GROCERY BILL BUSTERS.COM.AU

Our Grocery Budget can help you save upwards of $2,000

per year giving you and your family more financial freedom. 

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH YOUR SAVINGS?

ABOUT THE PERSONALISED 520 Item GROCERY BUDGET

The Grocery Budget is a purpose designed shopping list and much more.  It offers you an opportunity to record up to 520 grocery items, including pharmaceuticals and their unit prices.  The Shopping List not only automatically calculates the total prices, it also automatically calculates the unit pricing per 100ml or 100 grams (if less than one litre or one kilogram) and unit pricing per litre or kilogram (if equal to or greater than one litre or one kilogram).  The reason the Grocery Budget is so accurate, stable, user friendly and objective is because you are only adjusting up or down Full Unit Prices and/or Prices Per KG. 

To reduce your grocery expenses, we strongly recommend you definitely hunt down specials which are either on your Shopping List or are a competitor to items on your Shopping List (at the supermarket).  If you remember, the goal is to beat your Budget Target.  I therefore like to set my Budget Target slightly lower than my projected Grand Total by up to $30.00 (found in the Shopping List).

Being a former Logistics Project Manager, in my opinion, you don't really know if you are truly saving money at the supermarket unless you understand two important factors:

1. What was or is the normal full unit price or price per KG of the item; and

2. Are the items comparable in terms of their unit sizes.

Supermarkets love impulse buyers because they not only buy more items, but those impulse buyers are less likely to know what an item's original unit price was; hence the reason, a lot of retailers tend to mark up to price down, thereby giving the consumer the impression they're getting a real bargain.

One of the main benefits in using the Grocery Budget is in the fact that it takes away all those potential impulse buying temptations; so when you see a special price on an item you need, you will be able to accurately confirm that the price has been reduced by the amount documented by the supermarket.

So if you follow these principles, we can guarantee that you will be able to more accurately and objectively compare the prices in the supermarkets you frequently shop at.  But remember, please don't deviate from your Shopping List for the sake of chasing specials, otherwise you will invariably end up spending more money on groceries and you won't be able to objectively compare supermarket prices because your shopping habits will have become too erratic, which is exactly what the supermarkets want.  However, having said that, if you see special prices on the items you do need or lower priced competitor items, then definitely grab them.

Personalised and Secure 520 Item Grocery Budget

One of the best features of the 520 Item Grocery Budget is that it is quite secure and personalised in that the Login Page actually welcomes you back to the Grocery Page by first name, no less.  Equally, if you type the wrong name, suburb or serial number, into  the Login Page, the Shopping List completely errors out into a garbled mess, rendering it useless.  See illustration below:

We Built the Grocery Budget

Unlike some people or companies promoting software programs, we actually built our Grocery Budget; therefore, if you experience any problems, you won't need to wait up to a week while we frantically consult internet forums and/or the original distributor to resolve your issue.  Instead, we'll just trouble shoot the problem and resolve your issue within 24 hours of receiving your email.

Easily Customised to Suit your Family

Currently, the grocery and pharmaceutical items and their unit prices are all based on information from the supermarkets and chemists we prefer to shop at, in our local area; fortunately though, you can customise the Grocery Pages quite easily by deleting, adding, amending or even typing over any information where a cell is highlighted in yellow (which we will discuss later).  Once you have built your Grocery Budget, we recommend that you maintain and update it on a weekly basis (normally after returning home from buying your groceries) as this task, performed on a weekly basis will not take you anymore than five to 10 minutes.

NB: you will need to dedicate up to one hour every week for up to four weeks in order to fully customise your Grocery Budget to suit your family's requirements, including items and the unit prices you buy those items for.  Don't fall into the trap of just entering average prices; otherwise you may have problems accurately allocating money for not just your groceries, but other household bills also.

What our Grocery Budget Consists of

With all budgets, our Grocery Budget and indeed, our Shopping List includes:

• Descriptive Product descriptions;

• Quantities;

• Unit Prices;

• Total Price;

• Budget Target; and

• Comments/special instructions.

In the case of our Grocery Budget, we wanted it to be so simple to use that even an eight year old could create a Shopping List from the Grocery Budget - I know, because that eight year old was our daughter who successfully completed the task.

Our Microsoft Excel generated Grocery Budget workbook consists of a number of easy to use worksheets which are all specifically labelled as follows:

Grocery Pages

• Fruit & Veg (self explanatory);

• Meat, Poultry & Seafood (fresh meat, poultry, including eggs, and seafood);

• Pantry (all supermarket un-refrigerated/frozen foods, drinks and ingredients);

• Chilled & Frozen Goods (pre-packaged fridge/frozen food and dairy products);

• Cleaning, Pet & Misc Goods (self explanatory); and

• Family Hygiene, Vita & Meds (includes cosmetics and pharmaceuticals).

NB:  The Grocery Pages are where you enter all your information, including products, unit (each or KG), how many times an item goes into a KG (if applicable), unit price (or price per KG), quantity and comments.  Remember, any cell which is highlighted in yellow, you can amend.

Ancillary Pages

• Order List (used to write down required weekly grocery items);

• Shopping List (this is what you print off and take to the supermarket);

• 52 Week Budget Diary and Supermarket Competitive Savings Table; and

• Blank Shopping List.

NB: When you amend a Grocery Page, the Order List and Shopping List are automatically populated by the information you entered into those Grocery Pages.  However, you will need to quickly reset the Shopping List before you print, to learn more, click on Shopping List.

Creating your Grocery Budget

When you first create your own Grocery Budget, it's important to record the typical items and unit prices of brands that you would buy, from your local supermarket and pharmacy, on a regular basis, as this will give you an indication as to how much your groceries will cost.  This is because:

As human beings, we love to continually better our achievements, don't you agree?  Therefore, if we set ourselves a total and a budget target, isn't it also fair to assume that we will endeavour to beat that target, every week?

While you're walking through the supermarket aisles, be curious - keep an open mind; because the secret to reducing your weekly grocery bill is in finding competitive grocery items, of a similar size, but at a lower unit price.  When you do come across these lower priced competitive brands (including supermarket generic brands) and they satisfy your nutritional and quality standards, we recommend you do two things:

1. Put them into your trolley or basket; and

2. Record the grocery items (including brand name and item size - 100g as an example) and unit prices on your Shopping List; so when you come home, you can simply update your Shopping List, in your Grocery Budget, with the lower priced grocery items and unit prices. 

The following week when you make out your Shopping List, you should select the lower priced grocery items and thereby reducing your projected weekly grocery total spend; but don't forget to give yourself a new budget target and lower than your new projected total.  So, can you now see how your grocery bills are reducing?  It's exciting, isn't it?  The only dilemma you've got now is what are you going to do with that extra cash?  For some more tips on grocery shopping savings, you will need to review the Grocery Bill Busting E-Workbook.

NB: We recommend that you record all your specials and coupon discounts next to the relevant item under the Comments column in the Grocery Pages, as the Shopping List will automatically factor those discounts and specials into your Grand Total.  But we recommend you don't adjust up or down your unit prices to reflect specials or coupon discounts; otherwise you will end up spending every waking hour adjusting your Grocery Budget and eventually, your unit prices will be incorrect.

After you complete your weekly grocery shopping, it's a good idea to enter your findings into the 52 Week Budget Diary and Supermarket Competitive Savings Table (which we will discuss later) as this will let you objectively compare which of your preferred conveniently located supermarkets are consistently the cheapest.  I'm sure a few of your family and friends would love to see your objective findings also.

The Worksheets Inside the Grocery Budget

To learn more about the important features of our Grocery Budget, please click on the following hyperlinks:

• The Order List

• The Grocery Pages

• The Shopping List; and

• 52 Week Budget Diary and Supermarket Competitive Savings Table

If you have any questions about our Grocery Budget, or require assistance in building your own Grocery Budget, please feel free to Contact Us.  Our objective is to help all our customers buy more groceries for less money.

If you would like to review the Grocery Bill Busting E-Workbook, please click here

However, if you are ready to purchase your very own personalised 520 item Grocery Budget (complete with user manual) for only $15.00 (inclusive of GST), please click here

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