The Big Shop

When I get paid, which was today, I always immediately go shopping and buy all our food for the month.

Here it is..

The whole process took 2 hours today and I spent £150. I will need to go back and buy more vegetables and milk during the month, but all these bags and boxes that fill the boot and spill onto to the back seat also include toiletries and cleaning products.

I start thinking about "shopping day" about 5-7 days before I get paid, and write a list as I check cupboards and start thinking what we both need for the next four weeks.

I then rewrite it, according to where I'm going to buy each item from. 

Aldi is always cheapest, but my girls won't eat their cat food and I swear by Catsan so that has to be done somewhere else along with, for example, curry sauces as I don't like Aldi ones. 

So "shopping day" always means visiting 2 supermarkets, I do one straight after the other, but today I did 3 separate transactions. 

Why?

Well on Thursday The Mirror newspaper was offering a £5 off a £40 shop at Aldi, so I bought two copies of the paper to get 2 vouchers and then split my shop into two separate transactions. That meant I walked around on the first shop writing down prices and adding them up on my calculator to make sure I didn't exceed £40 by too much so I had a chance of making the next shop to £40 too. I don't mind looking a prat to save.

It meant I got £10 worth of free food which covered all the chicken I bought and more.

Then Lloyds bank are offering 10% cash back on all food purchases from Morrisons for the next 10 days, meaning I got paid for the final transaction too. 

I always start with Aldi though so I can double check that everything I still have on my other supermarket list is not available in Aldi.

It really pays to prepare, food costs so much today that I want to make sure my money is going as far as possible.

The only downside is when I got back the last thing I felt like doing was cooking!

Frugally yours

Abigail

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