If your supermarket spending is getting to the point where something needs to change, then this is certainly for you. Before I got with my partner, my spending in the supermarket was out of control and worst of all, I didn’t even know. All I did know was at the end of the month, I didn’t have a lot of money left and no idea where it has gone.
Short of intervention, my partner actual sat me down and we went through the shopping for a month, well this is where the realisation his me, I was spending £400 a month in the supermarket. I lived on my own!! My partner would stop over a couple of times a week, but it didn’t warrant £400 a month in my food shopping.
So I had to have a serious look at how I was spending this amount a month and not actually having much to show, well this is where I realised I was a brand addict. I always got hit by the special offers, but would only buy the big brands, so was the first mistake that I was making and I realised that I needed to chance, and seriously reduce my supermarket spending.
Why not check out some more ways to save when you go shopping
What did I do?
Well, this is where a lot of trial and error happened and a few tantrums (from me) in the supermarket. I was a little bit like that kid who was told no, but it had to be done. This is where things got changed every week, not everything, but a few of my choices were changed to the supermarket own brand and you know what, there were some I absolutely hated and went straight back to the big brands, but some, I have changed and it has made a big difference to my pocket.
A perfect example of this would be tomato sauce, I only went for Heinz Tomato Ketchup and never would try anything cheap, well now I use Aldi’s own brand, so instead of £2 a bottle, I spend 45p, saving a massive £1.55!!
Another example would be washing up liquid, again I would always go with Fairy, costing around £1.50, the Aldi version and that costs 49p, saving me £1.01 a bottle.
Now I have not been converted on everything and still to this day, I won’t change on a couple of things, I say a couple of things, I will give you a list, my washing powder, Fairy or Bold only, I have tried cheaper brands and all I can say is they are not for me. Another change would be deodorant, never again would I try something other than what I currently use, it doesn’t work with my skin. And finally this is one thing I can’t change, I have tried and do try on occasion and every single time, I don’t like it and go back and that is chocolate. If I fancy some chocolate, it has to be Cadburys, nothing else will do, and I have tried, my partner will tell you. Now the only time I become a snob is usually at Easter and Christmas, I will ONLY eat Cadburys chocolate, I hate to admit it, but this is one snob thing I can’t change.
You may have seen on Channel 4 that they have a show called “SuperShoppers”, this is one of my favourite shows, I love the way that they can uncover the truth about our shopping and buying habits. In one particular episode, they were reviewing a couple of products, honey and a ready meal lasagne, they had a value packaged version and then the supermarkets “mid-range” brand, what “SuperShoppers” showed us is that both the value and “mid-range”m product were identical in ingredients and calories etc, the only difference between the products was the packaging and that is it.
So after seeing that on the show, it has made me a little more sceptical about the products that the supermarkets are selling, I look at lot more into the products and if the value brand and the mid-range version have the same batch code, same ingredients and same nutritional values, then the products is the same. So in that case, get the cheaper version and save yourself some money.
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