Many of us buy wine on price first, and varietal/brand second. This means our eyes naturally look for the lowest prices on those yellow special labels in the store. However, this doesn't necessarily mean you're getting the best deal.
When you look at these specials, don't look at the biggest price first. There's smaller text that tells you how much you're saving off the RRP – and that's where you'll find the bargains.
Some wines that are seemingly on special are only $1 off their usual price, but if you look closely, you'll find a few wines with $5 off. Buy these instead because you're getting the highest quality wine at the lowest possible price.
3. Make it a broccoli week
Broccoli is in season and it's cheap across the nation. You should be able to find a head for $1 this week, so buy a couple instead of the vegetables that are getting more expensive this time of year (e.g. root vegetables like kumara and pumpkin).
Think broccoli is gross? Steamed stems are what your parents used to force you to eat, I know, but that's only one way of cooking broccoli. Roast it with garlic, chilli, and rock salt, add it into pasta, make it into pesto or a cheesy soup... you just have to get creative.
4. Watch the signs at petrol stations
Petrol is exorbitantly priced in New Zealand right now but some companies offer per litre discounts of 6 cents, 10 cents, or even more, depending on their marketing campaigns of the week.
Watch out for these by checking out the street-side advertising signs at various stations in your area. Most of the savings require you to swipe a rewards card (like AA Smartfuel) so if you're not on one of these, you need to be. Some supermarkets like PAK'nSAVE also
offer per litre discounts for their shoppers – check your receipt – and hopefully we'll soon return to a time where the big brands give us huge discounts of 20c or more when you spend over a certain amount on your food shopping.
5. "Pause" some of your TV streaming services
In lieu of pay TV or even having an aerial on the roof, I subscribe to four different streaming services for TV and movies. This costs my household around $50 a month, which is fair considering how much we binge. But it could be cheaper.
How? By temporarily cancelling the services we're not using every week. When something new lands on Netflix, I find we only watch Netflix until we have watched the full 10-13 hours of that show – meaning we're paying for three other services for nothing.
The same goes for Prime Video (I should subscribe only when something new like Jack Ryan or The Marvelous Mrs Maisel is live). I successfully did this with Neon recently, subscribing only for a month so I could watch Sharp Objects and a few other HBO shows to completion.
It's a shrewd way to use streaming TV and involves a bit of annoying administration (e.g. keeping a diary for your subscription rollover dates so you don't get charged for another month), but will put hundreds of dollars a year back in your pocket.
