Simple way to save money on supermarket shopping - how stupid am I!

System

myriadabellium wrote:

Another tip of mine is to take cash and no cards! Really makes you think about what everything costs and how to get the best value from what you need to buy. Also, no impulse purchases! Can be hair-raising though at the till if you cut it fine, lol!

Strange you say that, i save money not having any cash in the house. I can hardly give the kids a chunk out of my debit card but money just flies out of my purse and into their pockets and i am the fool who gives it to them.

madfrenchgirl

Ok, i have built my own food planner... it is brilliant, OH and I only spend 50 pounds on food for 2 weeks... that not including the top ups like milk and lettuce, but we actually stick to our list and we try to go to LIDL before noon so their shelves are actually stacked up and have all the veggies we need...

we usually spend 40 pounds in LIDL for everything, but we have to go to the local sainsburys for black olives and (double, single, sour, whipping) cream... Just those few items in Sainsburys make us spend about 10 pounds there!!! eek!

the good thing about LIDL, apart from being cheap, is that the aisles never change, there is no real fancy advertising and no tricks to make you spend more, and usually, their special offers are bargains and their prices per kg are always displayed!!!

jstyles

Smiley_Mum wrote:

Better still - don't even take a basket. Just take what you can carry in your arms

Even better than THAT - I just take whatever I can get in my pockets. Never pay ANYTHING!!!

Bendybops19

jstyles wrote:

Even better than THAT - I just take whatever I can get in my pockets. Never pay ANYTHING!!!

Hahaha, shall i try this next time i go shopping then?

reddevilled

jstyles wrote:

Even better than THAT - I just take whatever I can get in my pockets. Never pay ANYTHING!!!

Are you Jade Goody in disguise?? :eek: :eek: :eek:

reddevilled

Try shopping on-line. Not only can you use the vouchers from this site. But you also only buy what you need.

I have saved loads of money this way.

Smiley_Mum

On Trevor MacDonald's Tonight programme, think it's Friday, Scotland only maybe but you could check it out just in case, they are checking the supermarkets and the pyschology they use to get you to part with your cash, be interesting to see. Although, they have already done one like this, eye level goods, groceries at end of the aisle, sticking big red labels on things, yellow labels to make you think it's a bargain and you forget to check the price per KG etc.

LizzieT84

I do my shopping online and so have no limits because I don't have to think what I can fit in a trolley or what I can carry home. Our shops tend to be pretty huge though but we're always feeding friends etc.

The way we do it we can buy huge amounts of stuff we don't need and still save money. If you're clever Tesco can pay you.

Here's the maths:

Spend £75 and get 1,500 clubcard points.
If you get all BOGOF's you need to spend £37.50
The points are worth £60.00
If you use a Tesco Clubcard Plus you will get another 74 points worth £5.92

So, for £37.50 you can get £75.00 worth of shopping and £65.92 worth of clubcard points.

Lizzie

katskorner

Take a toddler with you - you will shop to a list and get what you need and get out of there as fast as you can.

Contains_Mild_Peril

spirit wrote:

My DD has just gone off to university so I thought I'd try to save on my grocery bill each week. So I've used the smaller trolley the past 2 weeks. Simple, more than halved my bill. I'm not tempted to fill up the trolley with stuff I don't really need. I guess it must be psychological, if you have the bigger trolley you feel the need to fill it up otherwise you think you've missed something important.

Excellent use of psychology! It's a bit like the old dieter's trick of using smaller plates. If you serve a small portion on a big plate, it will look inadequate, as will a moderate amount of shopping in a big trolley.

Smiley_Mum wrote:

Better still - don't even take a basket. Just take what you can carry in your arms, so long as there's no glass stuff etc.

I wouldn't go that far. I made that mistake once! I went to Somerfield intending to buy about 3 things, but it was late in the day and there were some great bargains in the reduced to clear departments. This was genuine money-saving stuff, things my family would either consume the following day or stick in the freezer and use within a few days, at a fraction of the usual prices, so I grabbed the bargains I wanted, found my arms full, and realised that if I also wanted to buy the necessities I came for, I'd need to get a basket. Problem was, there were none left. All the small trolleys were outside the store, so I couldn't go and get one with armfuls of unpaid-for shopping, and if I'd laid my bargains down while going to get a trolley, another customer would probably have taken them and I'd have missed out. My only option was a big trolley.

Bogof_Babe wrote:

I hate the big trollies anyway, all that bending and stretching to get things out at the checkout, and they always seem to have wonky wheels,

I hate them too, and Somerfield are responsible for the worst I've used! I'm 5"1/2' tall. I went to the checkout with my basketful of shopping in the bottom of a huge trolley, bent over the back of the trolley to get my shopping out, and found some of it out of reach! The checkouts are so narrow, the only way I could access the side of my trolley to reach my shopping was to stand in the vacant area where the shop assistant would be at the adjacent till if it were open. If the till had been open and the space occupied by a shop assistant, that would have been even more awkward.

myriadabellium wrote:

Another tip of mine is to take cash and no cards! Really makes you think about what everything costs and how to get the best value from what you need to buy. Also, no impulse purchases! Can be hair-raising though at the till if you cut it fine, lol!

Tell me about it, I've done that a few times! I seldom use my credit card in the supermarket, partly because Morrisons, where I do my main shop, charge for using a card (it's in the small print). One advantage of taking a limited amount of cash which necessitates keeping an approximate count of what I'm spending as I fill my basket or trolley, is I'm more likely to notice before I leave the shop if I'm overcharged for anything. If there's more than £1 difference between my estimate and the price I'm charged, I check my receipt very carefully because it usually means I've been overcharged. I probably save at least £40-50 a year by checking receipts and bills and querying any overcharges.