He's in contruction, she's in accounts and their granddaughter lives with them four days a week. What does it cost to feed this South Auckland family?
How old are you and what do you do? I work in construction, I’m a site manager.
And what does your wife do? She works in accounts.
How many are there in the household? Most of the time, there’s three of us. My five-year-old granddaughter stays with us about four days a week because her mum is studying.
How much money comes into the house each week, after tax? I’d say $2500.
How much do you spend on groceries in a typical week? Probably about $300 a week.
Do you shop, or does your wife? I do the shopping.
Do you shop around at different supermarkets? Normally it’s just the one, Pak’n’Save.
What are the essential items that always make sure you have in the pantry or fridge? I suppose rice, bread, canned foods.
Meat? Yeah, we have meat for dinner about three times a week.
Do you buy things for your granddaughter? Yeah, things for her school lunches, grapes and other fresh fruits.
What else goes in her lunchbox, and who packs it? I do it in the morning before I leave for work. Fruit, sandwiches, yoghurts. That’s probably her biggest treat, little yoghurts and Up&Gos.
Muesli bars? Not really. My wife doesn’t like feeding her that sort of stuff.
Who does most of the cooking? I do the cooking.
Do you meal plan ahead? No, we just have whatever we feel like.
What sort of meals do you cook? Curries, chicken, stir-fries, tacos, nachos that sort of thing.
What are the biggest luxuries you allow yourselves? Chocolate maybe. I buy ice cream about once a fortnight. But no biscuits or anything, we don’t eat a lot of sweet stuff.
Have you noticed the cost-of-living rise over the past two years or so? Oh yeah, definitely. Everything's probably gone up 10 to 15% – I don’t know for a fact but I’d estimate.
Is there anything you used to buy that you hesitate to buy now? No, not really. We're probably a little bit fortunate, I wouldn't say we have a disposable income, but we don't have mortgage or anything like that so we don't really have to forsake anything. But I'd imagine for a lot of people...
Do you buy cheese? Yep a block of cheese probably lasts a month.
Wine? No, we don’t drink.
Do you get takeaways? Once a fortnight or once a month we’ll get takeaways. Chinese or fish and chips are the main ones.
Do you go out for dinner? Yeah once every couple of months. If it’s the two of us that costs about $150.
What about takeaway coffees? Yeah I definitely get a coffee every day. I can’t speak for my wife but I’d imagine she’d do the same.
So that’s $4.50 to $5.00 each? Where can you get a coffee for $4.50? They’re all six or seven dollars now.
What about going out to cafés for breakfast on a weekend? Yeah about every second Saturday we’ll go out for breakfast, and (depending on how many of us there are) that can be another $150.
Did you grow up in a family where money was closely watched? Not so much me, but my wife grew up in a family where money was tight, so she does our budgets and looks after our money.
Does she ever comment on how much you’ve spent at the supermarket? No, not so much. We both just comment on everything's expensive now.
Probably the biggest saver for us at the moment is that we both have company vehicles and we don’t pay for fuel. If we were, that would be a big difference.
Do you ever take your granddaughter to the supermarket with you? Yep once a week she comes with me to the supermarket.
Does she try to get you to buy anything? Oh she wants everything she’s not allowed, as all kids do.
Do you give in? Sometimes yeah. That’s what grandparents are for right?
This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.
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