No wonder so many of us love gardening.
The harder our lives become, the more important it becomes to try to find a bit of magic in everyday moments such as gardening.
Watch as the tūī visiting your garden forget their caution and suckle on the nectar of plants right near where you’re basking in the spring sunshine.
Feel a baby’s hand squeeze one of your fingers like it never wants to let go.
Listen to Freddie Mercury or Aretha Franklin’s powerful, timeless voices belt out of your speakers.
Brew a coffee and hold the warm cup in your hand as you savour its stimulating scent.
That last one especially is something to treasure while you can as, before much longer, coffee’s price might push it firmly out of the “everyday” category and into the “luxury” basket.
It’s one of a never-ending list of items growing exponentially in price, with no apparent end in sight.
Going to the supermarket is becoming even more of a dreaded chore lately, as those of us on budgets fear what tough choices we are going to have to make today.
Eight months or so ago, I had grocery shopping down to a fine art. I did a large fortnightly shop of non-perishables, freezables and longer shelf lives, and on alternating weeks I’d make a run to the fruit and vegetable shop to top up.
It was such a good system. I mean, who doesn’t want to avoid the supermarket as much as possible?
But as prices have increased, I’ve noticed that my shops have slowly increased in frequency to weekly, because I can’t afford to buy as much in bulk and I’ve been waiting until I’m completely out of something before replacing it. A word to the wise: don’t do this with toothpaste or laundry powder. Especially while potty training a toddler. Trust me on this.
Fruits and veges are claiming a larger portion of all of our grocery bills, with produce prices rising 17 per cent in the last year. Meat prices have also gone up considerably: 10 per cent.
Foodstuffs NZ managing director Chris Quin told the Herald last week that supermarket customers were changing shopping habits to try to outwit inflation.
“Half of our customers describe their financial situation as ‘precarious’,” Quin said. “Overall, we’re seeing customers buying less, cutting out non-essential items, buying cheaper brands and shopping around to get the best deals.”
“Precarious” feels about right.
I’m due for another top-up shop this week, which prompted me to do a small experiment.
I took my shopping list of 14 items and plugged it into the “collect in-store” options of each of our three major supermarket chains to see what the cost would be.
To make the comparison easier, I chose the cheapest options in the closest size to what I’d buy – for example, a 10-kilogram bag of potatoes may have worked out cheaper per kg, but I’d never buy that many in one go for my little family.
I compared: 500 grams of tomatoes, 500g of kumara, 2kg of potatoes (Countdown and New World had cheaper options at 2.5kg so I selected those), one lettuce, one cauliflower (Countdown only had a half available), one broccoli, 1kg of apples, 1kg of Edam cheese, 2 litres of milk, 500g of beef mince, 500g of chicken breast, two tins of tomatoes, two loaves of bread and 1kg of frozen peas.
At Pak ‘n Save my basket was $54.67; New World was $67.62, and at Countdown, it was $72.20 (all excluding bagging).
Grim, that. Especially as a full family grocery shop would usually include other items such as toilet paper, cooking oil, baking supplies and cereals. No wonder so many families are doing it hard.
I’ve only got one child – and a toddler at that, even if he sometimes eats like an 8-year-old – and I can’t imagine how families with more children or, heaven forbid, teenagers, are coping.
It’s no surprise some of the Bay’s foodbanks are reporting such large increases in demand.
In Rotorua, in the first 10 months of this year, the Salvation Army provided kai to the value of $87,000 to those in need, compared to $46,000 in 2019 before Covid - a rise of about 89 per cent. In Tauranga, as of October 31, just over 19,600 people from 6623 city households sought help from the foodbank - an increase of about 4000 compared to the year before.
Thankfully, I’m soon going to be able to offset some of my grocery bills with some of my magical homegrown produce. And it’ll taste even sweeter with the knowledge of the money I’m (hopefully) saving.
But for those who don’t have that option, well, thank goodness for our precious foodbanks.
It’s hard to keep trimming the fat when even cheese is a distant dream.
Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader, and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.
