The Kitchen Playground

Why is it that so many market shoppers are not so jiggy with the whole washing concept? The amount of BO I had to fight my way through today was utterly ridiculous. I’ll wear a gas mask next time.

I’ve well recouped my last stockpiling efforts in terms of budget and as of last week, I fell under again, giving me about $40 leeway for this week. Which is good because I was due for some more stockpiling. Between the 2 supermarkets and Preston market, I spent $164 yesterday, leaving $26 for the food wholesaler which will cover 12 tins of tomatoes, 4 large tins of tuna and a couple of wedges of grana padano nicely. Bringing me back to budget. all this is very well and good but it has become obvious that the recent rises in  costs have made a difference as not so long ago I was able to float under budget. One thing that hasn’t helped is that I am not able to source my milk from the farm anymore. Well I can if I am prepared to get there at 5.30 am but frankly, the savings I make after petrol just don’t make it worth while. It is a 45 minute drive away and from 4.30am until about 6am, I am Lil Miss’s dairy cow so need to be at home. So we’re back to expensive supermarket milk. Ugh.

The main thing that prompted a stockpiling shop this week was that I noticed we were down to our last couple of days of stewed fruit in the freezer. Additionally, we were out of mince (ground beef) and the fridge was completely bare. One thing I love about this colder time of year, is that soups, stews, casseroles are perfect or hiding perfectly good, but aesthetically unpleasant produce.  So I took advantage of that at market closing and bought lots of $1 baskets. They tend to be filled with things like a big bundle of carrots with the odd brown spot, but still crisp and juicy, several zucchinis with the odd mark on them and so on. My big bargains of the day were 4.13kg of mince for $10, 5.5kg pears for $3 and 7.84kg of granny smiths for $6. Stewing fruit taken care of. That was a job and a half! It took me pretty much the whole afternoon.

Aside from the bulk purchasing benefits, particularly at market closing, there are other benefits to a big stockpiling shop. The obvious is a reduction in petrol cost. Rather than driving from market to supermarket and the next supermarket, it is only one 10 minute drive. From there I can walk from the market to both supermarkets. The wholesaler is close to home so I can walk or ride my bike there. Keeping the freezer full is another benefit. It takes more energy to keep air cold than solids so a full freezer runs more efficiently.  In fact, it is worth filling old milk bottles with water and freezing them to fill the gaps between times if the freezer is getting empty. So this whole stockpiling caper is not just economically friendly but environmentally friendly too. No wonder it gives me such ridiculous levels of satisfaction.

Tags: food budget, stockpiling