Supermarket Shopping Article Discussion

zoebunny123

TESCO'S DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE ANY OF YOUR COUPONS AND THEY HAVE A KNACK OF CHANGING THEIR MINDS TO HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE THEY TAKE, AND IT VARIES FROM CASHIER TO CASHIER, SO DONT BE FOOLED. I RECENTLY HAD TO BIN ALOAD OF COUPONS AS THEY DECIDED TO HAVE AN OFF DAY AND DECLINE THEM. SOME YOU WIN SOME YOU LOOSE. BUT NEVER UP TO £10 WORTH? LUCKY PERSON WHO HAD THAT!:cool:

KevStr

My favorite trick is to start at the back of the store and shop backwards, you'll be amazed at how much you save! The supermarkets all plan the arrangement of the store to ensure you will pass all of the premium foods before the value foods etc. By doing it in reverse you'll know about all of the bargins before you get presented the standard stuff and you'll even know what meals you have bought before you buy the vegatables/perishables to go with it.

shughes_uk

hi, my experience in supermarket money saving comes from being a poor student and having a 24 hour supermarket nearby, we used to go food shopping at 3am, a lot of the food would be reduced in price quite significantly, this can be done less drastically though! Tonight we went to Tescos at 9pm just before it closed, and every single veg item we bought for tommorrows roast apart from the potatoes was reduced! Then at the checkout a man came past giving out packs of carrots for 3p! thats £0.03P!!!! insane! i suppose it's better than throwing it away but these were perfectly good carrots! My Nan was addicted to Tesco rotissere chickens and knew the time to go when they were reduced, often cheaper than buying uncooked, yet perfectly good and a ready made roast. Also we always abuse the reduced price shelves (but never buy a damaged can or tin).

Saying that I prefer to buy my fresh food from the local quality deli/market as I like to buy local, and quantities that I choose, not 4 slices of ham in a vacuum sealed pack! Theres an actual farm near me that sells meat directly and you can get a mixed bag for the freezer (like goat, cow and pork) for £20 that will last a month or two, and a butchers where the sheep go in at one end and in a few hours you have fresh mince and ribs and stuff.

Also in the ideal world I'd have a costco card and buy all my staples (dried herbs/spices/rice and pasta) in bulk, but often in supermarkets if look at the price per unit and you buy bigger and simpler its cheaper eg with ketchup if you buy 1kg its like 15p/100g or something vs the 250g bottle which works out at 30p/100g. And with marmite if you buy the traditional jar it might be 30p/100g but in a squeezy bottle its more costly at 40p/100g. Pasta and rice is another good example, it dosent really go off so I buy a few kg at a time and the price per 100g goes down dramatically. Just store in an airtight container.

I agree that online shopping is cheaper as there are none of the distractions but I think the money you save not buying impulsivley you spend on p&p

I like to buy veg little and often so it dosent go off, but actually I have turned the garden over to veg and dont have to shop for veg so often, its so cool to just grap a lettuce from the backyard and not have it fester in the fridge. I used to have veg boxes but being lazy ended up with compost. It's better not to be lazy and to cook from sratch too, I mean seriously from scratch, I make my own sauces now from a roux, which is surprisingly easy, and gravy from pan juice and stuff, I do draw the line at rendering manky chicken carcasses down into stock, but that reminds me - instead of buying chicken breast as standard I trade down and buy bone in chicken thighs instead, and that works out cheaper too.

Um, probably too long a post now :P not bad for 1st time i guess

anyway my first post was a bit of a rant but i hope i have given good tips

bitsnbytes

I too registered with fixture ferrets but am very dissapointed with the site. I found major brands are missing from the site. Few examples are below:

Tilda Steamed rice - This was absent from the site when it was on a buy 2 for £2.50 from Tesco, sainsbury and asda
Quavers crisps - Again absent, I found the best deal on sainsbury, buy 2 for £2 by visiting their site
Oatabix (breakfast cereal) - Again absent when it was on a half price deal at sainsbury
Doritos crisps - Absent again, I found the best deal on sainsbury, buy 2 for £2 by visiting their site

There are many others, mostly there were outdated deals or just not present. So far Fixture ferrets has made me a £5.20 loss (by subscribing to it) :mad:

da666shooker wrote: »

Hi

I have been surfing this site for a long time, and have saved quite a bit of money and thought its about time i left a message on here.

After looking round I found out about mysupermarket.com and fixture ferrets, i thought they were great so got started straight away.

i went onto fixture ferrets and then found out that you have to pay for the service, i was a bit unsure on whether to do so, but then thought, hey if it saves me money why not! i think i paid about £5 for a year subscription, can't remember exactly but it was near that mark.

anywho, boy i'm glad i did it!!!!!

i went through all the bogofs and reduced prices etc etc and created a spreadsheet for tesco, sainsburys, somerfield and morrisons, on the spreadsheet i had a section for each supermarked, then the item, then the price, then i worked out the unit price, (for bogofs etc).

I then went onto mysupermarket and selected top offers for asda, sainsburys and tesco just incase any weren't listed, and i did come up with a few extras to add to the list!

Then after work I went to the local aldis and got my list out and checked the unit price against the aldi price, and if it was cheaper i put it in the trolley. Then i came to pay £68.18! i then went to tesco and go the remainder of the list (as the unit price from the offers in the offer supermarkets were cheaper in aldis anyway!), so I get to tesco till and pay £18.00

Then on my way home i popped to somerfield to get 4x400g pilgrims extra mature cheese and some frozen sausages coming to £5.00

So my total was approx £95.00

Now heres the best bit, there are just to two of us here, and the food will last us about 2 months!!! (thankfully we have a large freezer!), so the only things i need to top up on are lettuce and eggs.

so with the help of fixture ferrets and mysupermarket i have saved a packet! and it works out that the weekly cost for food is £5.94 each per week! i can hardly believe it, i feel like framing the receipts!

Thankfully i'm lucky enough that where i live all the supermarkets are in the same area, so haven't even wasted petrol by doing it!

You may think, crikey!! thats a lot of time to spend on organising a shopping trip but it only took one lunch hour (well actually i only get 30 mins!) so i think it is well worth it.

so for anyone out there who is unsure on whether to pay for fixture ferrets, i would recommend you do as you will get that money back straight away from the savings you make!!

Sorry this is soo long, i'm just really excited about all this money saving and figure i should tell the world!!

xax

mutley74

my local Tesco today refused to accept my Sainsbury vouchers - said they can no longer accept them - anyone else found this teh case recently?

victoriaplum1

zoebunny123 wrote: »

TESCO'S DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE ANY OF YOUR COUPONS AND THEY HAVE A KNACK OF CHANGING THEIR MINDS TO HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE THEY TAKE, AND IT VARIES FROM CASHIER TO CASHIER, SO DONT BE FOOLED. I RECENTLY HAD TO BIN ALOAD OF COUPONS AS THEY DECIDED TO HAVE AN OFF DAY AND DECLINE THEM. SOME YOU WIN SOME YOU LOOSE. BUT NEVER UP TO £10 WORTH? LUCKY PERSON WHO HAD THAT!:cool:

I wrote to their head office after having coupons declined one too many times and they told me they will accept coupons if they sell the item regardless of whether you actually bought it, they told me to take their letter as proof.

pjw123_2

I popped into sainsburys to buy an ice lolly at lunchtime. I picked up a del monte smoothie ice lolly and handed over £1 at the till. Imagine my surprise when I got 80p change! I checked the label as I left the shop and that was the correct price. By the time I paid it had turned into a slushy in the heat, so i had to carefully open the packet and use the lolly stick as a spoon, and I am afraid I turned the wrapper inside out and licked it clean. It was delicious with a real raspberry flavour.:j

maddy08

Its true, we have to be very careful when we go for internet shopping. They may not send the items but there will be the price of that particular item in bill. So be aware of internet shopping. Because i have experienced once with a supermarket.

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maddy


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DCFC79

I cant believe its not butter is on offer 2 for 1 or BOGOF at £1.08,

Karmacat

I'm just working through the Tesco threads for the first time, and used the mysupermarket.co.uk link at the beginning of this thread - imported my Tesco favourites, and they were the cheapest for me by about £5. I'm surprised, but so be it!