Yellow sticker food bargains have played a significant role in our efforts to save more and retire early. Week in, week out I’ve snuffled the aisles of every shop with food I go into, even though pickings have been pretty slim lately due to my schedule, looking for things that are reduced.
My lunch yesterday was a huge cheese salad with shredded spiced mushrooms, all yellow sticker. My breakfast banana came from a pack of eight reduced from £1.35 to 50p, and my GF bagel was from a four-pack reduced from £2.00 to £1.00. My dinner this evening was lemon and herb marinated hake (which I bought at Tesco the other day and forgot about when doing Wednesday's post), a big salad and the rest of the shredded spiced mushrooms. Even the lemon and herb marinade was from a bottle reduced from £2.00 to 2op. I paid full price for the mayo though...well, I bought two 800g jars on a 2for1 at Christmas and decanted one into a squeezy bottle. 😀
I also look at sections in a specific order. I look in the discounted sections of the meat and fish aisles (as they are generally the most expensive part of a shop), general refrigerated goods, the deli, fruit and veg, bread, ambient and frozen then homewares and flowered/plants. Then I loop back and pick up the rest of the stuff on my list, making adjustments as I go depending on what I managed to pick up reduced.
I very rarely buy anything in homewares but occasionally snuffles have turned up printer paper, stationary and the odd packs of seasonal goods that I tuck away for the following year. Plants and flowers can sometimes yield interesting stuff; I once found a mini spruce tree in a tin for a £1 reduced from £4. That lives outside and every year gets potted on in spring and decorated at Christmas.
This approach has allowed us to consistently pay a vast amount less for our groceries shopping every week, which I combine with bulk buying items when on offer, finding the non-reduced bargains regardless of which shop they are in, and checking all the supermarkets weekly for offers through mysupermarket.com.
We're lucky in that we have quite a few food shops in close proximity in our town, including Iceland, M&S foods, Lidl, Aldi, B&M, Sainsbury's, Poundstretchers, and Morrisons. Tesco is well out of town, about 15 minutes away, and so is ASDA and Co-op, at about 30 minutes each. Waitrose is about an hour. Those get occasionally snuffled when passing. I love having so much choice, although it can make for a bit of work keeping up with them all.
It can be worth it though. For example, Martin likes a box of proper Jaffa cakes every now and then (not found a generic version he likes), and Sainsbury's has a box of 10 for £1 or 20 for £1.60. However, in Iceland you can get a bulk box of 10 packs of 10 for £4. No contest, although I have to keep them hidden otherwise he eats the lot!
I very rarely buy anything in homewares but occasionally snuffles have turned up printer paper, stationary and the odd packs of seasonal goods that I tuck away for the following year. Plants and flowers can sometimes yield interesting stuff; I once found a mini spruce tree in a tin for a £1 reduced from £4. That lives outside and every year gets potted on in spring and decorated at Christmas.
This approach has allowed us to consistently pay a vast amount less for our groceries shopping every week, which I combine with bulk buying items when on offer, finding the non-reduced bargains regardless of which shop they are in, and checking all the supermarkets weekly for offers through mysupermarket.com.
We're lucky in that we have quite a few food shops in close proximity in our town, including Iceland, M&S foods, Lidl, Aldi, B&M, Sainsbury's, Poundstretchers, and Morrisons. Tesco is well out of town, about 15 minutes away, and so is ASDA and Co-op, at about 30 minutes each. Waitrose is about an hour. Those get occasionally snuffled when passing. I love having so much choice, although it can make for a bit of work keeping up with them all.
It can be worth it though. For example, Martin likes a box of proper Jaffa cakes every now and then (not found a generic version he likes), and Sainsbury's has a box of 10 for £1 or 20 for £1.60. However, in Iceland you can get a bulk box of 10 packs of 10 for £4. No contest, although I have to keep them hidden otherwise he eats the lot!
On the smaller end of the scale, I like having a cappuccino once a day and I have a Dolce Gusto machine. I can sometimes find bulk deals online for the pods, which is especially good if I can find a discount voucher to combine them with. The lowest I've ever bought a pack of 16 pods was for £2.85 a box and that was with a store discount coupon. Most of the time Poundstretcher has a box of pods for £3.50 compared to £3.69 in Sainsbury's (although at the moment they are £3.50). Unfortunately, neither Aldi nor Lidl in my area do their own branded-compatible cappuccino pods otherwise I'd have those instead. A 19p saving each time I buy may not sound a lot but if you made the same saving on every item you buy you can start to see how that would build up over the months and years.
Saying that, for a while now I've been drinking Kenco Duos, as they've been on offer for £2.00 in many places but they've now gone up to £3.50 everywhere but Asda (£2.00). That's too much for six coffee pods so I'm back on the Dolce Gusto until I can find them cheap again or pass by an ASDA.
Yes, I know I'm getting a bit anally retentive about prices, but apart from the love of a bargain there is another, more personal reason for doing this. Martin has been up at the crack of dawn for 25 years. Come rain, shine, snow, dogs, nasty shouty people and broken bottles of ink in parcels (the curse of the dyed hand) he has delivered the mail conscientiously.
I want him retired. I want him to enjoy waking up every morning and sinking back under the covers, knowing he doesn't have to go anywhere.
To do that I need to stretch his salary. It's very hard-earned.
Saying that, for a while now I've been drinking Kenco Duos, as they've been on offer for £2.00 in many places but they've now gone up to £3.50 everywhere but Asda (£2.00). That's too much for six coffee pods so I'm back on the Dolce Gusto until I can find them cheap again or pass by an ASDA.
Yes, I know I'm getting a bit anally retentive about prices, but apart from the love of a bargain there is another, more personal reason for doing this. Martin has been up at the crack of dawn for 25 years. Come rain, shine, snow, dogs, nasty shouty people and broken bottles of ink in parcels (the curse of the dyed hand) he has delivered the mail conscientiously.
I want him retired. I want him to enjoy waking up every morning and sinking back under the covers, knowing he doesn't have to go anywhere.
To do that I need to stretch his salary. It's very hard-earned.
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