Strayed temporarily from the path of righteousness by visiting Waitrose this afternoon, not a store I would normally look for bargains but my neighbour had told me they were selling packs of frozen mackerel fillets for £4.99 which sounded a good deal. Needless to say it wasn't the only thing I bought . . .
On the credit side I picked up a couple of pork chops for tonight's supper for just £2.12 and a fresh fruit salad reduced from £3.36 to £1.39, enough for two meals.
On the debit side I couldn't resist two gorgeous cheeses including an interesting Cornish Brie I hadn't seen before which came to £5.77 (ouch!) and a special offer on Fudge's flatbreads on the slender pretext that they would be 'useful research' for my next book which is on cheese.
The total bill with various other bits and pieces (mostly justified) was £39.20 which is EIGHT times the price of the mackerel 'bargain'. In Waitrose terms I suppose that's not bad - there are so many utterly tempting foods in there that it would be easy to spend at least twice that amount but I can't say I feel particularly proud of myself.
Except for this. It would have been £8 more expensive if I hadn't put back on the shelf a bunch of asparagus, two packs of rhubarb (on special offer but overpriced) and a large pot of parsley which we almost certainly wouldn't have used before we go away next week.
So a 'eureka moment'. Even if the goods are in your basket you haven't spent that money until you've passed through the checkout. You can put stuff back . . .
I often take a look in my shopping basket/trolley and take out 2 or 3 non-essential items. It's surprising how many things get in there when I don't really need them...
ReplyDeleteI was lucky enough to get some rhubarb given to me by a friend who has it in her garden. I baked it with orange, sugar and honey for about 30 minutes, and it was delicious. We had enough for two servings each, once with icecream and the next day with pancakes.
Baked rhubarb is great as it holds its shape and doesn't disintegrate. Sounds really delicious!
ReplyDeleteWaitrose is a nightmare for food shopping as you auddenly see things that you need!
ReplyDeleteI do a big online shop once every 3 months and stock up on non perishables and tins and then pick fresh things up as I need them. If I spend enough delivery is reduced or free.
Hippolyra makes a good point about online shopping - one of its perks is that you can see how much you're spending as you go along, giving you the chance to remove anything you think is taking your bill over the acceptable limit. That's something that's much harder when you're in the store and - if you're anything like me - wanting to get the whole show over and done with as quickly as possible. A bit of sharp mental arithmetic never goes astray but I always end up under-estimating the final total; it must be all those 99p's...
ReplyDeleteMaybe there's an argument there for having these trolleys with built-in barcode scanners that were promised to shoppers what feels like an age ago.