[Jodie]

Hey guys,

Thought I'd start a thread about shops over here - I'll start with supermarkets.

Pak n Save - very cheap, and quite a range of products, although not too much range of frozen food generally. You buy your carrier bags (or bring your own) and the cashier scans them through the checkout and puts all your shopping on top of it back in the trolley! Then you have to go to a certain area to pack your shopping in the bags you've just bought (unless you can dodge the cashier's arms and fill them as she's stacking the stuff in the trolley! ). It feels quite like a cash and carry, a bit like Aldi or Lidl in the UK, but with named makes aswell as the 'basic' range.

Countdown - a bit more expensive than Pak n Save but a slightly 'nicer' place to shop. It's not as much like a cash and carry, you don't pay for bags and the cashier packs your shopping (which actually takes ages!). They always seem to have deals on things, including household items like crockery, heaters, dining sets etc, which are quite reasonable. Kind of equivalent to Asda I suppose.

New World - We've found that New World tends to have the best selection of food - although it tends to be more expensive than Pak n Save or Countdown. Probably equivalent to Tesco's maybe....

Woolworths/Foodtown - These are the more expensive supermarkets, but I don't think they have as good a range of foods as New World and Countdown. (Well, the ones I've been in haven't anyway...). They're more like Waitrose I suppose.

If you're watching the pennies (or cents!) when you get here, and have different supermarkets close by, it pays to get the offers at each one. Eg - they seem to go for big bottles of proper fruit juice over here rather than fruit squash drinks, and in Countdown last week it was $5 a bottle, but on offer in Woolies for $2.19 a bottle. So keep your eyes peeled for the offers!

Beef mince seems to be really cheap if you buy the massive packs and split them up and freeze, but chicken tends to be quite expensive. I've heard that it's cheaper (and you get better quality) if you buy your fruit & veg from a grocer, and your meat from a butcher, but we've yet to try - it's more convenient to buy it all at the supermarket together at the mo!

You can buy wine and beer at supermarkets quite cheaply (again there's always offers on something), but if you want spirits or alcopops, you need to go to the liquer store.

Hope this helps anyone who's interested. If you want2 know about other shops, give me a shout.

Cheers,
Jod
xx