Travelling to SM- OS or not?

WantToBeSE

hi everyone.
I have a dilemma which i hope you can help with.
At the moment i do my shopping from either Tesco as they are the only people that deliver to me and the only SM is a Tesco 5 mins away from me, but i find them expensive for a weekly shop.

All other SMs are a 30-40min drive away, in the nearest city, which has every SM, as well as farmfoods, iceland, £land, wilkos etc.

My question is, factoring in petrol and parking costs, would it still be worth it to venture into the city once a month and stock up on everything from the 'cheaper' shops..or should i stick to using tesco even though they are more expensive, as i will be saving petrol costs etc?

Any advice would really be appreciated. Thanks.

valk_scot

I think it depends what kind of things you buy. Also are you disciplined enough to stick to a monthly shop/meal plan, and can you afford to do so? Storage? Ability to carry/transport this amout of stuff?

I'm lucky enough to have a wide choice of supermarkets very close to me but thinking of my huge local Tesco I could probably manage to keep it pretty close to the cost of shopping say in Lidl (which I use a lot) if I kept to the own and Value brands as much as I could (some are good, some are awful), the world food aisle for bulk buying and also made good use of the whoopsies. I would find it much more difficult in a smaller Tesco though. And it not be possible to do this sort of thing online of course as they don't have the entire range of their biggest shops online, nor do they do whoopsies.

And obviously I don't know how much your petrol and parking costs would be as a proportion of your total grocery shop. For all I know you've got six kids, three dogs and a hamster to feed (in which case I'd be going to the town just for a day out of peace tbh) but if it's just for two adults to feed , then it might not be worth it.

I think you'd have to sit down and do a few sums tbh, starting with writiong out a typical weekly shopping list, costing it out for your normal Tesco brands, then again as cheaply as possible from Tesco, then again using the best prices you could get in town. Then add on your petrol and parking costs to the town shop.

And don't forget time btw. It takes quite a bit of time to trail round several shops, plus the driving time. A whole morning or afternoon once a month? Compared to a quick local trip round Tesco with a well thought out list?

WantToBeSE

Thanks Val,
you are right, i need to give a bit more info really.
I have me and my 2 adolescent children to feed, and a cat. So not loads.
My normal weekly shop comes to £50-£55 but would like to get it lower.
I budget £40 p/m for petrol, which i stick to and occasionally go over, although i can easily reduce this if i stop being so lazy.

adelight

Is there anywhere local you could walk to for weekly top up shops?
If you have a meal plan and know exactly what you're buying, find the cheapest places before hand (might have to stake out iceland etc to get a feel for prices but iceland is great for frozen chicken) and are strict with yourself then the monthly shop could work.
Take advantage of all the offers and coupons and use mysupermarket etc to compare before you go.

WantToBeSE

Thanks adelight- the only other place i have nearby is a spar shop, and their costs are silly money prices, ie too expensive.

I think the only way i could work it out is to actually try it for a month maybe?

cutestkids

Hi OP

I do this every month, we only have a CO-OP and a Morrisons in our town,

The CO-OP is small and very expensive with little choice, the Morrisons is larger but still with limited choice and again fairly expensive.

I have to travel to the nearest large town for decent quality and choice at a price that I can afford, in my case this involves a ferry costing about £16.00 so I would estimate my total costs are about £20.00 a month in travelling to the larger town.

In my case it is worth it as I do a large shop for 1 months worth of everything that I can, Meat, bread, cheese, butter, dry goods, frozen, cleaning products and toiletries.

I will have to top up fruit and fresh veg and milk and sometimes bread in between.

I make it work by making sure that I buy everything that I can when there, clothes, school supplies, gifts, household items, etc.

The town that I live in is very small and I can not get very much locally to me can't even get school uniform and we only have one shop that sells kids clothes so it is a neccessity for us.

WantToBeSE

Thanks cutestkids.
I would estimate that petrol and parking costs would average out at £10 in all.
So not too bad if i only do it once a month and managed to go to all of the places i need.

trailingspouse

I'm in a similar situation -
1) our nearest SM (3 miles) is a Co-op - quite small, quality issues, and a bit pricey but en route when I go to work
2) the next nearest is Morrisons (5 miles) - larger, but not huge, definitely cheaper, I have to go there specially (it's not really on the way to anywhere I go to regularly)
3) the next nearest is a huge Tesco's (10 miles) - not cheap, but huge choice compared to the other SM's.

I do my regular big weekly shop at Morrison's, stop off at the Co-op on my way home from work if I've run out of anything between shops, and go to Tesco's every 6 weeks or so, just to see what they've got and buy some of the things I can't normally get. It makes sense to me to do it this way.

Pee

Would you sometimes be in the larger place anyway i.e. taking the children somewhere, say swimming? Maybe you could combine so that you do a bit in different places under the overall budget. (As someone else has said only for the disciplined.)

Pink.

Hi WantToBeSE,

As your thread has now dropped down the Old Style board I've moved it to the Grocery Shopping board to see if you can get more advice.

Pink

Edwardia

I'd find out whether any of the other supermarkets will deliver to you. That way the delivery might be cheaper than the cost of petrol. If you save more money on offers and lower prices than the delivery cost then you're ahead.

If you are the really organised type and need to get other stuff so have to go to the other town, you can plan your visit in advance, order products online and collect them at the store. Wilkinson and Argos both do this. Waitrose has a facility where you can order online and collect in store. If you've got masses of stuff then Iceland will deliver shopping over £25 provided you live in their area.