Reduced bargains and yellow stickers shopping

Unfortunatly it's all about luck, i've come away with 4 carrier bags of stuff for £5 before but that would depend on if you were in the right place at the right time which is getting rare these days. You have so many others looking for the bargains most of it has already gone before it goes down to 20p prices.

Mammy0f4 wrote: »

If you went to the supermarket with a fiver to spend on bargains how much stuff would you typically expect to come home with?

Depends what I am after, mostly mine would be fruits and vegetables which I need to have a long life so I would only opt for reduced if I need ed to use it straight away.
Cheese there is no point buying as again I want it to last a while.
When it comes to meat and fish I am quite picky and some things look grey and awful.

Also I will not buy for the sake of it if it has a reduced label on it especially when they only take a few pence of, always gets me when a fresh item would be 2 for X and the reduced item ends up more expensive or no savings as it is a solo item.

Realistically something would have to be still looking quite edible and around 50% off for me to pick it up!

I have been doing this for 5 years now and nearly half my shopping is yellow label. I rarely if ever come back with nothing, provided I get to the shops before 6 p.m. However I'm fortunate in that I now have a Co-op, Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and M&S all within 2 miles so I tend to do at least 3 in one hit and often 4 of the 5.

Different shops are good for different things. Waitrose is very good for cheap bread. M&S if they have anything it's often cheap milk. Sainsbury's are good for chilled stuff and Tesco generally have cheap fruit and Veg. You have to be prepared to wait,watch and listen. If you can't do that then it is a matter of luck. For example by looking at other shoppers trolleys you may see a bargain you missed. I did that the other day and got wine reduced from £9.99 to £3.09. Also I now instantly recognise the sound of the PDA's reducing stuff in Tesco.

You also need to have a good idea how much fruit and veg you have waiting to be used at home and how much room you have in the freezer and fridge. No point in buying cheap if it ends up getting thrown away.

When buying yellow label I tend not to buy anything that's over 40% of the original price unless it's something that's not normally reduced - like a long life item or an item that's desperately needed like milk.

You can make your own luck - if I'm waiting for items to be reduced I will look at the stock that's about to expire in the next 2 days. If there's a lot of a less popular item that I like I will make a note of visiting that store that day.

We will all have our limits and I can get away with the bar being set this high because I am prepared to do the leg work and go to the shops every other day on average. Not everyone will have that time or patience.

Mammy0f4 wrote: »

If you went to the supermarket with a fiver to spend on bargains how much stuff would you typically expect to come home with?

I wouldn't expect to come home with anything! Like people say, it depends and you can't count on getting anything.