game. [Read more…]

A general merchandise store at first, Coles is now among the 20^th biggest retailers in the world. They sell just about everything, and the supermarket has become people’s choice when it comes to even petrol, hardware, and convenience shopping altogether.

Coles isn’t the cheapest supermarket, but you can still cut your food budget down a few notches just by tweaking your shopping habits. Don’t know how to do that? Check out the following three easy strategies that may help you change the way you shop and save real.

1. Look for Coles Private Label Items

If the idea of buying store brands scares you off, you should know that even master chefs stock up their pantry shelves with generics, at least when it comes to staple items such as spices, sugar, salt or pastas. However, there are also other store-branded food items – the milk, the cereal, the frozen and canned vegetables, and some of the beverages – which you may want to explore for yourself and decide on the quality. [Read more…]

The demand for more natural and organic foods has been increasing in the past years in Australia. In 2014, demand for organics was outstripping supply by 40%, according to the Australian Organic Market Report. This means that:

• Supermarkets are tailoring to organic retailing more than ever before.
• More and more consumers buy organics nowadays.

As a result, organic food and products are more widely available, and supermarkets in food retailing are looking for ways to make healthier options more affordable and accessible to everyone.

If organic foods were only available to particular groups of consumers before, today more people can afford to purchase them.

Because there is growing competition among high-end supermarkets and conventional retailers to sell organic groceries and organic items – due to increasing consumer demand, – this means more opportunities for us, shoppers. [Read more…]

When Sephora launched its e-commerce site in Australia just last year, beauty addicts all over the country took the online shop by storm looking to nab a few of those sought-after overseas cosmetics now only a click away. At last, there were exclusive brands available in the country, such as Marc Jacobs Beauty, DaLish Cosmetics and Erno Laszlo, the last two exclusively online.

However, while some beauty buyers rejoice at the thought of being able to buy Sephora collections and international brands, there’s no need for Australian brands to panic. Your loyal costumers remain loyal. [Read more…]

We hear about many spices being used widely in various cuisines but so very often we are unaware of the incredible health benefits they possess. Turmeric is a curry staple and a quintessential spice in ayurvedic and Indian cooking, most appreciated as a medicinal ingredient for its anti-inflammatory properties.

Turmeric has more than just one health benefit however and researchers have proven that daily consumption of the spice can improve a number of bodily functions. This is because turmeric contains a number of beneficial compounds. [Read more…]

The festive season is almost upon us and if some people have already finished wrapping gifts and putting up decorations and the Christmas tree, some of us here in Australia are still going over the Christmas menu rethinking meals and baking awesome desserts in our mind.

You shouldn’t worry too much if you’re late with Christmas shopping though. There are literally millions of people who buy things as late as Christmas Eve. That’s why most retailers are open December 24 and that’s why some retailers extend hours to 8 o’clock into the evening. [Read more…]

Everyone does it at some point or another: buying the wrong gift for someone. But it’s only when you start repeating the same action over and over again that people take it personally. This means that if you keep on buying your parents the wrong kind of gifts you’re sending out the wrong kind of message.

In Japan for example, gift giving is a very important social and cultural aspect with a very specific etiquette. Sorting out a gift is not something done randomly and the way you present the gift is even more important than the gift itself. [Read more…]

Christmas specials have been rolling for weeks now and Aldi Australia is known to carry some of the best selling products in the foods and drinks category every year. While it is true that some of their products score high value-concerned but lower in regards to quality, when compared to some of the other retailers Aldi does make an excellent choice for festive shopping.

Decent champagne and wine costs about $29.99, respectively $11.99, plus there are many decently priced foods, starting with ham, vegetables, cheeses, desserts of course and baking essentials. [Read more…]

If you are anything of the thoughtful gift giver, then buying Christmas presents for your loved ones is a job that you probably take very serious. No silly gift-giving and no forgetting anyone, although that’s been known to happen every now and then.

There’s nothing wrong with buying silly gifts for Christmas, not at all. In fact, nothing breaks the ice at a family reunion more than a silly gift. [Read more…]

Green onions are vegetables harvested very young, before they have had a chance to mature and the bulb to swell. So actually green onions are young shoots of the usual onions we all know and love with our food.

There is a difference, however, between green onions and scallions. Scallions are younger than green onions, meaning they are harvested even earlier. The white bulb of scallion is smaller than of green onions and the pungency of the vegetable is more subtle.

Next to garlic, onions are the vegetables most often used in cooking, although green onions are more often used in Asian cooking. [Read more…]

Aloe Vera juice is produced from the aloe plant. The entire leaf is processed, first by crushing, grinding or blending it, then by filtering the resulting liquid.

To obtain a nutritious drink that presents many health benefits, producers mix Aloe Vera gel with other ingredients also to make it more palatable.

However, not all Aloe Vera is produced for internal use. Some products are only intended for external purposes and should only be used as per the instructions on the label. [Read more…]

What makes chocolate cake the epitome of delightful desserts? A good baker, one might argue, but truly, it’s also the ingredients. You give the world’s greatest baker cheap ingredients, and they’ll bake cheap chocolate cake. You give an aspiring baker the best ingredients and the odds of them baking good chocolate cake increase tremendously.

Sure, it may take some work and practice before you become a complete bakery boss, and yes, getting to master chocolate cake techniques may breed some bad results, but it’s nice to get to that finishing point where you’ve done it: you’ve baked your first, and eventually the ultimate chocolate cake. [Read more…]

Do you know for how long of a time milk has been consumed in the world? Not many people think about it, but it took a while before milk could be drunk without people getting sick from it.

For a good amount of time researchers believed it was the matter of natural selection, subsequently lactose tolerance that enabled people in some parts of the world to drink milk while milk drinking was impossible for people in other parts of the world simply because they were unable to digest the milk sugar lactose. [Read more…]

Ceviche is a tasty dish that seems to originate in Spain. “Seems” is the word here because it’s not certain when and where exactly ceviche was first invented. Credited, however, with introducing this food to the world is ancient Peru.

According to word of mouth, ceviche was invented for an Incan emperor that wanted to enjoy his fresh fish, so his cooks had it prepared in tumbo fruit or banana passionfruit, which helped keep the fish fresh. Tumbo is a fruit commonly found in Peru nowadays as it was back in ancient times. [Read more…]

Part of the Rosaceae family and the single member of the Cydonia genus, the may-have-been fruit of the Garden of Eden is similar to pears in its appearance and to apples in regards to how it grows, but it is more tougher and less popular.

It has a tough flesh, it is bright yellow, and it is an autumn fruit. It does not appeal to a great many people, and it reaches its full potential when cooked rather than raw. [Read more…]

Two rich desserts you don’t hear about every day: Brigadeiros and Suspiro de Limeña (in translation A Lady from Lima Sighs), first hailing from Brazil, the second coming from Peru.

Brigadeiros are chocolate balls or bonbons made with sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder, and butter. They are rolled in chocolate sprinkles. Suspiro de Limeña is a dessert on a similar side of the desserts spectrum: it’s made with Manjar blanco* or manjar de leche, wine-infused meringue, and ground cinnamon. [Read more…]