Over five days, Newshub reporter Scott Palmer visited five different food stores to see if creative consumerism could stretch $5 into three meals a day.
DAY 4: Asian supermarket
We hit up the local Asian grocery store, which are peppered throughout the Auckland region and can be found in other large population centres.
I often go there to pick up my veggies - and find more exotic ingredients to experiment with.
So I was fairly confident that I would be able to arrange a decent meal plan.
When I got there, however, I found the options for building a different $5 breakfast, lunch, and dinner were difficult; as the total cost for the individual items would have blown our budget.
Instead, I decided to cook up a massive stirfry, and snack on it throughout the day.
I cooked up an onion, a carrot, a green vegetable, noodles and a sauce mix.
I would say that in terms of taste, this was the best - and the quantity was massive! There was a giant pot full. But the fillingness didn't last, and I'm not sure how well the healthiness holds up though compared to the other days.
But for $5, you get what you pay for.
Breakfast: Vegetarian stirfry
Lunch: Vegetarian stirfry
Dinner: Vegetarian stirfry
Review
9/10 Ease: Just down the road, and only 10 minutes' walk from my place.
10/10 Variety: I'm giving this a high score for the wide-range of food they stock. Fruit, vegetables, dried goods, fresh goods. All good quality and very tasty! But it was hard to find things in my price range.
8/10 Meal satisfaction: Definitely my favourite. Despite eating this three times a day, it still tasted good. It didn't seem to keep me as full for as long as other days - but when it tastes so good, what's the problem?
8/10 Viability: Pretty fantastic! Things were cheap and tasty - and as it's the closest to my house, this is the place I can see myself returning to the most.
What factors are making it hard for Kiwis buying food?
Inflation
Inflation has surged this year. Inflation in the first quarter of 2017 is currently running at 2.2 percent, and one of its main causes is unusually high food prices.
Whether at the supermarket, the grocery store, or the takeaways, prices seem to be higher than the previous month.
Low wages
Advocates for the living wage have put the figure needed for 2017 at $20.20 an hour.
The living wage is about an extra $5 an hour compared to the official minimum wage of $15.75 set by the Government, and is defined as income necessary to provide workers and their families with the basic necessities of life.
With so many Kiwi workers earning below this, people can't afford to live on the wages they receive.
Rental prices
The wallet-burning cost of Auckland and Wellington has been highlighted once again as they jointly ranked the 16th most expensive cities to live in the world.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey covered 150 cities, with Wellington climbing 26 places since last year's survey and Auckland 22 places.
Rental prices in Auckland are up 4 percent than where they were a year ago and almost 24 percent higher than in 2001.
Increasing food prices
Vegetable prices were up 10 percent last month - with a lettuce costing up to seven dollars.
Two months of record rainfall destroyed entire fields of crops, and now new crops of spinach and lettuce are being dumped on.
And the extra rain could hamper new crops, pushing prices up even higher.
China - our largest export market for sheep meat and second largest for beef - is expected to increase its demand to at least 2020.
Rabobank's report, China's Animal Protein Outlook to 2020, forecasts an 800,000 tonne growth in beef and 50,000 tonne growth in sheepmeat going to China.
This is expected to prevent meat prices from falling.
Population growth
New Zealand is growing and fast. With population growth at 2.1 percent over 2016, we've reached our fastest rate of growth since the mid-1970s.
Annual net migration rose to 71,305 in the 12 months ended January 31 2017, eclipsing the record 70,600 set in calendar 2016, Statistics New Zealand said.
People arriving as permanent and long-term migrants outnumbered those departing by 128,290 to 56,985 in the latest 12 months - also an all-time high.
Newshub.
