Elite 11+ shopping and chat thread part 2½

izzy65

Good afternoon, lovely pictures on the thread this morning, thank you to the posters, warm day again and dry, bet it waits until Sunday to rain again, my DH only day off:)

Savvybuyer

Isn't the pound falling, after the announcement that retail sales had fallen in June, a good thing (as long as we're savers and are not going on holidays abroad)? Hopefully it will cause interest rates to rise so that will be good as long as we haven't locked money into accounts with low rates. Unfortunately, it's all swings and roundabouts as interest rate rises will be due to rising inflation so we don't gain any more than the rising inflation rate anyway and an interest rate increase is cancelled out:(. The "disappointing" retail sales are a source of enjoyment and are good, as it means the money is with us and we aren't spending it:money:. It seems clearly because people were expecting sales to rise that their expectations have been dashed/confounded/proven by the facts to have been wrong that markets have reacted [Strike]so badly[/Strike] in such a good way. People thought the World Cup was creating a retail sales boost - and it seems to me it was presented to us, now misleadingly, that it was - however, instead of shopping, we were staying in and watching the football! The market has woken up to the harsh - or pleasing - reality that sales went down. However, it's no good news if businesses can't sell anything or can't make a profit and then collapse.

Clearly not all retail sales went down - there was a rise in food and drink and it seems I know this too well as I have been failing to find some alcohol boxes in M in the past few weeks:(. The first was the Grosch lager last week. I had this in M the week before, at excellent price for us, but by last week it had vanished for me. With me not having the product and therefore not able to see something instore indicating that it was likely to be still on that price, I thought that, like the Bud Light the previous week, it may have gone straight back up. I then found it on hotukdeals and discovered that it is "whilst stocks last" so now thought it no longer thought it was likely to have increased and I have kept it on, at the same price, as "it will still be in stock somewhere". Of course, I again have no trace this week (I have visited a couple of other stores but, as I expected, I don't have it there) and I think it's now unlikely to be found. I noticed hotukdeals had it the week before I did - it seems to have gone on the low price on a Thursday so on;ly being picked up by me the following week. My stores missed it on the Monday - I think only had a couple that day - but I did have it on the Wedensday (two weeks ago) and it was probably at its best then (although it was at the fronts of my stores so not on the main aisle and therefore could have been returned as N/A:rotfl:) - now, two weeks later, it seems any stock will now be much less and it's now very unlikely.

I also failed to find Magners Original Cider 18x440ml yesterday. There is little I can do:( - I don't have the product in any of the stores I visited (not even a SEL without any stock) and so I am unable to see whether it is still on £10 - I think it went from 2 for £20, which it was on for some weeks, a few weeks ago, to £12 two weeks ago and then £10 (no saving on the mbuy) by last week. I wish people would stop buying alcohol out of my stores:mad:(:rotfl::(). I am going to leave the item on the list, whenever I get to updating it - the current timescale seems to be a one week one as M are changing enough each week, it seems, that it is taking me until up to Wednesday to update it and I'm only currently visiting once a week, on the Wednesday. I will leave Magners 18x440 on the list as I think that it is unlikely to have changed this time as there hasn't been any apparent price change in the offers or other ranges of alcohol in M so this may be the same. However, it's possible that this one item has disappeared from me in order to go up for two days to go back down. There is little to do; if anyone can confirm if they see it somewhere in M or let me know what price you're seeing. Actually, it's not correct that there's been no change, but the general offers and items on those appears to have not changed, after a box of Strongbow Dark Fruits it seems went up from £12 back to £13 last week (I do wish to draw attention deliberately to this here!), as opposed to the regular prices: Firecatcher, long on 98p, has it seems gone to £1 and I think I have detected a slight change in the price of Courage 500ml beer (these things are of course England and Wales only) from £1.03 to £1. I think I've also identified the equivalent to SP English Mustard, a tiny SEL in the middle of hundreds of SELs in the aisle, as having gone to 30p (I think that's a price increase). On SP equivalents, SP Wheat Bisks equivalent has gone up in price in M. M went down to 70p several months ago, making it the cheapest on-shelf (Avs M 'cheaper' via the APG) - it's now gone to 74p (obviously M couldn't continue to be cheaper as they have noticed they were 'underpriced') and unfortunately that is already comparing on the APG as it looks like a change in M on Monday. I did have a thought, which I'm thinking now again - ought to stop, this is not healthy:rotfl: - that, on many other items, M is only remaining at the price it is because the competitors are keeping it at that. It is so cynical - I think they would increase if they could but they are obviously watching their competitors' prices and their own prices are clearly being set by reference to those.

I only thought this would be two paragraphs. I have now written three, with the third a long one:rotfl:. And, now, this being the fourth.

Savvybuyer

By the time I do an update (as in finish one), I'm currently a week behind. This should be okay though as most items stay on offer for longer than a week, so are still remaining on the list after being checked next time, and items that are expired are being removed as I go along, so the list is keeping up-to-date.

Just to be aware that, of course, things could have changed if you get to them before I get to changing them in my updating - so, with a one-week old list, try and double-check with online.

This week, I've had limited time in the earlier part of this week (people may have noticed my absence from this thread, other than my silent (and somewhat belated) updating, and my posts per day seem to have gone down significantly. This being the reason - there's always a reason for everything:rotfl:! Well, maybe not literally on absolutely every occasion:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:. I'm laughing because saying this additional sentence now leaves it unclear as to which occasions there are a reason and which there are not(:rotfl:)). So I've now got all the information with me that I have and left with me now to try to catch up with it the rest of the week:cool:. Has anyone got the 6 for £3 Primrose around? Haven't seen that for months now:rotfl:. Can I say that, by now, it has completely gone? (The trouble of course is that I've been here in the past and had items that, even if they have disappeared for quite some time from all of my stores (those that I visit frequently), they could, and have been, still around somewhere. I think this is one, however, that may now have completely gone - someone will now inevitably have it and tell me:rotfl: - but, as mentioned therefore, as soon as I get into thinking something has completely gone, like I have now done on this item at this stage, I then feel it's going to be somewhere else, even this long afterwards, and can't ever rule it out that it's not (there's just no way I can tell or do so) and isn't it inevitable that someone will have it the moment I start thinking it's gone completely - has it now come back somewhere and now on straight full price with no mbuy available on the product now (it has a distinct BC from the 50p BC version that I also haven't seen for even longer)? - again, I can't tell and don't know as I don't have it and anyone that does is just bemused at all the trouble I am having (over this item that is, in my thought, completely gone - in other words clear and totally obvious in the store in which it plainly exists - does it or does it not?:think: I just don't know:rotfl::rotfl:.)

I've been looking for the Primrose plant in case it suddenly turns up somewhere (or technically there are at least two and I haven't seen either of them) every time, four times over (or however many stores I have visited), every week or twice a week for weeks and months on end and not found it and continue until even now to look for it each time to no avail - it's got to stop!:rotfl:

Savvybuyer

Typical - not available in A:mad:! Or, if it is, it does not appear to be on a.com so it doesn't count:(.


Dolmio Bolognese Sauce - Original No Added Sugar (750g)


£2.60 34.7p / 100g

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I found this, with a label showing a price of £1, in M yesterday. £1 seems too good to be true to me and wasn't showing as an RTC but a 'normal' price and it left me thinking the product was probably really £2, in accordance with the price of the other 750g Dolmios in M. It is possible that M has produced an incorrect price label and I was hoping that, because the SEL says £1, that will be the price picked up on the APG whether that is the correct price or is not - however it's not even available in A. T will charge, or overcharge, £2.60 - they'd still charge you 60p more than M if the M price turned out to be really £2. So, it's off to attempting to buy in M and relying on the £1 SEL if you have one. Another of my Ms had no SEL for this version and only this version - so no hope if it were really to scan at some higher price. (It may really be £1, or may really have been £1, I don't know - but I have my doubts as that seems too good. It's also possible (anything's possible) that it could have been £1 earlier in the week but have gone up, maybe to £2, on Wednesday and that the lack of SEL in my other store meant the price has just increased - so, again, may be no good now unless you have the £1 SEL. Or it may indeed really be £1 in M and the lack of SEL, where that exists, trying to hide that in M. No special trip, as it may not work out fruitful - but, if you're already there...)

I saw some Old El Paso boxes in M yesterday with price of £2. In one place, on an aisle end, I saw prices of £1.85 across them. However, other stores later were showing me £2. So, I think this indicates an offer of £1.85 went onto them on Monday but the product went up in price to £2 by Wednesday (just to let you know, in case yellow price labels attract you when, it looks to me, there may have been a price increase here between Thursday of last week and yesterday, whenever they went to the £1.85 showing on my aisle end if indeed they ever did. It looks to me that they've been £1.85 for a few days - I didn't see that price last week - and their price of £2, which I would otherwise have taken as I saw it first, is a bit of a price increase. Having seen £2 on one on the entrance to the store (clever that sometimes they seem to move items out to front store frontages, a prominent position, when they have just increased in price from a lower price they went onto for a few days:rotfl: - I've had at least two occasions of this happening before, technically a lot more if you count each individual flavour of a product separately), I later saw the £1.85 on the aisle end SELs - so I think, whether my thought is right or is wrong, that the products have increased in price from a very brief offer of £1.85. Avoid them now:rotfl:!)

If you buy items on yellow labels at £2 when their prices have just increased, if indeed that's so, I see it as rewarding people for increasing their prices, and I wouldn't want to do that. So - ones not to buy in my view! (If anyone tells me they have bought any at £2, I shall be annoyed!)

curl_girl

Savvy
In T they had the double packs of dolmio sauces reduced to £1.50.
Not sure which variety though.

pippo

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

Good morning all, looks like another cloudy one here Still no rain though, and still supposed to get up to 28C!

I love seeing the red kites round here, one flew over just as I was checking the sky. And yes TM, they are birds

We have them here too, in the Derwent Valley. They were initially re-homed from Stokenchurch area. When we visit DS who lives that way we sometimes up to about 40 at once, and see at least a dozen every day - beautiful birds.

Savvybuyer

Ha! I've found this online so I am saved.

https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Magners-Original-Cider/300406011

It's appeared online saying "New". So that's where it's gone - disappeared from my stores to appear online:rotfl:.
Although I can't automatically take it that the price that appears online is the instore price, as I have had differences on other items before recently, and finding it today does not say that it was £10 on price collection day yesterday, I think that, with £10 last Wednesday and £10 today, it's likely to have remained constant in that period. Therefore, I now have it at £10.

This has happened before - I lost an item but it was still online. Then it went OOS and disappeared from online - I thought I would be without luck and lose it entirely - really had to find it instore but I visited some stores and happened to have it:T. Thought I would have no luck as they weren't places that had it immediately before. Then I visited stores on the next check, including one that had it before, and found no trace. I thought this would be no good as I needed to find it - I go blind to stores with no knowledge of what is online until I find out later. (I also have no idea, before I visit the stores, of whether items have ended on offers online or been rolled over or not, so I have to work out that information through the day from stores and do not have any knowledge of whether online says it is still on or not.) I then checked online, having had no trace when I thought I needed to find it again as it wasn't online last time, and found it had reappeared online now saying "New". I am saved again, by pure luck I feel:cool:.

LANGO1966

Shop from today to use short dated APGS

Tesco
1x Snickers Bar 7 Pack (7x41.7) £1.50 £1.25
2x ASDA Grower's Selection Ready to Eat Bananas (5pk) £1.80 £0.98
2x Loyd Grossman Bolognese Pasta Sauce (660g) £5.36 £3.00
1x Belvita Breakfast Biscuits Fruit & Multigrain (225g) £2.50 £0.99
2x ASDA Farfalle (500g) £1.30 £1.12
0.49x ASDA Grower's Selection Loose Carrot (order by number of carrots or select kg) (per kg) £0.25 £0.29
2x Twix Chocolate Bar 7 Pack (7x50) £3.00 £2.50
1x Belvita Breakfast Biscuits Milk & Cereals (225g) £2.50 £0.99
Comparison total (compared products only) £18.21 £11.12
+£7.09 cheaper

Savvybuyer

It's been a nice day here today, if anything better than yesterday. Yesterday I had finally got the knack of this hanging-out-the-washing thing. We had a passing shower early in the day and it started as I was actually hanging out the washing:(. However, it wasn't heavy raining (even though any spot of rain destroys clothes-drying attempts). I ignored it and continued to put out the washing:huh:. Then I left the washing in the rain. (Like you do, I know.) The rain did nothing as the clothes were already soaking wet - it turned out it was just a passing shower that must have lasted about 10 minutes - I've no idea precisely how long as I had no need to track its progress:rotfl: and sometimes it can be drizzling or lightly raining outside that can't always be seen from indoors (but immediately felt the moment I step outside:() - but whenever it actually stopped raining, it was then dry and continued to be warm the rest of the day and the clothes soon dried. So the tip seems to be hang your clothes out when it is raining:huh::rotfl:. Yes, on a Wednesday as well, when I'm out for several hours during the day at M and unable to pull clothes quickly off the line if it starts raining. However, yesterday did not despite me being out for several hours and it was fine. (I did have one day once where, at M, it was fine but was raining heavily when I was travelling back. Checking back on the radar map revealed that it had come over my city for a couple of hours of rain (so quite a bit and the rain I had on the main road was a very heavy downpour) but didn't rain at all, was brilliant sunshine, at the M I was visiting in another town to the north or indeed no rain came to a second town farther to the south - instead it was just over where I live. However, I didn't have the clothes out so was fine.)

We were threatening to have another shower yesterday late evening. Because I didn't want to be doing several washloads all today, I thought about washing one at that late hour and leaving it through the dry early hours we don't have night. The idea then being it is already out early in the morning and the sun rises hours before I do - indeed I'm more likely to be awake from the previous day:eek: than I am to be getting up before sunrise and even if I got up soon afterwards it would be at least another couple of hours (of wasted sunlight) before the clothes are washed and able to be put out. Just as I was thinking of doing a washing load, a shower was bubbling up fifteen miles away and looked about to hit here precisely at the moment when the washing machine would have finished:(. I obviously decided to ignore my own finding from earlier in the day (maybe the shower looked more significant) and didn't want to hang clothes out when raining again. So I didn't put the washing on at all. An hour or two later, when the washing would have been done, I checked the live rain radar website and, typically, the area of showers had split into two, with half going about a mile north of me and half a mile south:(:(. Although it was cloudy, we therefore had NO RAIN!:mad::mad::(:p So I should have put the washing on:p but failed to do so, because the rain looked like it was going to come here when it didn't, and just annoying to find no rain arriving when I'd failed to put the washing machine on as a result and should have done so:p. I just can't get it right! If I'd have put the machine on, the clouds would somehow have detected that and come right over:rotfl:. I'm sure! So, I ended up having more washing loads today:( - and of course that then takes further into the day before some of them can be put out, as I don't have more than one washing machine, but in the end it's been fine as today has been another fine day. I'm supposed to have significant rain tomorrow - one forecast says afternoon but the regional forecast is hedging its bets and saying the rain will clear up through the afternoon rather than be arriving and continuing as the other map says - unless the rain peters out a bit farther north and doesn't arrive here at all. The national forecast is unclear as it shows the rain disappearing perhaps just before it doesn't then get here or maybe it does get here or maybe some of it does but not the rest. In short, they just don't know! I may well have rain and it won't be a wash day (hence why today has been used before I expect the rain tomorrow). I bet the rain will stop ten metres before my garden!:(:(:p:rotfl: If I'm not doing washing, it will rain in every street around me but not here:p.

I guess I really could not be bothered when it started to rain when I was hanging out the clothes. I wss nearly finished:( (typical!) and it would have taken longer to pull the clothes I'd just put up off than to put up the rest. I couldn't be bothered at that point to stop, so I just continued with the few I had to do, literally a couple that took a few seconds so I didn't get too wet myself and then I disappeared indoors (wearing no jumper as I expected it to be dry and it was bright sunshine when I went out) and it worked as the clothes were later soon dry!

curl_girl

Well done savvy on your laundry duties.
Can't believe there's rain anywhere though, it's been lovely for months......