Over the Australia Day long weekend my partner and I took to the freeway and drove down to Cranbourne in search of some outer suburb specialities – discount warehouse stores. In these bizarre parallel universes, you can snap up big brand groceries for as much as 80% cheaper than the big supermarkets. While you couldn’t exactly reliably do your weekly shop at these discount havens, they’re great for stocking up on bits and pieces at rock bottom prices.

I snapped up things like Stirr Almond Milk Latte sachets for $3 instead of their RRP of $8, boxes of sweet potato Arnott’s Shapes for $1, and cartons of Australia’s Own Like Milk for $0.80c instead of $4.

I shared my full haul on IGTV – have a watch here. If you want to grab some sweet deals of your own, these discount clearance stores in Melbourne might be worth a visit.

NQR

I visited the Fountain Gate branch of NQR, and found amazing deals here on things that weren’t even that short dated. Some things do have pending expiry dates, but they’re of course all only ‘Best Before’, so the date doesn’t mean a whole lot, really. They had a great freezer section, too, but the drive back to Melbourne in 31 degrees meant I didn’t want to risk flooding my back seats with various melted debris.

There are NQR stores at Ballarat, Bendigo, Boronia, Broadmeadows, Chelsea, Fountain Gate, Frankston, Kilsyth, Melton, Morwell, Newcomb, North Geelong, Sebastopol and Werribee. Find your nearest here.

Best find: Australia’s Own Pea Protein Mylk for $0.80c instead of $4.

Bargain Depot Clearance

I visited the Cranbourne branch of Bargain Depot, and found some good food bargains, but also a lot of toiletries and laundry essentials. I didn’t end up buying any of those as I recently did a stock up at Woolworths (facepalm), but if I had more space in my apartment I’d have grabbed tubs of Vanish, gallons of mouthwash and toothpastes galore at major discounts.

Best find: Good Earth Kombucha for $1 instead of $5.

Bargain Depot is located at Cranbourne and Epping.

Food Factory Sales

Food Factory Sales is a single branch wonderland in Bayswater – near ALDI, which could make for a sweet sweet bargain roadtrip. They show a few of their specials online, and have a specials newsletter, which might help you keep in the loop on all those sexy savings.

Best find: Dorset Cereals Muesli for $1 instead of $8.50.

Savemore

This Springvale gem isn’t too far from the inner-southside suburbs, so your road trip needn’t be too long to explore this bargain bazaar. These guys also have a newsletter, so sign up to that for mega deals straight to your inbox. They’re also super active on Facebook, so keep up to date here.

Best finds: 2 boxes of Nature Valley bars for $2, three hunks of brie for $5, and Primo diced chorizo at 4 packs for $3.  

If you visit any of these discount dreamlands, or find one not listed here, DM me on Instagram and show me your mad savings!