"We didn't have enough money for food. Now, I'm a grocery shopaholic."

You can tell a lot about a person about how they shop for groceries and while I don’t claim to be an expert on the behaviour of others, I’ve become an expert at analysing my own.

Maybe it’s my food-fuelled Italian background, the family business when I was growing up which was a grocery store, memories of constant hunger as the third child my busy mum forgot to regularly feed or my grown up experience of not having enough money to feed my kids and having to ask my mother-in-law to buy groceries for us following the Global Financial Crisis which kicked my husband and I in the butt.

I am a grocery shopaholic, due to food insecurity. I’ve only had two prolonged experiences of food insecurity but the United Nations states over 800 million people around the world live with hunger and food insecurity on a daily basis, unsure of where or when their next meal will come from.

To those people I can only feel sincere sympathy.

I remember the day I was sitting on the floor crying, just before Christmas of 2009, contemplating having to ring the Salvation Army just to be able to feed my family over the holidays. I can’t imagine what it is like on a daily basis.

My first experience with food insecurity happened when I was seven. My dad, a formerly hard working courier driver, got really sick and had to quit his job. It took him months to recover and although I didn’t know the details of what went on with his health or money, I know my parents were worried.

They had four kids by then, my brother just a little baby, and losing our only source of income was devastating. Mum hadn’t worked since my brother was born and my sisters and I were all in school.

My parents had always grown their own food and had chickens. They came from poor backgrounds so having their own source of food was always important to them and they spent every spare moment tending to the garden and looking after the chickens which kept our eggs in constant supply,  and also provided us with the odd roast chicken dinner.

When dad got sick and stopped working he and mum found a small corner store for sale and decided to buy it. I remember at the time my dad saying, “If we buy a food store, at least we’ll never run out of food”, and he was right. We always had plenty to eat, despite not making much money from running the store, just enough to pay our bills and be okay.

My sisters and I, who had rarely eaten packaged foods before, were in heaven. We gorged on ice creams and chips and chocolate bars and ate ourselves sick until mum and dad demanded we stop “eating all the profits”.

Many years later and my husband and I had two children, one of whom was just a little baby, and we lost our business and homes and money and assets due to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/2009. The money was gone overnight, swiped from our bank account by the bank we had our investment loans with.

Eventually we had no money for food, after exhausting our personal savings and releasing some of our super. We were sitting down one night talking about our horrible, terrible situation and my husband said he’d think of something.

The next day he arrived home with bags of groceries, saying his mother had bought them for us. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I was so happy to have food but none of it was food I was used to or would buy for my family.

Eventually we started getting back on our feet and grocery shopping took on a new importance.

While previously I'd grocery shop with abandon, with little thought for how much I was spending or what my favourite items cost, I now had a set amount to spend each week.

Also, having no money for fun, grocery shopping became my only way to get out of the house and spend money. There wasn't money for movies or trips or adventures. Grocery shopping became our day out, and it was so much fun.

I'd feel a little sick while shopping, worried I'd go over our spending limit for the week which would fluctuate between $150 and $250 depending on how much we had earned that week, and those weeks I'd gone over I'd have to put items back.

It was embarrassing, humiliating, devastating.

As we earned more I noticed that instead of saving the money, I was spending it on additional groceries instead. While my regular grocery shop had seen me limit myself to fish fingers and apples, I'd buy fresh fish and watermelon.

I'd feel guilty for the additional money I was spending but also delighted to have better food to prepare for my family.

I remember getting a random job that would earn me $600 during that time, which felt like winning money. I didn't tell my husband about it. Instead I told my husband I was going to do our regular weekly, meagre grocery shop but instead headed to the nearest mega-market and spent almost all of it on groceries.

This Glorious Mess: The Barefoot Investor, Scott Pape, explains how to teach children about money.

I bought a 20 litre tin of olive oil instead of the one litre I'd try make last the week.

I bought fancy cheese instead of the budget tasty slices.

I bought chicken breast instead of chicken drumsticks.

I bought four containers of Butter Soft.

I knew my husband would notice I'd bought way more groceries than normal so I brought only a few bags into the house and then waited until he'd fallen asleep before I unloaded my haul, feeling guilty and thrilled at the same time.

The next day for dinner, I could make ANYTHING WE WANTED.

Chicken schnitzel with rice and salad, pasta with meatballs and grated cheese, tacos with sour cream and avocado, roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables and not a sausage or fish finger in sight.

Having that food made me so happy, so secure. The food made me feel like a better mother, feeding my children nourishing foods. It made me feel like a better wife to my tired and stressed husband who was working ridiculous hours to pay all of our bills.

And it made me happier each afternoon while the kids slept, being able to sit down with a cup of good coffee and a delicious treat.

It made the struggle worth it.

After that initial guilty grocery shop I made a habit of it but eventually fessed up to my husband. I'd say, "Hon, I just earned $400 from that job so I'm going to blow it on extra groceries so the cupboards are full," and he was fully supportive.

To him, money spent on food is never wasted.

Even now when I do our regular grocery shop I still really enjoy it. When I get home I put a podcast on and spend hours unloading the groceries, organising the kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer and lovingly packing away all of the wonderful foods I've bought. I think of the meals I'll prepare for my family, the treats I'll enjoy after a hard day. Even now if the cupboards start to look empty or the fridge and freezer a little bare, I start to feel anxious and carefully figure out how much I can spend stocking up again.

As shopaholic habits go, I think having a grocery shopping addiction is a good one to have, within reason. Food is the one thing I can't ever bring myself to compromise on.

Australian grocery shopping habits have changed over the past few decades according to Roy Morgan 2015 research.