Who else supermarkets in 5+ stores a fortnight?

missprice

Seriously wandering round half a dozen supermarkets is my idea of hell on wheels. When I was truly skint, and I mean so hard up I would have eaten my shoes if it would have helped, I shopped at netto (remember them)
Then I got bit more money and walked daily to Morrison's, we ate whatever was in the still fresh but dirt cheap section daily.
Now I just go once a week to Morrison's, its the closest supermarket, next closest being sainsbobs, too expensive and tesco 6 miles away.
Am all for saving money like but if nearest big shop is half mile away and would spend fortune on petrol for the next 2 nearest what's the point?
Save a fiver on food to spend £6 more on petrol.

Plus no way could I get OH to go to many different shops

iAMaLONDONER

catwoman73 wrote: »

I'm lucky that I have an Aldi, a Farm Foods and a Morrisons on my way home from work, so I use them most, except for meat, which I bulk buy from a farm shop.

There is also a Tesco on the way home from work, but I think they are very expensive and poor quality compared with the above and all their fake offers and up and down pricing annoys me - I'm trying to avoid them.

From home, we also have a walkable co-op, and then an M+S, Asda and another Morrisons at a similar distance, so use those as well if shopping from home (all about 1-2 miles away). A little further away is a Sainsburys's in a shopping centre, so will go to Sainsb, if needing things and are at the shopping centre.

Also have access to a waitrose and a lidl, but these are both further away than the above, so need a special trip (but still only a 10 mile round trip). If these were closer would use them more, as I like them both (try to pigeon hole me as a shopper, no chance!).

We are also on the edge of a small town with a Home Bargains and Wilkos, so sometimes use them as well. Hardest to access are the pound shops, but I can't be bothered with them TBH.

So will probably use one of the above approx twice per week, but small shops each time. Rotate around the shops to pick up what we like or is good value from a particular shop.

I think the biggest money waster is a regularly weekly shop for the same items from the same place. I buy for the store cupboard and almost all of what we buy is either from Aldi or on special offer from other supermarkets and we probably save about 30% or more by doing this, and it doesn't take any extra time or petrol. Although we probably have a much bigger range of supermarkets than most.

I also agree with the poster who says that the price match isn't what it seems, as many items are deemed 'not comparable' Supermarkets deliberately specify different size packs to ensure this. Also if you buy something on 'half price' that is not half price at the other supermarket, this skews your results, as everything else could be more expensive, but because you have one item that is loads cheaper, this hides the fact that everything else is more expensive.

I was the poster who mentioned that Price Match is unreliable!

I've found Tesco has been really good recently with cut-price socks and underwear being quite good buys. Got a DVD player for 50p last weekend!

The only thing I don't like about Lidl/Aldi is that you can't pay by credit card

Scritti

missprice wrote: »

Save a fiver on food to spend £6 more on petrol.

Fair enough.

But, for the record, I save WAY more than a fiver. Due to (minor) bulk-buying to stock-up and only taking advantage of "savvy buy" half-price (or less) or BOGOF offers, I saved about £40 last week alone.

geordie_joe

Scritti wrote: »

And no, I don't expect everyone to do ALL the great moneysaving ideas on this site. But I wish some would just refrain from commenting if they are only going to be negative. I don't read any of the threads on cooking your own meals and say "that's great but I haven't got the patience to learn to cook so I eat a lot of ready meals". What's the point??

The very first line of the very first post in this thread was a negative comment.

What would you post if someone in the cookery thread implied that people who don't cook are just lazy?

Scritti

geordie_joe wrote: »

What would you post if someone in the cookery thread implied that people who don't cook are just lazy?

That's exactly my point. I would expect them to so would not post and would not be reading the thread in the first place.

Kirri

Scritti wrote: »

But, for the record, I save WAY more than a fiver. Due to (minor) bulk-buying to stock-up and only taking advantage of "savvy buy" half-price (or less) or BOGOF offers, I saved about £40 last week alone.

It probably depends on what sort of things people buy - I get mostly organic veg, basic org wholefoods for scratch cooking, additive free items, eco friendly toiletries/household items or some vegan brands, all whilst trying to keep spends low and only buying what I really need each week. It's fairly difficult if not impossible to get the types of products I want from the supermarkets where I live in London. I don't buy a lot of well known branded items/processed foods which are more like to be discounted heavily. I can't actually think of any organic items I've bought ever being on BOGOF?

The petrol/transport costs (even in London) wouldn't be worth the effort for me to trawl round too many supermarkets trying to get what I need, when I can get small weekly £12.50 ish orders delivered for either free or 99p depending on which veg box provider I use and they stock a good range of other items alongside the veg. Even Ocado is cheaper for delivery than using my car and often has free/cheap slots which makes it cheaper than even going by bus, has all the items I want that supermarkets don't stock and I can add anything on offer and just order every couple of weeks on a minimum order. The only shops I don't mind using are Waitrose or Wholefoods which are not that close to home but I go in if I'm in the area for another reason. I do still use Wilkos for odd bits but not so much since they stopped stocking Ecover.


Plus you can't really have a discussion board if there are not differing opinions, I like reading both sides, sometimes gives something to think about or find new ways to do things, even if something appears 'negative' to someone else.

Scritti

Kirri wrote: »

Plus you can't really have a discussion board if there are not differing opinions, I like reading both sides, sometimes gives something to think about or find new ways to do things, even if something appears 'negative' to someone else.

I totally agree.

I'm just fed up with "I can't be bothered / life's too short / my time's too precious" style comments.

This is MSE. We're all surely here to help save money in some way. If a comment doesn't in any way help anyone save, think about ways to save or is counter-productive to that cause, I just don't get it.

It's like if I went on fishing forums and posted "how boring and pointless, you're wasting your time".

geordie_joe

Scritti wrote: »

I'm just fed up with "I can't be bothered / life's too short / my time's too precious" style comments.

We all feel like that at times, but people want to says things and everybody has the right to do it.

Scritti wrote: »

This is MSE. We're all surely here to help save money in some way. If a comment doesn't in any way help anyone save, think about ways to save or is counter-productive to that cause, I just don't get it.

Yet your entire post, and others you have made do not help with money saving, or ways to save money so are counter-productive because people are reading them when they could be reading about saving money.

Scritti wrote: »

It's like if I went on fishing forums and posted "how boring and pointless, you're wasting your time".

From here it looks more like you making pointless posts complaining about people making pointless posts.

This is a money saving forum, but with the best will in the world we all can't stick strictly to money saving all the time. If we did it would very soon become boring and most people would stop reading/posting.

If you are fed up with some posts, just stop reading them and/or ignore them. Don't start complaining about them as most people will soon get fed up of your posts. And if they all start complaining, the forum will be full of posts complaining about post!

renegade

I am lucky in that I am a Senior and have a free bus pass so have access to all the Supermarkets, take my shopping trolley and shop around, find loads of bargains.
One thing that really annoys me now is my local open market, they no longer sell things by the kilo, they sell by the bowls, meaning that being a singleton, I can't just have 4 toms, 3 bananas etc, so I don't shop there any more which is a pity as it was cheap and good quality.

iAMaLONDONER

missprice wrote: »

Seriously wandering round half a dozen supermarkets is my idea of hell on wheels. When I was truly skint, and I mean so hard up I would have eaten my shoes if it would have helped, I shopped at netto (remember them)
Then I got bit more money and walked daily to Morrison's, we ate whatever was in the still fresh but dirt cheap section daily.
Now I just go once a week to Morrison's, its the closest supermarket, next closest being sainsbobs, too expensive and tesco 6 miles away.
Am all for saving money like but if nearest big shop is half mile away and would spend fortune on petrol for the next 2 nearest what's the point?
Save a fiver on food to spend £6 more on petrol.

Plus no way could I get OH to go to many different shops

Not really -I've seen people get brand match coupons for as much as £10!

But each to their own!