Comments on: Generic Lovefest

By: Super Sarah

Super Sarah — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:26:52 +0000

I love hearing about other people’s successes and failures with trying to keep the grocery bills down, its an ever increasing battle round at the Super Whites. I do buy generic but its just taking me a long time to work out which are good and which aren’t so everyone’s comments are really helpful. I have a totally geeky spreadsheet with all my receipts entered and I am compiling a list of good v. bad generics so I can make my shopping lists even more efficient. I have to say that I tend to buy on price right now rather than by brand (see the Kraft peanut butter v. Woolworths own brand debate - I get whichever is on special) but as my daughter gets older I really do want to pay more attention to the additives and I think River’s EAT it not STORE it theory is a great one to live by!

By: river

river — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 07:26:14 +0000

Lightening, we do call for extra staff when there’s a run of customers, but I can’t help thinking that if we just rostered on one extra person things would flow more smoothly. Unfortunately it all comes down to the ever-present “budget”. Our floor boys are great at turning up quickly when called at least, but they go to the express lanes where there is often a line of customers snaking back past several “big” checkouts. I have to say that when I’m working express we don’t seem to need the floor boys, but when my shift is over and I’m upstairs at my locker I hear the call go over for priority service. Maybe the customers wait until I leave then all head to the checkout at once……..Sheesh, don’t they like me?? Heh.

By: lightening

lightening — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:13:40 +0000

Hi Baglady and thanks for dropping by and taking time to comment. I’ve not heard of Foodland being overseas but it could well be two separate companies using a similar name? Not sure. Maybe what we have here is just an Australian branch but I know they promote themselves as being South Australian owned.

By: lightening

lightening — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:05:21 +0000

River - It’s interesting to hear from the perspective of a worker. Personally I haven’t had too much trouble with having to wait long for check outs. I know when I was a check-out chick we would always give priority to opening check outs if we had staff available. And the floor guys would come and pack for us to speed things up. You can’t always know when there will be a run on customers either.

Stuffy - I LOVED that job!!! We don’t have Bi-Lo here anymore. Are they still in Victoria?

By: The Baglady

The Baglady — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:48:54 +0000

wow, you have woolworths and foodlands? Those stores were in Hawaii where I grew up! I didn’t know that Foodland is Australian

By: river

river — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:52:38 +0000

It’s true that a lot of Coles stores no longer stock many items which were poor sellers. One customer who always bought a certain item shopped infrequently so the item was deleted from our range. Sucky, but nothing we can do about it. I’m also angry about the lack of checkout staff and the long lines of people waiting to get through. I’m a checkout operator myself and I do try to put people through as quickly as I can (about 3-4 minutes for a full trolley load). Customers are always asking me why I can’t open another checkout, but if the staff isn’t rostered on what can I do? Plus I’m not a supervisor or front end manager, so those decisions aren’t mine. All I can do is apologise to them for the delays. Occasionally I’ve watched while a customer leaves a full trolley of goods and just walks out of the store. I work for Coles.

By: StillKindaStuffy

StillKindaStuffy — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:27:42 +0000

You were never this enthusiastic about BI-LO

By: Michelle White

Michelle White — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:14:42 +0000

Hi, I have an ALDI near where I live (Geelong), and find I definitely save more by shopping there. I also have a Safeway and Coles.

When I shop (it may sound tricky, but it is a round trip from dropping child at school to home) I go to a ‘frozen goods’ outlet (actually the retail of PFD foods) and get my frozen veges, also catering sizes of canned tomatoes, tomato paste, muffin mix, etc (cans only when dinted and therefore a lot cheaper - like $5-6 for 2.9kg).

Then onto a fruit shop, then ALDI. We love their cheeses expecially the ‘plastic’ cheese (low fat), so much nicer than Kraft slices. Also I get my meat there. They have a frozen lasagna for $9.99 for 2kg which is nice though a bit runny - you have to be careful serving it. I find that most things I want are in the back corner of the store (dairy, meat, veges), though we do drink the diet lemon soft drink, and our dog eats their cheap canned food, she won’t eat more expensive stuff - what a shame I also buy their toilet paper, tissues, etc.

After ALDI I go to Safeway and get the items I can’t get at ALDI either because they don’t stock them or I prefer the name brand. I don’t like using any other laundry detergent other than Biozet (cleans my clothes and good for the environment), and have discovered I DON’T Love Coles (or Woolworth’s Select) laundry spray! It just fizzed and sat on top of the clothing and didn’t remove the stains. The best cocoa (I’ve found) is the Black and Gold label - so dark and nice.

My shopping trip sounds like such a convoluted way to do it, but I only do it that way every two weeks, and use my local Foodworks for fruit and veg if I’m not going into PFD, and Safeway for other incidentals I might need.

I definitely save money by going to ALDI/Safeway - much more than the petrol required to drive the ten minutes to get there. I have a Coles two minutes away, but they never have what I want or the brand I want (am I the only one who bought it so they no longer stock it?) and they are more expensive than the other places.

By: Marita

Marita — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:28:17 +0000

My monthly grocery shop at ALDI comes to $300 (without nappies). On the occasions when I shop at Safeway/Woolworths or Coles instead it comes to about $300 for a week and that is with me being careful to get the lowest cost product.

I love ALDI wafer biscuits (59c/pkt). They are delicious and very handy to keep in the cupboard for unexpected visitors.

All ALDI’s are layed out the same but i just ignore the biscuits and snacks unless I wanted something specific.

My hubby loves eating the flavoured sandwich tuna and at 79c per tin ALDI is cheapest (about90gtin). They no longer pack it in oil either which is great, much healthier.

ALDI soy milk is $1.59/L, this week Coles had their homebrand UHT soy milk on special for $1.29/L - we now have 47 L of UHT soy milk. Heidi is rather fussy about her soy milk, thankfully the only two brands she will drink (ALDI and coles home brand) are the cheapest.

ALDI nappies are great, I’m a huge fan. BUT they don’t make newborn nappies and their pullups come in one size only and are useless at night.

Shopping around and knowing your prices is the best way to save $s - I was at the Preston Market this week and scored a couple of loaves of Burgen Soy and Linseed at $2.50 / loaf from the specialty bread outlet there. More than I’d usually pay for a loaf of bread but cheap for Burgen brand. Special treat for my father-in-law when he comes to visit as Burgen is on his list of approved food (diabetes diet).

Sometimes I don’t have the time to shop around either - two kids at Kinder and all the extra therapy stuff we do. Then at least I know that just buying everything from ALDI will overall save me $s even if a few individual items cost more.

I don’t usually mind that ALDI makes you pack your own bags - I just chuck everything back in the trolley and back the bags whilst standing at the boot of the car. This backfired when I did my monthly shop this week in the pouring rain.

By: lightening

lightening — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:57:02 +0000

Wow, it’s really interesting reading other people’s reactions and experiences with various stores. I must admit I did wonder about the whole “bag packing” thing with Aldi. We noticed they had a nice long counter on one side but a tiny little one on the “packing” side. I didn’t look around enough to notice a separate back-packing type counter but it makes sense in the scheme of keeping things moving. I was a little envious of the girl getting to sit down. Wish we had chairs when I was a check-out chick!!!! LOL.

An interesting thought having “Coles” as the name of a bookstore. It is funny how we associate things.

Lauren - you got an Englishman drinking YLC tea???? More power to you!!! LOL. That’s got to be a pretty good endorsement.

And I forgot about generic brand corn chips - mmmmmm…………..