Is there a way to get an automated list of the groceries you buy?

Launderer

Assume you always buy groceries / stuff in the same place like Sainsbury's.

You want to look at where your total spending goes to over a period of time.

The old fashioned way would be to collect all receipts and collate the data to form some meaningful stats, i.e. total spend is some amount, of which X% is spent on vegetables, Y% on drinks and so on for other categories.

Is there an automated way to do this?

I understand the shop must have this data and the whole purchase history in the Nectar system; but I don't know if the user has the option to download it for example as an Excel spreadsheet?

Are there laws in the UK that stipulate access to the data a shop has about you?

If not, is there something like an app that would take photos of the receipts, OCR them and automatically convert into a useful format?

Thanks in advance.

DPJames

Errrrr, what?

mrs_m_goldsmith

The markets do have all this data, usually within a database known as a Business Intelligence system. They can "massage" the data in loads of different ways, per demographics, per total spend, by season, by brands, etc. This helps them with their marketing.

However, you wouldn't be given access to this data, as it is work product (that is, the database entries are private to their internal workings). The raw data isn't kept anywhere for you to access.

So, I'm afraid that unless you shop online, you would have to either OCR the receipts of hand-enter them. If you do shop online, it is quite easy to copy the Previous Orders entries into a spreadsheet. Then you can manipulate the data just like the supermarkets. Sort items by size, price, type, etc.

Another advantage to shopping online is keeping to your budget, as you can throw everything you think you may want into the basket and then trim out the "luxury" bits to stay within a weekly price. But that's another discussion altogether.

-Mrs_MG