As Australians around the nation seek innovative ways to reduce their grocery bills amid skyrocketing prices, Melbourne resident Hugh Honey has executed a very simple strategy to save a few pennies – just stop paying for wastage. 

To do so, he has been stocked up in the deli section on red meats but before processing himself through the self-serve checkout, he has simply removed anything from his shopping basket that cannot be eaten. In this case, he has halved the weight – and cost – of his steaks by removing the bones. 

“All the meat is advertised by its weight price so it makes no sense that we’re paying for parts of the meat that we can’t eat,” said Honey. 

“It means I can get my grocery bill back down to an acceptable level so I plan on doing this with other meats also.

“Next week I’ll be back with a full fish filleting kit so I’ll just grab a whole fish and then set up in the corner to remove the scales, head and bones.” 

To account for the fact the meats have pre-weighted stickers on them, Honey has simply blacked them out and re-weighted them himself on the self-serve checkout, often as brown onions.  

The frugal moves follow rising trends across supermarket veggie sections where Aussies are removing the stumps from their broccoli and outside leaves from their cauliflower.