Two small-town working parents enjoy a reasonable income, but have still had to make lifestyle changes due to the cost-of-living crisis.
How old are you and what do you do? I’m 42 and I’m a self-employed baker.
Who lives in your house? Me, my husband (he works in IT) and our two kids – one is at school and one is in pre-school/kindy.
In a typical week, how much money comes into the house, after tax? About $3200.
And how much would you spend on groceries in a week? I looked at the past month, and it comes out at about $370 a week at the supermarket. But then we also do a Wonky Box of veggies, that's another $40 a fortnight. Then, for meat, we stock up the deep freeze about every six weeks, and that might cost about $550. (A weekly total of about $480 on groceries.)
As far as meat goes we're almost exclusively pork and chicken now. Even on our good income, red meat just can't be justified,
Which essentials do you always make sure you have? We are a milk and cheese household, and then we've got the kids’ bread, which is the soft Tip Top version, and I bake for the household so we've always got those baking staples. And lots of canned stuff.
What would be the biggest luxury you’d allow yourselves? We drink alcohol. Both my husband and I like wine and beer and spirits. So that would be our luxury, we keep alcohol in the house.
My husband gets boxes of Garage Project beer. Every couple of months he’ll get a box of 24 cans or whatever. And we buy wine from the supermarket. We probably go through just over one bottle a week.
Do you drink every night? No, we just like knowing that we could.
Have you felt the cost-of-living crisis? Definitely, because I'm that person who tracks everything. So I can see that the budget that we set even a year ago is really hard to stick to.
Where have you noticed the greatest surges in price? You mean, outside of petrol? I would have to say meat and cheese. I now cook probably a minimum of two vegetarian meals a week, for financial reasons, when we used to have meat almost every night.
We don’t do treats much now; we used to have fancy little snackity things, crackers and a Brie or hummus just hanging out in the fridge for a lazy weekend afternoon, we don't do that anymore. We plan all of our meals.
So you sit down on the weekend and do a seven-day plan? Yeah, it’s usually done on a Tuesday. And I'll plan through to the following Monday because Mondays are usually quite chaotic.
I’m also a leftovers guru; every dinner I make has to incorporate another meal or two. Like we had roast chicken last night and we had the leftover roasties in a frittata for lunch today, and I'm using leftover chicken for tacos tomorrow night.
Do you get takeaways? Yep, probably about once a fortnight. We’ll often get doner kebabs because it’s a bit healthier. If it’s just after the monthly payday we might get Thai or RE Burger – a fancy burger place.
What about takeaway coffees? No, never. We both work from home and we’ve got one of those 12-cup drip machines. My husband and I keep very different schedules, so having the pot with the warmer is what gets us by.
Do you have any other budgeting tips or hacks? The one thing that I've completely let go of is brands. I used to be a real holdout for a specific brand of tomato sauce or nappies. I've let it all go. We are team generic, all the way.
Do you think there’s any difference in the plain-packaged things? Pam's cheese is one where I notice a difference; I think they've done something to that recipe, and now I find it rubbery and terrible. I still buy it, but I feel cross about it. Sometimes we'll splurge for the Mainland, which in my opinion is just better.
But other than cheese, none of it matters. Once you get used to the taste of Pam's tomato sauce instead of Wattie's, it doesn't matter. We stopped putting butter on our toast and now we just have Pam's Olive Spread, and you get used to it. You just get used to whatever you have.
Did you grow up in a house where money was tightly watched? Yeah I was brought up by a solo mum with three kids, and honestly, in hindsight, I don't know how she did it.
What did you learn from her? Not to spend on dumb stuff, like fancy clothes. Mum buys things to be practical, and she likes things to last a long time, and that's one thing that I have adopted.
Do you use one supermarket or do you shop around? We shop around because we’ve got all the major supermarkets here – a Pak’n’Save, a Woolies and a New World, and they’ve all got different things. I do the primary shopping at Pak’n’Save as much as possible, because it really is cheaper, but then New World is closer to our house, school and kindy so it ends up being the more expensive but convenient choice. And then Woolworths has these buns and the fruit squeezies that the kids like.
Do you keep receipts and study them? Not receipts, but I study online transactions. Sometimes we will have had a couple of sneaky pies and fries over a couple of weeks. And it's like, 'What? What happened to the? Oh right, we went and got pies and fries this week and last week'. You see where all the little sums disappear to.
What do you put in school lunches? Fortunately, kindy provides all food, so one is sorted. My other child is a creature of habit who doesn't like deviations, so he always has a bun with Marmite and cheese; two veggies, because he hates fruit, so it's usually some red capsicum and some cucumber; and then a packet of something like veggie straws or pea snacks or Doritos; and then usually something sweet, which is probably a muffin that I've baked.
Has the increased cost of living affected the way you bake? At work, I specialise in sourdough, so it's all dairy free anyway. But when I cook for the household, I have learned all of my butter-to-oil conversions so I can just use canola oil in everything. I don't really make chocolatey things anymore, because they often need extra fats. Sometimes you end up with (overripe) bananas or apples, so that's what turns into the lunch muffins.
We are definitely a no-food-waste household. I've put my foot down about the kids not eating crusts. We eat every single slice in that bag now, and that wasn't something we worried about before.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
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