a month without supermarket - new challenge for 2011 starts at post 1013

carlislelass

our newsagent sells milk, pet food, cleaning goods, tea, coffee etc...just about everything except meat/eggs.

mama67

Just nipped to village PO/shop as needed to use the PO; had a quick look at some of their tins etc. they've got own basics brand of chopped tinned toms @ 44p, which I know is more than the 36p that Mr T or Mr S are charging but when you have a 25 mile round trip to either of those then that few pence would make the difference worth paying and again supporting the local shop.

lilacclaire

Sounds like a great challenge.
I went to the supermarket today for a loaf and spent £9.
I went yesterday for some veg to go with dinner and I spent £35, you get the drift!
I end up buying fresh stuff nearly every other day, with freezers and cupboards already well stocked.
If I just boycott the supermarkets and use what i've got I should save money.
Have local fruit and veg shop, good local butcher etc and can get freezer stuff in farmfoods. Should save a fortune!

witchwoopiggy

have been reading threw the posts, I have never shopped in a T went there once and hated it, it was so big and impersonal and i couldn't find what i wanted. I am lucky have a butchers 5 min walk away, 2 greengrocers 15 mins walk away. My pet food (I have 13 guinea pigs) I buy at a local farm, there bedding is shredded cardboard which I get from a local firm (40kg for ten pound) who are happy to deliver free. I grow veg for both me and the guineas, I have fruit trees in the garden. I make my own bread,biscuits and cakes , however i do have to buy my flour from health food shop down town as i cant eat wheat. Any advice on where i can find the flour cheeper I would be very greatfull:D

xacesx

Hi All,

My hubby has set us a challenge and I was wondering if anyone else does something similar and if you have any advice. We have decided that we are going to boycott supermarkets as much as possible over the next few months, by using our allotment and buying all other fruit, veg, meat and fish locally, making our own bread and pasta by hand and by sourcing local dairy produce where we can.

Anyone got any recipes/ideas for helping us do this? I'm interested in making our own cheese and chutneys, and hopefully making xmas 09 money neutral, or at the very least homemade.

We know we wont be able to avoid supermarkets for everything as we have a 9week old baby, but we're really keen to get rid of our convenience food obsession and show our daughter that it can be a lot of fun doing so!

Penelope_Penguin

xacesx wrote: »

Avoiding Supermarket Challenge - Can we do it?

Yes we can :beer: Take a look at A month without a supermarket This has lasted well longer than a month :T

I'll merge this thread to that one later.

Penny. x

princess_lou

bumping this... fantastic thread,:T-u got me hooked:rolleyes: im only on page 18... having a few money probs at mo.. will last a few weeks but when im bk on track would like to try this out..

competitionscafe

I have managed to avoid Tesco entirely so far this year - 9 months (although it's my closest supermarket) - but still use Waitrose occassionally and M&S for a few things (mostly for wine). Luckily I still have a good local butcher, fishmonger and veg box scheme so supermarket is just for things like toilet paper, tinned goods etc. However stuff like soap/shower gel, deo, etc I buy online from small(ish) suppliers (pureskincare, vit-shop, health monthly etc).

If you can't or don't want to go 100% supermarket free my top tip would be to start by not buying meat, fish and fruit/veg from supermarkets and try your local butcher/fishmonger/greengrocer/box schemes/ farmers markets [if you have them] to see how they compare...

BexInLondon

Sorry if this has been discussed before - please feel free to merge if so!

I'm halfway through my third or fourth book about the evils of supermarkets in Britain and feel like there is no longer any excuse for me to ignore the arguments against them.

OH is on board, thankfully, and we're going to completely abstain from supermarkets in January 2010, then review things and make a plan going forward.

To give you an idea of our particular circumstances, we have no children and live in an inner-city area. Every week we get an organic box of fruit and veg, and we get 6 eggs along with this. Every 2 weeks I do a big shop from an online supermarket, usually alternating between Ocado and Asda. We spend about £50 a week (a lot, I know, but we like food, and have a lot of friends round who like being fed). We (I) mainly cook from scratch, and we don't eat meat with every meal, but we do eat it, and I don't think OH could go more than a day or two without it.

On the ground floor of our block of flats there is a Tesco express, so that's going to make things tricky! Nearby is a market with two butchers (one halal, one.... haram?), it also has a couple of bakers though these are big chains and their bread is probably no more 'real' that Tesco's. There's a wine shop across the road from us (who is really struggling in the face of the new Tesco), and various small ethnic shops in the local area where we can buy rice, lentils and chickpeas.

So... has anyone who lives in a city tried doing this? Any key tips? We're both fairly busy so ways to integrate real food shopping with our lives would be appreciated, though we are aware that we do need to make some sort of time investment in this.

fluffybunnies

Is there a local milkman that you can use? Or was there somewhere else you were planning to get milk from?