The grocery duopoly in this country has been driving me up the wall lately. Coles and Woolworths have such a stranglehold on the market that they can essentially charge whatever they want, and we’re left with little choice but to cop it sweet. So when someone recently shared a tool they’d built to help us fight back against this system, I was genuinely excited.

The tool is called CW Scanner, and it does something brilliantly simple: it compares prices between Coles and Woolworths in real time. You can scan a barcode or search for items, and it shows you which store has the better deal. What really impressed me is that it’s completely free – no ads, no paywalls, no sign-ups required unless you want to save shopping lists.

Been pondering something lately that’s probably crossed the minds of most busy parents and workers: at what point does paying for grocery convenience stop being a luxury and start being a necessity? The question popped up in an online discussion recently, and it really got me thinking about how dramatically our shopping habits have evolved, especially since the pandemic pushed so many of us into the digital grocery realm.

The person asking the question was hitting that familiar life stage where time becomes more precious than money – something I’m sure resonates with anyone juggling work, family, and the general chaos of modern existence. They wanted to know the real cost difference between traditional in-store shopping, click and collect, and home delivery. What struck me most about the responses wasn’t just the practical advice, but how many people had made the mental shift from viewing these services as indulgences to seeing them as essential tools for managing their lives.