Budget Supermarket Alternatives

Today we are going to chat about one of the biggest costs facing families (and really everybody at the moment) and that is groceries.

It’s no secret that the cost of groceries has skyrocketed over the past few years. If we look at the findings from Canstar Blue, the average weekly shop for a family of four in Australia in 2021 was sitting at $187. In 2025 that weekly shopping average for a family of four is now sitting at $240 a week. That’s an increase of $53 a week in just four years. Even in this year alone, from July 2024 to July 2025, the Australian Bureau of statistics found that the cost of food and non alcoholic beverages are up by 3%, while fresh produce is up by 4.8%.

These increased grocery prices have mostly been attributed to rising costs of production for farmers and producers, rising cost of petrol and transport, along with things like climate changes, tariffs, etc. We have been given some pretty solid reasonings behind the increase in prices, but it is definitely hard to reconcile paying an extra $50 a week for groceries when the CEOs of the largest two grocery chains are making millions in a year. I cannot help but wonder whether it’s the farmers and producers who are on the receiving end of this extra money.

But anyway - food is expensive, so what can we do about it?

Today I’m going to chat to you about the three main alternatives to regular grocery store shopping that have helped us get out of sticky situations, or helped us save money.

Food Banks

One option that I would have never considered before our own financial difficulties is food banks or community pantries.

In Australia, Food Bank is its own entity that supports community organisations to provide food relief. These community organisations might be churches, community pantries, not for profits, things like that. So when I use the term “food bank”, I’ll be referring not to Food Bank itself, but to those community organisations that partner with them to deliver free or discounted food.

As they are individual organisations run by individual operators, food banks all operate differently. Some of these organisations do have restrictions on who can shop with them or receive donations, so you might need a healthcare card or to be a low income earner to shop with them. But some of them don’t have restrictions, and want everybody to shop with them so that they can use the profits to help fund other initiatives. I have received quite a lot of hate in the past for using food banks, but we have only ever shopped with organisations who encourage the general public to shop with them. I also don’t believe in questioning whether someone needs to access discounted food.

Some food banks act like grocery stores, where you can walk in, you can grab a trolley, do your shop, buy whatever you want. Others might offer hampers where they have been prepacked for you and you don’t get much of a say as to what’s inside. Some ask for your family details and give you a pack based on your family’s needs. They are all different, it’s really just about looking at what’s around your area and seeing if there is anything suitable for you.

If you are in Australia and interested in finding food banks around you, you can visit foodbank.org.au click “find food” and see what’s available in your area. Then it’s just a matter of finding out whether there are requirements to shop there, whether it is appropriate for you to do so, and how their system works.

Discount Stores

If you don’t have any food banks in your area or you can’t access them for whatever other reasons, another good option is discount grocery stores.

These are generally not associated with community organisations, they are just regular old businesses. This means you don’t have to worry about means testing or meeting any criteria.

These discount stores actually operate in a pretty similar way to the food banks in that they often buy produce that is nearing its used by date, or past its best before date (best before date is just a guide - it’s usually going to be fine to eat things a bit past their BB date). These stores might also buy and sell items that haven’t sold well, like weird flavours of chips, or seconds items that might be slightly scratched or dinged or have some cosmetic or production flaw. The discount stores buy these things heavily reduces and that means that you can often score them for an absolute bargain.

If the items are near their used by date it does mean might have to use them up fairly quickly, and that’s where it can become very handy to develop some frugal life skills for preserving food. But don't panic! When I say preserving food, I don’t mean you have to go learn how to can things. Preserving food might just look chopping up a bunch of chicken and popping into ziplock bags in the freezer, or stewing some apples that are going a little bit manky. These are skills that will REALLY help if you want to shop at food banks or discount stores.

If you want to check out some discount stores, I’d recommend just jumping on Google Maps and searching discount groceries. Most major cities are going to have something. Just go have a look for yourself.

Fresh Produce Boxes

Now, I love food banks, I love discount stores, but one thing that they are often lacking is fresh fruit and veggies. They will sometimes have great stuff available, more often will have mediocre stuff available, and sometimes will have barely anything. This is where our next tip comes in handy.

We use a fruit and vegetable delivery box and have all our fresh produce delivered each fortnight.

The one we use is Farmer’s Pick, I do have a code - AUSSIEFRUGALFAMILY that will get you a discount on your first box. (I do get like a small kickback from this code, but only because I approached them to work with them. I started ordering from them before I was working with them.)

So anyway, these fruit and veg boxes are absolutely amazing because many of them take the produce that the supermarkets reject because of cosmetic reasons, overproduction, etc. and sell them at less than supermarket prices. I used to do cost comparison videos every fortnight for our Farmer's Pick box, comparing what was inside to supermarket prices, but I actually stopped doing these because it became very obvious that they were ALWAYS lower than Coles and Woolies.

The pros of these boxes are that they are generally cheaper than buying produce in grocery stores, they’re delivered to your door, they help support farmer’s and help prevent food waste.

The main con is that with some of these boxes you don’t get a choice of what’s in them. However, many of them do now let you exclude or choose things that you want. I actually love the surprise I find it really exciting, and I feel like it gets us eating a variety of fresh produce that we might not otherwise get. I also love that I don’t have to think about it - because as a mother of very young children, and the homemaker, cook, cleaner, I just really enjoy not having to think about one part of the groceries.

We’ve also started getting all our meat delivered from Farmer’s Pick too and we absolutely love it. This isn’t necessarily cheaper than the grocery store meat, because it's all grass fed, high quality meat. But it’s such good quality, a great price for the quality, and the convenience is also amazing. We’re always trying to find ways to shop less at Coles and Woolies, so we’re happy to do that with Farmer’s Pick.

If you’re wanting to give one of these produce boxes a go, just have a Google, see who delivers to you, and if you want to try Farmer’s Pick I do highly recommend them.

So that is it, those are the big three alternatives to regular grocery shopping that we have used and loved since we started our frugal journey. Food banks, discount grocery stores and produce delivery services.

Like I always say, I am not the absolute master of all things frugal so please do hop into the comments and give your own suggestions if you have any. Also let us know what sort of topics you’d love to hear about on the Aussie Frugal Family and I will do my best to provide. I do also just want to urge anybody struggling with food insecurity to please reach out to community organisations around you, they are there to help. 

Thank you so much for your time!

• Rachel