In the latest in our new series, a 55-year-old small business owner, who lives in Waikato, shares the details of her grocery shopping, now that her three kids have left home and her focus is on a keto diet.
How many live in your household? Just the two of us, my husband and myself.
How much money comes into the house on a weekly basis after tax? It works out at around $1800 a week, because we pull a wage out of our business.
How much would you spend on groceries in a week? Probably around about $200 to $300. I don't go and do a weekly shop, I just shop when we need it. So say I go to PAK’nSAVE every fortnight, I would spend just over $500 and buy a few little incidentals in between at the local Four Square – I’ve just about got shares in that place, I'm sure of it.
If I want something a bit fancy, like if my kids are coming home for a weekend – they all live around the country – I'll go to the nearest New World (in another town) and get something a bit nice.
Does your husband ever do the shopping? No. Never has. He'll get bits and bobs for me. It's really good when he does go because he realises how expensive everything is. But no he doesn't ever do the shopping. He works hard.
What are the essentials you always buy at the supermarket? We grow a little bit on our property, so I don't buy a lot of fruit or anything, but usually it's things like salad items, dairy items, eggs are a biggie. Coffee.
What sort of luxuries do you allow yourself? I would probably say some nice cheeses and a salami or fresh fish. I don't really eat bread, I'm sort of off carbs. I don’t buy sweets or ice cream.
What about meat? I bought half a beast with a friend, so that cost us $500 each, including butcher’s fees. Essentially, the beast was worth $1250, but the lady that I buy it through gave me a discount. It used to be that half a beast worked at about $6 per kg of meat. Well that's not the case anymore. It’s not even worth buying homekill meat now, unless you’re doing it for the flavour. It's like there are literally no loopholes left, no hacks.
And how long does that much meat last? I might get six months out of it, if I'm lucky.
Do you shop according to a meal plan? I used to when my kids were young – that was always the cheapest way of shopping. Now I cook a certain style, it's sort of keto, and if I know I want to make a certain salad, I'll buy for that. But I don't really have the menu done in advance like I used to.
Is there anything that you'd like to buy that you don't because of cost? Not really. There's only two of us, we can pretty much have what we want. I feel guilty when I go grocery shopping, for that reason.
Have you had times in your life where you've had to be more vigilant with spending? Yeah, we’ve always been in business, but I haven't always had as much money as I do now. When my three kids were young, I would buy bulk try and make things go further.
I was very fortunate that I grew up with a single mum and four siblings, and she knew how to spin things out.
I used to bake every week. I was never a great believer in my kids having loads of sugar and all that rubbish, so we'd bake once a week. We’d also would bake our own bread. We had veggie gardens, we had chickens. My mother always did those things, and I tried to employ the things she's done. Like making a curry with a little handful of meat, then just packing it with vegetables.
How often would you get takeaways or go for dinner? Usually twice a week. We always have takeaways on Friday and we'll eat out one other time at a restaurant on a Sunday or at the pub or something. We’re creatures of habit.
How much do you spend on that? Takeaways would be somewhere between $20 and $40. Going out would be $100, $120.
Have you noticed the cost-of-living crisis? Oh yeah. Prices are going north, never going south.
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
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