How to save money with CartSavvy

1. Compare before you buy

Search for what you need. Each card shows the stores that sell it, with the cheapest highlighted and named — for example “Aldi equivalent is cheapest”. Aldi equivalent means a similar Aldi product (usually Aldi's own brand), not the same brand, so compare the details before you buy. Tap Compare sizes on a card to see every store and pack size side by side.

2. Compare by unit price, not shelf price

A bigger pack costs more on the shelf but is often cheaper per 100g, per litre or per kg. Sort by Value: cheapest/unit to rank products by the price that matters.

Illustrative example: a 2kg bag at $12 is $0.60 per 100g, so it beats a 500g bag at $4 ($0.80 per 100g), even though the small bag looks cheaper.

We match products by name and size, and the odd match will be imperfect — check the pack size before you buy.

3. Set a price alert, then forget about it

Found something you buy often? Tap Alert me. Enter your email (or sign in), then confirm from the email we send. After that, we email you when its price drops at any store we track.

We email when a price falls by at least 10% or at least 50 cents, measured from the price when you set the alert (or from our last email about it). Smaller wobbles are skipped, so you don't get an email for a few cents.

It's free, with up to 5 active alerts. Manage them any time on your alerts page.

4. Spot fake specials

A crossed-out “was” price isn't always real. When the higher price has not been seen as the actual selling price in the past 21 days, we flag the item as a possibly misleading discount — “possibly”, because we can't see before we started tracking.

See the full list at Misleading Discounts. On product cards, Lowest in 30 days marks a genuinely good price, and Not a real deal marks a big discount on a price that's high against the last 30 days.

On the home page, the Lowest in 30 days and Price drops buttons filter to just those items.

5. Check the price history before a big purchase

Tap the chart icon on a card to open the product page, with 31 days of price history (free sign-in needed to see the chart). If today's “special” is the same price as most days, it isn't a special and you can wait. If it's the lowest in the past month, that's a good time to buy.

6. Time your shop to the specials cycle

In our tracking, most price changes land on set days:

• Coles and Woolworths — weekly specials change on Wednesday. See the current half-price specials.
• Chemist Warehouse and Priceline — most changes land on Thursday.

The price cycles page shows how often Coles and Woolworths specials repeat, so you can stock up when something goes on special and skip it when it doesn't.

7. Look beyond the big supermarkets

We cover Asian grocers (uMall, Asian Pantry, eBest, JFC) and Indian grocers (BigTrolley, IndiaMate, India at Home), which many comparison sites skip. For rice, noodles, spices and sauces they can be worth a look — compare rather than assume.

8. Don't forget chemist, pet and baby

A single purchase here can be large, so a price gap matters more:

• Chemist — Chemist Warehouse, Priceline, Pharmacy Online, ChemistDirect
• Pet — PetCircle, PetBarn, PetStock, VetSupply, PeekAPaw
• Baby — Baby Bunting, plus baby ranges at Chemist Warehouse, Priceline, Coles and Woolworths

Pet food especially varies by pack size — compare by price per kg.

9. Build a basket for the weekly shop

On grocery cards, tap the + button to add an item to your basket. It totals your list at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and Harris Farm, so you can compare one running total instead of product by product. Each item opens on the store's site to buy.

10. Read the weekly deals email

Each week, once Coles and Woolworths have updated their specials (usually Wednesday), we email your watchlist first — today's cheapest price and store for each item you're watching, marked when it's at its lowest in 30 days — then the week's biggest discounts, naming the store for each and leaving out discounts we've flagged as misleading. Every item has a “Stop watching” link. Treat it as a nudge: open the compare page for anything you'd actually buy, and check the price at the store.

11. Keep an eye on the bigger picture

The inflation dashboard shows how grocery prices are moving by category, and the weekly price report shows the cheapest store by category plus the biggest price rises and drops — useful for deciding what to stock up on and what to switch.

A 10-minute weekly routine

1. Wednesday: check the new Coles and Woolworths specials on your regular items.
2. Compare two or three things you buy every week by unit price.
3. Set alerts on anything expensive you can wait for.
4. Skip any discount flagged as misleading.
5. Check the price on the store's site before you pay.