The $70 Weekly Shop – Because $50 Is No Longer Do-Able

You Can’t Shop for $70 Per Week? Are You On Drugs?

Well not good drugs…. So back in 2016, I wrote my second book called ‘The $50 Weekly Shop’. It was a bestseller! And most people told me it couldn’t be done (even though I had lived on $50 a week just for groceries for years and years….).

A Current Affair gave me a call last week and asked me to do The $50 Weekly Shop again today – to see just how much groceries have increased in cost since then. And boy – have they gone up!

About the $70 Weekly Shop

The $70 Weekly Shop is the EXACT same shop I did back then – buying exactly the same groceries at every supermarket – just to see how much groceries cost now. Now could I live on that shop now? No. Back when I did the original $50 Weekly Shop – my two boys were only very little.

Now they are teenagers and they eat just as much as Dad, if not more! So yes, my weekly shop is more than $70. But if you only had that to live on – you can do it.

Where We Did the $70 Weekly Shop

We visited the four big supermarkets located here in Gympie. They are:

• Woolworths
• Drakes
• Aldi
• Coles

Now there are variations on sizes throughout the shops – that’s because every shop is a little bit different. I also did the exact same shop as you see here – two weeks apart – and even then the pricings were different.

What Grocery Items Had Increased in Cost the Most?

The fresh meat and the fresh produce were really the only products that had increased in cost – they were what added the extra $20 to the original $50 Weekly Shop.

I don’t think there is a family in Australia who can honestly say that their weekly grocery shop hasn’t gone up since 2016.

The Actual $70 Weekly Shop:

So here are the results (may be slightly different from ‘A Current Affair’ as I did the shop twice over two weeks to compare).

• Aldi was $61.63
• Coles $70.59
• Drakes IGA $79.32
• Woolworths $71.05

But You Can’t Feed a Family for Just $70!

Well, you actually can. Sure – it may contain more carbs than you’d like, it may not be as healthy as you might like. But it will feed you and your family. And so many Aussie’s are doing it tough at the moment.

But as many people commented – throw in a food allergy and that bill will blow out. And yes I agree that is the case.

The Original $50 Weekly Shop Grocery List

Clare Whitfield Chief Editor

Clare Whitfield is the Editor of Stay at Home Mum and a recognised voice in practical home management for Australian families. Based in the northern suburbs of Sydney, she balances editorial leadership with life as a stay at home mum to two school age children. Her background in home economics and more than a decade of experience in recipe development, family budgeting, and household systems inform her work.

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