Cooking for one

PasturesNew

It's L1dl cheap cheese day ... but it seems I have bought cheese recently (having missed the last L1dl deal weekend as I thought it was for the week, not just the weekend, I didn't expect another deal so soon afterwards, so just stocked up on cheese at a good price when I spotted it).

I currently have two 350g packs unopened (dated 6 July) and half a bigger block (dated end of June). So the thing is ... is it worth getting dressed, to walk to L1dl to get a block of cheese ... without knowing the date that'll be on the pack - I should've checked the dates last night when I popped in.

So, not actually bothered if I get one or miss out.

If I do buy one it'll skew the diet towards having to eat a lot of cheese in the next 3 months to get through two of the packs I've got - so not buying an offer pack will potentially allow me more food variety.

*sighs* - so hard to decide.

Hollyharvey

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's a Waitrose just over a mile from me; I don't go in there because it's all a bit pricey... and there's a parking fee! The trolley will enable me to walk the extra distance when I'm in that area as it's a trek from the shop and through an underpass to everything else. At some point I'll investigate their offers/cheapest few basics and might occasionally actually buy something there and then trot home with an "I shopped at Waitrose glow"

I go to the one near me about 9.00am in the morning. They open at 8.00am and start doing their yellow stickers so by 9.00 most of them are out. I find that their y/s reductions are good. Sometimes their offers make something a lot cheaper than the other supermarkets.

PasturesNew

I decided ...not to rush out to see if I could buy cheese, just to "save £2" as it'd lead to an urgency to eat a lot of cheese every time I opened the fridge for the next 1-2 months

moneyistooshorttomention

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'm rapidly reaching the conclusion that it's fab that Ldl/ldi are my closest stores as they give me access to cheap food ... but ... I really crave the exciting variety of 45da, my "favourite" shop that I'd most like to live close to.

I go into L/A looking for "something nice", but they routinely fail to provide.

I think I need to start shopping at 45da, say, once every month, just to enjoy looking at their wonderful vast ranges and pretty packaging And to routinely treat myself from their wonderful selections...

that it's literally impossible for me to shop at my fave supermarket - I need to be on a home visit to do so and I'd then have to spend hours lugging the stuff back here again in my suitcase. Yep - Waitrose then....where it was possible imo to go in just looking for "something interesting":(

Thankfully I've got several wholefood shops to choose from that I can get to within a day one way or another.

I do keep my eye open when in T*sco in case of anything "new". Just spotted on the carton of Rice Dream rice milk sitting on counter waiting to be put away that they now do "ice cream" in it too. Decision made to check it out when I see it - and that would probably be next time I go to Waitrose anyway if I'd not moved and that translates into keeping my eye out at T*sco for I don't know how many months to see if they ever stock it and, if they do, keeping my fingers crossed that it doesnt promptly get whipped off the shelves never to reappear again....:cool:

EDIT; Just done a quick check of respective websites. Yep...sure nuff - Waitrose stocks it and it's not even listed yet on T*sco website (so no chance for I-dont-know-how-long at my local small T*sco then....).

PasturesNew

Breakfast was a two course banquet

Sausages, hash browns, baked beans and a poached egg. Black coffee.

Then I had a cheeky snackpot of honey/peanut cornflakes.

60p for that lot!

caronc

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the support re the fridge/freezer saga - the replacement has been confirmed as coming this afternoon so fingers crossed all goes smoothly.;)

I'm not CFO today and hoping my son volunteers to cook tonight . We are having a naughty brunch of lorne sausage, eggs and tattie scones:D. The weather is grey just now but forecasted to brighten up later so hopefully I can get some more salady bits sown.

SunnyGirl

Good morning everyone. I got distracted last night as my youngest son came home before he sets off to take part in Camp America tonight. He a very excited young man

I had replies from both Lidl and Aldi saying that they took customer opinions very seriously and that would pass my comments on to the relevant teams. I have decided that this was just a 'fob off' and have started following a few #foodwaste groups while I ponder my next move. I just need to decide what it is.

MITSTM That was a good list thank you. Tesco offer a lot of fresh stuff loose - why not potatoes though?! - I'm sure Asda, Sainsbury's etc will be the same but why not the discounters? I was half tempted to suggest that they just rip a few bags open and put the carrots or whatever into a box for loose purchasing :rotfl:

PN Breakfast sounds amazing I am jealous. Well done on getting your freezer down so much, it will hopefully give you more choice now as you originally envisaged when you bought it.

Caronc Glad your Dad and his freezer are both surviving!

I am at work today so had no breakfast, lunch will be a tuna sandwich (I made 8 a few weeks ago with a pack of muffins and two tins of tuna and froze them individually), a kiwi and a yoghurt. My son and I are at my Mum's for tea tonight before we take him to the coach station for his overnight coach to Heathrow ready to fly at 9am in the morning. No CFO today here then.

Tomorrow night I am having a spaghetti Bolognese which is one of my homemade 'ready meals' I'll only have the spaghetti to cook when I get home.

PasturesNew

I suppose the discounters use the bags because it's cheaper for them to manage, so they can keep their prices low.

If I buy 1000 bags of carrots and put them on display and the till registers 990 bags sold, 5 marked as spoiled/returned on the stock control...then I can tell I've had 5 bags nicked.

If they're loose they have to potentially open more tills more often if there's a delay caused by weighing out stuff... and then they have to throw away part of a box because they were the grotty ones nobody chose...and the whole stock management and waste management is different/harder/longer.

But for the bigger boys, reaping larger profits, I'm cynical that their motivations are purely psychology-based tricks to generate sales by making things look easy for people to grab. And they know that if everybody's cherry picking they'll end up with more grotty ones to dispose of somehow.

What annoys me is that they have removed choice in favour of their convenience, which they market as OUR convenience.

I say of shops these days "there is no food in this shop..... just products"

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm not so sure that the reason (trans. excuse) for not having everything loose is in case we only pick the good ones. I know I have a good peer at any bagged stuff I buy to see if I can spot any "duds" inside the packaging and will put that particular bag back on the shelf and choose another one if I do.

I think they may - possibly - even be/have been concerning themselves with the thought that some customers would take a bag for one solitary item of this and then another bag for another solitary item of that etc. Thus the supermarket is being "mean" with the cost of those "solitary" little bags - whereas they can cost in the packaging of bagged items iyswim. When I bought my equivalent of a small bar of chocolate the other day (from a small local shop) I think the shirty response I got was at least partly down to them not wanting to provide a small paper bag for it. Errr...hello....it was blimmin' expensive chocolate and I wanted that bag because I wasnt planning to eat it all absolutely immediately:cool:. I have recently come across shop owners that can literally be that mean and "worry" themselves re the cost of a little bag - daft imo - as it's not taking the longer-term view of "keep the customer happy - and they'll come back again".

**********

Sunny Girl - there may be some variation between different branches of T*sco (for instance) re exactly what they have loose. As stated - potatoes of any description weren't loose in the T*sco I use (a small one by my/today's standards). But it's a bit different in Caron's one (am guessing that might be a bigger one??). Maybe there's an element of "regional differences" too? For instance - betcha most of you wouldn't have a tub of laverbread one can buy a portion from available on your fish counter in T*sco:rotfl:

SunnyGirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

What annoys me is that they have removed choice in favour of their convenience, which they market as OUR convenience.

That's a good point and what annoys me too