Shopping - where and how much ?

razra

Forgot to say

It is just me that Im feeding so that instantly makes my shop a lot cheaper,
I also tend to eat a lot of pasta dishes and because I take a packed lunch to work I only use one loaf of bread a week to do that

I also use my slow cooker to make my evening meals which I find the cheapest option as I can just throw in whatever needs using up and If its yuk theres only me thats got to eat it not all of my SLIs(Sarahs Latest Inventions) are good

MadMonkey

bizzylizzy wrote: »

I am lucky in that I have a choice of supermarkets near me to - I have found Asda to be the cheapest for us.

This is one of my problems.

We have a Sainsbury's and a Morrisons here and Asda and Tesco are 5 miles away.

With 3 young children I don't have the time to be driving to Asda and Tesco.

I really need to stop the quick trips to Sainsbury's for bread / milk e.t.c as I am guilty of mad trolley dashes and coming out with £40 worth of stuff I did not go in for.

This was why I was thinking online may be better ?

The stuff I buy is pretty much the same and although I don't do a strict meal plan I do buy meal ingredients for the amount of days i am shopping for.

I thought I would save by avoiding the supermarkets and going to local small shops but although the fruit / veg shop is cheaper the quality is not good. We buy a lot of grapes and bananas a week and the grapes there are awful.

I am terrible for temptation and think if i avoid the "real" shops I can avoid it - if i load my trolley up with stuff i don't want when i am online i can delete it all before checking out.

I also live in a pretty affluent area(shame i am not affluent:D ) so i think the local shops are probably very overpriced.

Thanks for your help

Queenie

MadMonkey wrote:

... then have to go to Sainsburys every 3-4 days for milk / bread / yoghurts e.t.c.

As well as freezing bread, you can also freeze milk. I keep a stock of longlife milk cartons so that a) I don't run out of milk and b) keeps me away from the shops too often.

Addiscomber wrote: »

.... I have been reading this board less and less lately because of what I feel is a competetive attitude over who can spend the least, which has to the potential to make people feel inadequate if, through reasons totally outside their control, they cannot achieve similar figures. It is almost as though some contributors want to make people feel that it is a crime to spend money on food/housekeeping.

It is one thing to encourage cooking from scratch versus buying ready meals for both health and money reasons, and also to help people avoid waste, but being OS is about a lot more than having the lowest shopping bill in the country.

I am really, really saddened to read this Unfortunately, yours isn't the first post in recent weeks to speak of a competitive attitude in OS. But yours is the first to admit that you are discouraged from reading because of it.

You are quite right, OS isn't about having the lowest food bill in the country!

Spendless

MadMonkey wrote: »

We have a Sainsbury's and a Morrisons here and Asda and Tesco are 5 miles away.

With 3 young children I don't have the time to be driving to Asda and Tesco.

I really need to stop the quick trips to Sainsbury's for bread / milk e.t.c as I am guilty of mad trolley dashes and coming out with £40 worth of stuff I did not go in for.

Have you looked to see what the price differences are beteen Sainsburys and Morrisons? I'm guessing Sainsburys will work out more expensive, but I don't actually know as I don't go in either often.

Ytaya

MadMonkey wrote: »

I really need to stop the quick trips to Sainsbury's for bread / milk e.t.c as I am guilty of mad trolley dashes and coming out with £40 worth of stuff I did not go in for.

Try a cash-only policy for a while - take enough cash with you for bread, milk, yoghurt, whatever you popped in for, and no more. Have a few extra pennies with you in case the prices change. It puts a hard limit on what you can walk out with!

razra wrote: »

Now I walk to town on a saturday and buy my food for the week ( I spend roughly £10) as by walking I can only buy what I can carry so suddenly those "deals" arent so appealing, eg I dont really eat crips/sweets etc and yes they may be bogoff but I have to carry them so its either them or real food LOL

I lived in the states for three months last summer. The nearest supermarket was 4 miles away and my only transport was a bike. Having your grocery shopping limited by the size of your backpack is a great budget-reducer! It was pretty good for my diet, too - coke didn't seem so appealing when I knew I had to ride home with it on my back in hot and humid conditions

Addiscomber

I should just like to say that what I wrote above was not intended to be a criticism of the original poster. It is natural to want to try and check that one is not spending unnecessarily.

I should also say that I appreciate the comments of support for what I wrote. I did wonder whether I might get slated, but should have known that this is the friendliest board on the site.

MadMonkey

Addiscomber wrote: »

I should just like to say that what I wrote above was not intended to be a criticism of the original poster. QUOTE]

Not taken as such;)

I am not wanting to reduce my shopping to the bare bones and am not wanting to win any awards for feeding a family of 5 on 50p:rotfl:

I just want to cut down on the spending for the sake of spending that i seem to do a lot of:mad:

I think i am going to do a weekly Tesco shop online and keep it under £50 where possible.

janeym8

i found when i shopped online it was difficult to guage the size of things as im not good at weights and measures.i once bought a pkt of cold meat that would do lunchtime sandwiches for one lunch rather than the size do do us all week and enought broccolli to last us for weeks lol .going online i found lots of "new" things as when instore you tend to always look at the same things but again i was unable to guage the sizes of pkts or boxes especially for the things that fitted in the freezer so now i only use online shopping as a stand-by for when im not up to shopping(im disabled) .also i luuuuuuurvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee food shopping my ex used to say i should belong to tescos annonymous.im not in tescos much these days preferring asda and i pick up all the bargains when im there.i find although i meal plan if i wrote it down before shopping i wouldnt get the bargains so i shop,bargain buy then meal plan.
i also dont like the way i never know exactly what ive paid for with the online service and every time ive had problems with something that they have sent me such as being wrong make,wrong amount or even just the wrong thing also had broken things and its when this happens and you call them they say your bill will be adjusted accordingly and thats when you dont know what you are paying or not paying for
madmonkeythis is just my short list of pros and cons for online shopping hope it helps

janey xxx

LilMissEmmylou

MadMonkey wrote: »

I am not wanting to reduce my shopping to the bare bones and am not wanting to win any awards for feeding a family of 5 on 50p:rotfl:

I just want to cut down on the spending for the sake of spending that i seem to do a lot of:mad:

good! i have to say as a pretty new poster i find it mad how little some people pay for their shopping. now i know not everyone has a lot of spare cash, but it begs the question, if u cant afford to buy decent food then you should re-evaluate your life! I for one dont mind spending money on food because I know in the long run it benifits the familys health and happyness so a big :T for everyone that realises spending the least money isnt what shopping should be 100% about. Just stopping the overspend is good enough for me

re the local veg shop being cack - have you ever tried the fruit and veg delivery services? I dont know if you have them in your area, but they are great quality, save food miles and not too badly priced if you ask me. Our one also offers free delivery!

lil_me

https://www.mysupermarket.com is a good comparison site if you want to check prices against each other for Tesco and Asda. I find them about the same for the items I buy. Few pence here and there but levels out whn comes to checkout. Reductions is something online shopping stops but the ones here tend to be so poor they aren't worth it, £1 off a £6 item etc.

For me it's not about spending the least but making the most of what I have and not buying the 'extras' I don't need, aswell as reducing waste.

I tried a veg and meat box, complete disaster for me from where I ordered it. Thankfully was refunded as most had to be thrown away.