New to Australia, please help me with some budgeting!

australia
budgetketo
(Ben Graham) #1

Hey there, I just posted this on r/ketoaustralia but figured there would be a fair few Australians in here who might be able to help me out!

I’ve moved back over here for a few years and am trying to budget all my stuff out. I’m getting a little overwhelmed by it all and hoping for a little bit of help from those in the know.

First things first, I really like to only buy grassfed meat and butter.
I’m seriously contemplating getting a chest freezer.
If I do, I’ll probably get like a 1/4 of a cow as I can’t see a way of getting grassfed meat cheap; I know the cheapest way is to go Coles or Woolies close to closing and keep looking for specials but grassfed meat is pretty rare there and still expensive.
I calculated I can get it down to roughly $18 a kg, half of which would be sausage and mince which I know is a little expensive but as more than a quarter is steak with a huge roast I think that’s pretty good.
I’m looking at a Costco membership.
I don’t have a car and use GoGet as and when needed, missus is a student so the costs really aren’t too high when we maximise our useage.

The main things I’m after is what is worth getting in bulk at Costco to actually genuinely save money, and where to get some specific things for the same reason.

I figure things like toilet roll, kitchen roll, cleaning products and whatnot are cheapest at Costco. I was planning on doing some looking in my locals and getting some prices and then comparing.
Really confused about nutrients, all I take are fish oil, magnesium and a multi vitamin. There are so many freaking discount chemists around that I don’t even know where to start with them!
And then I keep hearing about iHerb.

Need the cheapest source of macadamias as I go through a ton of those, plus Almond flour/meal, Coconut Oil and Flour, butter, Avocado Oil, Erythritol…

I keep trying to plan this all out but I’m really struggling. I would like to only go to somewhere like Costco 3 or 4 times a year at the most, and am almost certain that I can get more than that in savings. A 3 hour round trip would be like $25 bucks so I have to factor that in.
I have the space and money to actually really buy huge bulk if worthwhile.
Thanks guys!

(Richard Morris) #2

Lurpak butter at CostCo is pretty good cultured butter from grass fed cows. Lamb in Australia is never grain finished.

Every week we get a bag of baby spinach, every 2 weeks a box of asian mushrooms, every 4 weeks a box of baby capsicum. I get a bolar blade roast even though it is grain finished it is very cheap with a slow cooker to make about 40 servings of pulled beef for around $40. It’s hard to beat that economy.

I buy Australian purple garlic from woolworths but I suspect that may just be Canberra specific produce. I also get a Fennel bulb every week, and make a fennel salad with capers, blueberries, and cornichons - all from woolworths.

CostCo used to be a great source of macadamias but they have replaced that line with chocolate covered ones - meh. Loose macadamias from Woolworths are usually the cheapest.

(Katha) #3

What area have you moved to? I could tell you about farms in my area that do food coops for organic food, but that would only help you if you are on the Central Coast or at least Sydney.

I have ordered from iHerb a few times too now. They have a lot of things, like Swerve, I can’t find anywhere near me otherwise.

(Ben Graham) #4

Thanks Richard, I’ll defnitely check out the Lurpack although I know Woolworths homebrand is from grassfed and is pretty darn cheap already.
A serving for $1 is really good. I’m not adamant it has to be grassfed, but I do prefer it where I can.

I have a big container arriving in 4 weeks with a ton of our stuff, including all my cooking equipment so once I get my slow cooker I might look into that.

I’ll check out the prices at Woolworths for Macadamias. I was thinking more about it last night, if 1kg is around $40 (I think it’s a little bit more but not by much) it’s really not too bad. I see a snack as around 25g, which will get me each snack at aruond $1.
When I think of what most people pay for the snacks they have that seems mighty reasonable to me.

I love my spinach, try for at least 90g a day with a fairly healthy adding of olive oil so I keep my monos up, very easy on this diet to get the monos and saturated out of whack.
Obligatory adding that I absolutely love the podcast, been doing keto for a long arse time but still getting things from it.

(Ben Graham) #5

I’m in Bondi, thanks for the offer.
I think I’m going to my local farmers market this weekend to speak to a guy that I got some amazing lamb of last week to see if I can arrange something directly with him, will report back in.

(Rebecca) #6

I get almond meal, coconut flour, avocado oil, coconut oil, phili cheese, almonds & frozen wild caught Alaskan Salmon (when available) from Costco. Costco proudly display a massive sign saying how there beef is 100 grain fed, but I noticed that they do have some Cleaver grass fed beef in bulk, I’m not sure how much it is.

(Ben Graham) #7

Yeah I got a fair bit of frozen wild caught fish at Aldi recently, really been impressed with the quality of both the trout and salmon so will compare some prices when I go there. I’m actually going to do a recon shop with a friend who really wants to go and will drive us there! I can then compare some prices and do a huge bulk shop in the middle of the week when it’s quieter.

(Zu) #8

Aldi have good organic grass fed butter and yoghurt half the price of coles/woolies…
plus one on the aldi fish.

and you should check out which retailers offer Afterpay there are many many and growing each day!

I bought from “the Raw Deal” some health goodies and I paid every fortnight for 8 weeks but they send it out immediately… they were a1 with service and they were interested in an ongoing business arrangement and deal with bulk amounts… I did a side by side comparo of their nuts and they were tastier than the other healthfood shops…

I was supposed to send them the postage amount via bank transfer - and for some reason it never went through… and I never realised till many months later that it didnt actually go through… meaning they actually sent my order off only partially paid for… I told them about it (embarrassed) and they were just like all good - as long as the stuff arrived! Very concerned with customer wellbeing and mind you - the owner just came out of major surgery and was still just wanting to personally make sure my order arrived.

Also Honest to Goodness or sometimes ordering online from Santos (both of which are organic warehouses) can sometimes be fine if the postage works out sill economical… For individual products sometimes even ebay will surprise me with a good price every now and then and mail can be very convenient.

Coles and woolies often do big discounts on their duck/turky and you can swoop in on them…

Also when I used to be in sydney I would often hear all the old women talk about going to flemmington markets to get fresh produce in bulk which may be an option. Old ladies have their saving money ways so it might be a frugal option.

(Ben Graham) #9

I’ve been into Aldi 3 times now and each and every time they’ve only had the salted organic butter!

To be honest, I’ve been using Harris Farms a fair amount, once I found their reduced price section and found that stuff gets 30% off within a day of it’s expiry I kinda went mad. I keep buying stuff and freezing it, or cooking it straight away.

My wife also found out that if you find anything in there within a day of it’s expiration, sometimes even late at night the day before and ask the staff about it, they will reduce it for you as it’s standard policy. Found a whole chicken, some amazing looking fatty duck breasts last night, lots of chicken thighs and liver, both some of my favourite things.

Unless I find an easy way of getting to Costco reguarly I doubt I’ll be joining, which was one of my first plans. It seems that a monthly visit is needed to get the most out of it, and then it becomes more cost prohibitive in my personal circumstances. A friend keeps threatening to go so I’ll see if that happens, I really want the coconut oil and things suggested in bulk but I have a suspicion that a bulk ebay/iherb/similar order will come very close anyway.