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

competitionscafe

Three_Dancing_Dragons wrote: »

I watched The Lie of the Land documentary this evening. Don't think I'll ever be buying meat from a supermarket ever again. :eek:

This is repeated on More4 (on freeview) tonight at 10pm, short article by the director (Molly Dineen) here: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/molly_dineen/2007/06/mollyd.html

newlywed

Just saw this and thought you'd like to know the effect you've had on Tesco!!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070619/tuk-britain-retail-food-a7ad41d.html

jennybb

That's made my day! - I have followed but not contributed to this thread with interest. I have dramatically cut my supermarket usage in the last couple of months and Tesco is now avoided at all costs. Could it be that there really is a backlash happening? I hope so.

lil_me

Although food category performance has been strong, our rate of growth in non-food has eased in more subdued markets

So does that mean that there has been no change in the food sales ?

liz.kingdom

I try and use supermarkets as little as possible. There's a good butcher (meat and cooked ham) , green grocer (fruit & veg), farm shop (cheese, bacon, butter), a local farmer who leaves eggs at the end of her drive with a mug for the money, ethnic food store for bulk buy (20kg) basmati rice and spices etc at around half the supermarket cost. I have a bread maker although there is a good local baker too! However I can only do this because I work from home, freelance and can pop out during the day for half an hour to shop. I couldn't do this if I still worked in a traditional office set up. I do find it saves money despite some prices being slightly higher (although the fruit and veg tends to be much cheaper locally bought) as I don't buy all the "quite nice to have things" which supermarkets tempt you with. But it is still difficult to buy things like cleaning materials, toiletries and basic items like tins of tomatoes etc so I try and go around every 6 weeks to stock up on these at a supermarket.

Margaret54

I am going to start this too. I do my shopping online every week since i became ill but i think no matter how hard i have tried it is tempting to click on things which may be a luxury and i am going to hold on and see how little we can spend on our shopping each week by cutting down, and also by not shopping online at Sainsburys or Tesco. Food is so expensive now:( There are four of us at home and i do cook my meals from scratch and we have a take a way once a week for a treat and i can relax(Sat night only) We buy our meat from a local butcher every week. Good luck to all of us. Any tips will be very welcome. Keen to lose a few stones as well so hopefully this will help:)

Margaret54

Hi Rach i am very interested in how you made your washing stuff too:) I go through a lot of w/powder every week, so i would be very keen to try it for myself. Thank you:)

oldagerunner

No supermarket shop sounds good but don't think I could do it!
I live in a very small town (not much more than a village) so I always use the local butcher and am lucky enough to live within walking distance of where they keep real free range chickens and sell the eggs and can also walk to an excellant farm shop. In summer we grow most of our own vegetables and I make some of our bread (with free yeast from Tesco's or Asda)! We are both in our sixties but run and cycle so still eat quite a lot. I think I would be lost without a supermarket shop for non food items, dairy products and the staple basics. If I don't shop for these in a Supermarket they are so expensive which seems to defeat all my efforts with cooking everything from scratch as much as possible to live in a very healthly way and to buy the best as cheaply as possible.

ZTD

oldagerunner wrote: »

I think I would be lost without a supermarket shop for non food items, dairy products and the staple basics. If I don't shop for these in a Supermarket they are so expensive which seems to defeat all my efforts with cooking everything from scratch as much as possible to live in a very healthly way and to buy the best as cheaply as possible.

Just make sure they are cheaper in a supermarket. The supermarket giants spend billions a year trying to convince you they are cheaper than anywhere else. Sometimes they are, but often they aren't.

competitionscafe

interesting article:

"Family Rudd decided to give it a go: we would spend one month boycotting supermarkets entirely, preceding it with one month using them with abandon as a benchmark. Would life fed locally be a breeze? Or would the inconvenience and extra expense of a supermarket-free existence be unbearable?"
Full article at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article2009595.ece