Australian tap water is amongst the purest in the world, so we don’t need to drink bottled water. Unless you want to pay a premium for something you don’t need, leave it off the shopping list.
9 - Frozen vegetables
Supermarkets think if they cut our carrots and add a knob of herb butter, they can charge three times the price. But this kind of prep is so basic, there’s no reason why you can’t do it yourself and do it exactly how you like it.
8 - Pure fruit icy poles
Frozen juice and smoothie lollies are low in calories, but not in price. Instead, make your own at home with fruit pulp, a teaspoon of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice.
7 - Lunch box snacks
The contents of children’s snack packs are poor quality and packed with salt. What you’re really paying for is the fancy packaging. Don’t fork out for anything but the best ingredients – ditch the prepacked snack and make your own.
6 - Energy and breakfast bars
Shoppers grab these for what they think is a healthy energy boost, but breakfast and energy bars often have high fat and sugar content. In fact it’s not much different from eating a chocolate bar, except they can cost as much as four times more. For a better boost, grab a piece of fruit or a handful of protein-rich nuts. Better for your health and your wallet.
5 - Bagged salad
Buying salad leaves certainly adds interest to your five a day. However, you’ll pay a significant price for that pleasure. Not only are the bags pumped full of a chemical to keep them fresh, as soon as you open the bag, the chemical is released and the leaves wilt fast. Salad leaves are notoriously easy to grow, so save your cash and spice up your salads by growing your own.
4 - Packet spice mixes
Shop-bought spice mixes seem a good deal, because you’re getting lots of spices in one sachet. But as well as spices, you’re getting salt and possibly a whole lot of additives you don’t want. Buying the spices themselves will cost a bit more to start, but they last longer and you can improvise to make your dish exactly how spicy (or not) you like it.
3 - Pre-made barbecue meats
Supermarkets love to make their own pre-formed patties just so they can hike up the price. Buying your own mince is much cheaper, and it will only take you about ten seconds to shape each burger. The same goes for marinated meats and kebabs. Buying the meat and doing the marinades yourself is much cheaper, and because you’re making your own you can tailor them to exactly what you like to eat.
2 - Tomato based pasta sauces
Tinned tomatoes are relatively cheap, where as pasta sauce's cost much more because of the label and packaging. Making your own sauce is easy and you don’t have to eat the salt or additives added to pre-made sauces. Soften an onion and a clove of garlic in a saucepan, add a can of tomatoes and a dash of white wine, season with herbs and leave to simmer until the right consistency.
1 - Prepared frozen meals
Microwave mash, frozen diet meals and packet meals such as spaghetti are culprits. What you do get for your money is extra salt, and flavourings. But you don’t get value for money. Cook them for yourself, and they’ll be more to your taste and cheaper.
That stuff about the pre-made barbecue meat is true. it is cheaper to make your own. But I've tried that and they just don't taste the same. somehow they're not as good.
Give me a box of birdseye's best beef burgers any day =)
Don't be fooled by my smooth skin. The deepest scars are the ones unseen.
Remember compliments you received, forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how..~ Baz Lurhman.
Letting it get to you - You know what that's called? Being alive. Best thing there is. Being alive right now that's all that counts. ~ Doctor Who "The Doctors Wife" 06.November.2011
I agree 100% with the 1 - prepared frozen meals and I'd probably not feed my children (if I had any) what I eat or lunch box snacks, plus I'm a vegetarian so no barbecue meats for me, but I don't think much harm is happening with the rest.
Everything in moderation and all that lol.
I would say that if people eat meat to at least know what's actually in it and where it's coming from though, have you never watched a Jamie Oliver show?! :p
I always buy hideous amounts of fresh veg, I'm a bit of a veg junkie.
Bottled water I like simply because it's so convenient to have a bottle with you all the time; I buy one a week, though, and just keep refilling it.
I don't think I understand bagged salads - it just seems a huge waste of money when you're buying them, compared to what you get if you buy things independently?
And ready meals are all a bit bleugh anyway. I've yet to actually find a decent ready meal.
Australian tap water is amongst the purest in the world, so we don’t need to drink bottled water. Unless you want to pay a premium for something you don’t need, leave it off the shopping list.
If you drink too much tap water in some countries, say Korea, you'll get very sick. Not every country has pure, well-filtered tap water like the US or Aussie-land. Even in France you don't drink tap water.
But anyway, this list can be summarised by saying "Don't buy things; it's a waste of monies. Grow your own."
Nous avons abrité tous les rêves du monde,
Et c'est dans le soleil que nous avons grandi.
I told my mam about the tomato based pasta sauces being cheaper to make and she said they probably are but she couldn't be bothered making them herself. oh well, I tried.
If you drink too much tap water in some countries, say Korea, you'll get very sick. Not every country has pure, well-filtered tap water like the US or Aussie-land. Even in France you don't drink tap water.
Even then, in the US it varies.
Where I am, the tapwater is drinkable yes but it's nasty.
Now's too late. Too late to live and my consience's killing me. So I am alive but I'm not free.
For all of you that can relate to this too...
We've started growing our own vegetables and we've been quite successful but last time we picked some lettuce leaves, there were insects all over them, so I still stick to bagged salads/frozen veg/supermarket veg.
Well, I suppose that you can drink tap water in France, and indeed I have drunk plenty of it. However, because of it being less filtered/cleaned/fortified/whatever than American drinking water, I've always been advised not to drink it.
Nous avons abrité tous les rêves du monde,
Et c'est dans le soleil que nous avons grandi.
I have no experience of American tap water, only British. I was perfectly fine drinking the tap water in an area that didn't even have mains sewage (not even a septic tank...), so if it's okay there, I imagine it would be perfectly fine elsewhere in France.
Water in France is perfectly fine and it's a bit ignorant to think otherwise. It's a European country not a third world one.
Half of those nice descriptive words they throw into describing things in America are just there from a marketing point of view, not because it's actually any better.
