This is what a weekly shop looks like for seven households in 2026

Seven households laid out their food shops for us, as interest rates and inflation really start to bite.

Australians received the news of another interest rate hike last week, as the Reserve Bank says inflation is still not in check.

People can see they're paying more and getting less, particularly at the check-out.

We joined seven shoppers just after their weekly shop to find out what their money gets them and how their habits have changed.

Daniel is a husband, and dad to a toddler and a three-month-old baby.

This is one of the family's larger shops which is topped up with things like milk, bread and another meal, averaging about $250 a week on groceries.

He knows this because he has a detailed spreadsheet to keep track of their budget.

Groceries are his biggest cost after the mortgage. 

He is increasingly looking for ways to cut costs at the supermarket. 

"Things that I've cut back on completely are nice big juicy steaks. They're just very expensive. They very rarely make an appearance on the menu."

Daniel now mostly shops at Aldi, weighing up cost with cheaper items where quality isn't sacrificed.

"There are some things where I can't sacrifice quality for cost. Things like my bread which I love very much. Another one is free-range eggs.

"We started buying the cheaper cheese and now I don't know what the really nice cheese tastes like."

Households making changes to weekly shop

One in four shoppers told consumer research company Canstar last year that they had changed their habits in the past 12 months to try and keep costs down. 

Louisa budgets $300 a week for herself, her husband and toddler. She meal preps and doesn't venture far from their staples each week.

"I'm doing a similar shop to what I've always done but individual prices have gone up. Cereals, rice, meat – there's a big increase on each item."

Louisa doesn't stress too much if she's a little over budget, but does shop around to get more for her money.

"I normally start at Aldi and I do the majority of the shop there and then whatever I don't get at Aldi I get at Woolies. So it's either if they don't sell the item or if there's specific brands I want."

Udita is a mum of a kindergarten-aged child. She lives with her husband and mother-in-law.

She says she doesn't go without anything but has become more mindful of what she comes home with, comparing what she would've got for the same price a few years ago.

"We would've eaten like kings," she says.

"It's definitely [costing] a lot more than what it would have three or four years ago.

"Mini cans of Coke, that alone if it's not on special, is around $11 or $12. 

"It just blows my mind that such a small vessel of soft drink … is so expensive."

Being time-poor, Udita only shops once a week, but visits multiple places.

The lack of competition with the major supermarkets, Udita says, means she puts in effort to get a good deal. 

She starts at Aldi and the local Indian grocer and buys products like lentils, nuts and ghee, an Indian speciality butter, in bulk.

Udita is in the majority by going to more than one place for her regular shop, according to Canstar. 

While shopping around can save money, Choice's basket of base items shows prices continue to go up across all major supermarkets.

A recent Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey found that the average share of income spent on essential goods and services had grown by nearly 6 per cent in three years.

It was even higher for single non-elderly people (7.8 per cent) and single parents with dependent children (6.1 per cent).

The report found food insecurity was also present at higher rates among people in single-parent families.

Kirsty lives at home with her teenage son.

Groceries account for almost a quarter of her disability pension.

"Talking about it out loud is like, wow. And looking at what we've bought … it looks like not much."

Kirsty has been part of a spending and budgeting education program with the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

"I shop between the three supermarkets and see what I can get for cheaper," she says.

But with rising costs and a mortgage, her reality is there's little left to cut.

These days, she's cut back on fresh fruit and vegetables because she can't afford for food to go to waste.

"I've had to stop buying meat because we can't afford to be eating too much and I've gone to ready-made meals … I get them when they're on sale and they're fresh and then I freeze them."

Barb is a pensioner who has been evicted from her rental. She's now waiting for an appropriate social housing option for her and her two beloved cats.

She says she doesn't have flexibility to shop around because of a recent injury, so she ends up paying more for convenience.

Barb still buys the things she likes but looks for specials and rations expensive items like fish.

"Fresh food is the core of what I buy and that's absolutely going up."

Robyn, a single parent of two primary school-aged boys, thinks carefully about every item she purchases with a strict budget of $150 a week.

A decent portion of these weekly groceries are from a $15 Foodbank parcel.

It includes items like bread, flour, long-life milk, tuna, fruit and vegetables.

Without Foodbank, she says they'd have to go with a lot less.

"I was quite ashamed going on it because never in my life have I relied on a service."

Robyn cooks and bakes most of their meals from scratch and has cut back most of their meat, getting creative with chicken and beef mince and stretching a pack across multiple meals.

She buys long-life milk instead of fresh milk and has swapped most fresh fruit and vegetables for frozen alternatives so she can keep them for longer.

"Buying it fresh, unless I can get through it quickly or I can freeze it half way through, it's just not financially viable," Robyn says.

This week, an avocado makes the cut for some Mexican, an item she considers a rarity these days.

"If I had a luxury item, it'd be chocolate for myself, or maybe more berries."

Staying on budget for Robyn means the difference between being able to afford a road trip or activity with her boys. 

"I'm just so conscious of them not missing out in any way, which is why this is so important to me," she says.

"For me an experience is worth more than having a piece of fresh fruit."

Bill is a pensioner who has relied on Foodbank at times.

He says his shop is made up of bare essentials like bread, milk, eggs, noodles, cereal, fruit and vegetables.

"Biscuits are a luxury to me. I like the orange cream ones."

He does the rough figures in his head as he is shopping, to make sure he's on track.

"If you're walking through, you might say, 'Oh I'd like that'. I might pluck a jam or Vegemite, but you've just got to turn around and say, 'It's not in the budget. I can't get it'."

As the cost of groceries grow, so does the number of Australians facing food insecurity.

Foodbank recently found the number of Australian households that experienced some form of food insecurity in the past 12 months grew by 100,000.

The top reason cited by householders was increased or high living costs such as food and housing, followed by reduced or low income. 

The impact of interest rates, in particular, jumped back to 2024 levels after easing off last year, and the report found more households now expect their finances to worsen over the next year.

The RBA says interest rate rises are necessary to reduce borrowers' disposable cash, ultimately curbing spending and reducing demand for goods and services. 

As almost everything is getting more expensive, and workers are left with a drop in real wages compared to five years ago, higher interest rates leave borrowers with even less to spend.

And while for some that may mean fewer takeaway lattes or holidays, for the households that have already sacrificed the extras, there's little left to cut but the essentials.