Do any of you ever pay over the odds to safeguard local services?

jenniewb

I'd like to buy local but its not so easy for me.

First of all the shops are closed when I get home, at the weekened I am booked up so don't tend to shop (I also like to avoid the crowds) the shops near where I live (about 15 mins walk) close at 5pm or earlier. I get home close to midnight most evenings having passed a 24 hour supermarket on my way home.

There are some things I do try to get local, to support local trade yes but also because the service is better, I get the feeling the staff know what and who their food came from rather then being unaware something has been out of stock all week (not naming anyone....Tesco....). I try to get meat like chicken or fish from local stores when its in season -eg affordable! But when I last got fresh fish from a market stall I was very unwell so I now am scared to do this, my feebleness but I just don't ever want to feel that bad again!

In a town close to where I live (I am between two) its a tourist town and just not worth bothering about. Maybe the rent is too high but there is no sense in raising prices so high it looks like a comic book joke. I kid you not:
Tissues, pocker pack: normally 20p-50p? They are £2 a pack.
Chewing gum single packs: normally 35-50p? They are anything from £1 to £2.50.
Bottled Water (I know I shouldn't) cheapo pound shop brands, 50p-four for £1 etc. They are £1 to £1.50.
Cans of drink, normally 35p-65p? They are £1.

I just think they are making a joke of tourists and other Londoners on days out. Its wrong and I do not want to support that. If they cannot afford the rent they need to rethink why they cannot afford the rent and deal with this via the council, local shops groups, MP or start to think about other things they could sell but rippin people off is never going to work.

MrsE_2

Never use the milkman, I'm gone by 7.45 (at the latest, so no good for me)

I try & use the village butcher, he does lovely chickens & chicken breasts, but I confess I use Waitrose & Donald Russell (just offers!) as well.

I never use the village greengrocers, their stuff always looks tired, I use Waitrose their fruit & veg is super fresh.

I get eggs locally sometimes, other times get them when shopping.

I use the village hardware store for bits & bobs, but for larger things I often forget to & really I should price compare them too.

Make a point of using the village post office, annoyed that Alliance & Leicester changed to Santander & I can't use them for banking anymore!!!

NEVER use the village hairdresser, tried them when I moved in, at best average cut & service, worst wash & rinse I've ever had in my life. Didn't feel like it had been washed or rinsed properly at all.

Use the doctors & chemists.

Don't use the village vets, I had a less than compassionate experience from their evening cleaner hassling me could he come in & clean the consulting room, while DH was with the vet paying £120.00 for them to pronounce our cat dead on arrival.
We were only in there 10 minutes & I think we paid well for the use of the room for 10 minutes, he could have left me alone & waited another couple of minutes instead of repeatedly asking me could he come in & clean while I was crying over my cats body. Things like that do not bring customers back:(

vikingaero

I use the butchers as they are good quality and the butcher is friendly. Same with our little computer repair centre as they are phenomenally knowledgeable - I wince when I go into PC World for a browse and see someone at the repair counter. The local shopkeeper is a rude arris so I no longer frequent them. But my main store is Tescos as it's only 2 minutes walk away.

amibovvered

Well, I have to admit, having started this thread, that many of you use far more local services than I do! As a few people have pointed out, some do charge really silly prices which is horribly unfair on those who can't easily get to supermarkets. We have a number of local Spar shops which are really expensive so I tend only to buy things like newspapers which cost the same there, although as half a dozen Spar shops near me are all owned by the same group you'd think they could do things a bit cheaper.

The other main problem posters are experiencing are the opening hours - when you work full time and do other things at the weekend it's not easy to find local shops open. However, now I've finished work, I have no excuse there so I'm going to start looking round more.

I agree, many local hardware shops are great, the facility of buying small quantities of things instead of huge packs, and the fact that the owners can be very helpful when you wander in without a clue what you really need! I thought B&Q staff were supposed to be well-trained to be helpful, but I always seem to get the ones who only just started and don't know a thing when I go in!

I used to get all my fruit and veg from a couple of excellent farm shops but for some reason (they always seemed to be busy) they both closed a few years ago and there are no equivalents nearby. We do have a farmers market but it seems to sell rather esoteric stuff!

suzybloo

Sorry mothership, havent been on for a few days, I got your pm, and have returned the details to you,

alandbailey

In Wells, Whitings is well worth a visit - it is a hardware store and prices are often cheaper than B&Q.
Our local butchers have good meat but dearer than Tesco. Spar etc are expensive.
Being on a low income, I tend to visit Tesco and other supermarkets to buy reduced price items - I wish I had enough income to buy from local tradespeople whatever their prices!
I do try to favour local businesses but not if they are more expensive.
I find that most farmers' markets are more expensive than Tesco.
I have made my back garden into a smallholding and raise chickens & ducks for eggs, also grow the veg that I eat (onions, spuds, tomatoes, mint, sweetcorn, fruit and even carrots).
It ain't easy being a divorced OAP but I manage.:beer:

Snakeeyes21

It seems ive wandered in to the wrong forum, wheres all the cold hearted souls who would rip their own mothers legs off to get to a glitch or a bargain.

Theres no room for emotions when it comes to moneysaving, all you are doing is letting these clingon shops draw out their slow painful death that little bit longer.

do you really think paying that few pence more is going to make these small shops survive?

Realbairn

NO.. there is no such thing as local business where i live. Everything was in the nearest town 4 miles away, even at that there is no greengrocers etc, and the local baker is a greggs - hardly what you call a local baker. No such thing as a milk man either. We do have a post office but it has limited hours so of no use to me, it has a small shop attached but is highly overpriced and a bit dodgy (they take dates off egg boxes etc and trusting people get duped by short short dates on the inside). Fortunately tesco has built nearby and I can get groceries much easier now, but it wouldn't be my first choice. I grew up in an area that had greengrocer, deli, butchers, hairdresser etc all within half a mile but as i grew up they disappeared one by one and not due to supermarkets being nearby as there are still none in that area. From what i can gather they disappeared because of high council rates etc. I would love to have all these little service close by again.

Doom_and_Gloom

There are a few shops we buy from loacally but we don't usually pay over the odds for them.

We use two out of three local pet stores to get our chinchillas sand or food (the third one doesn't sell a lot of chinchilla stuff and it's not always got it in so it's not worth it). One of them is cheaper than the other but they are both cheaper than the large big name pet store and they are both closer too. They are both also very friendly and you can easily end up chatting with the owners.

We use a local independent clothes store or the charity stores for clothes/shoes. All of it is good quality and will last unlike cheap tat from large stores that are the same price or more.

We use the local post office to pay bills such as electricity, water, council tax. We could do it all by DD, over the internet etc but we prefer it this way and it's not that far. Although my partners phone bill is done over the telephone when due and my parents have my phone contract and our new (and better for what we want than the old PAYG one) mobile internet contract so I give them the money for that.

I would prefer to use a local green grocer but there isn't a good one around here anymore. There used to be a guy with a stall in town but he's been gone for a good long time now and the girl that took over didn't last long. I really do miss it as the quality was really good, it beat supermarket prices and I got to know the person who ran the stall having long conversations with them each time I went. What I find strange is the guy was always busy (and not just at closing when you got better prices either) and the girl that took over was rather busy also. If I find soething simular I will certainly switch to buying my fruit and vegetables that way although I have been thinking about a local fruit and vegetable box.

It's not worth us doing a milk delievery as my partner is the only one who drinks dairy milk (although our local does do soya milk I am not paying the prices they want for soya milk when I can make the same kind they sell for way less). My partner isn't very reliable on his use of dairy milk either. For weeks he won't use any, some only a pint through a whole week and others he's gone through a 2L or 4 pint bottle in the space of 2-3 days :eek:.

My partner buys most of his meat at the local butcher but as he has a lot of meat in the freezer he isn't buying any meat untill it's at a reasonable level :rotfl:.

The corner shop can be useful for certain items if you are running out and sometimes it's cheaper than the supermarkets. This is also the place we use to top up our gas (which needs topping up soon as it so happens).

Basically we try to use local where possible. Sometiems it's because it's nearer, sometimes it is the price but it does help them. A lot of local places are thriving in this area but I do wonder how long they can keep it up as most people like the convenience of supermarkets and other big stores .

jenniewb

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

It seems ive wandered in to the wrong forum, wheres all the cold hearted souls who would rip their own mothers legs off to get to a glitch or a bargain.

Theres no room for emotions when it comes to moneysaving, all you are doing is letting these clingon shops draw out their slow painful death that little bit longer.

do you really think paying that few pence more is going to make these small shops survive?

The cold heartedness is only really directed at massive brands such as Tesco or similar. Thats the MSE way didn't you know!:cool::rotfl: