Shopping! How you can save and budget the easy way!
After spending many an evening observing Jaime Oliver collecting food out of oversized waste bins, or listening to Martins money tips discussing ever growing super market charges. We decided to do a little 2016 test into budgeting on our food shopping and seeing whether we can spend less out of our speedily emptying, London living wallets per week for the same, if not better quality of food.
In the film and TV world for whatever crazy unjust reason our day rates do not tend to increase every April like the other 31 million people living in the country who are in full time employment who enjoy an increase with inflation annually. For example I seem to be on the same day rate now as I was 5 years ago , sometimes even less, due to the amount of horrid undercutting going on. Hence why we need to unionise! Anyway enough of my intense waffle, that is another blog post for another time.
Long story short, we need to cut back what with the cost of living in London increasing at gastronomical rates. We begin to look into shops like Aldi and Lidl. Previously shopping in Waitrose,
Sainsburys and Asda three of the four leading supermarkets today. Stores like Waitrose and Sainsburys have somewhat of an upper class shop feel to them, the people seem to be calmer, the store easy to navigate, the staff that will bend over backwards to help you and the beautiful flavours in their food selections, in some Sainsburys there are over 50,000 products for us greedy buggers to choose from. At the end of the day, do we really want to pay up to £20 extra each shop for this? Do we really care if someone else offers to pack our bags for us? Who on this Earth needs a selection of thousands of products and most of them the same standard and same ingredients as the cheaper competitors, yes I have read most of the labels by now! Welcome, Lidl, a smaller store with around 1,000 items of choice for us, ranging from budget beans to lobster tail the selection is far from small. With a 500g bag of pasta costing only 31p instead of the £1.40 we were paying. Already we were quids in!
The challenge we chose to accept. Take our monthly £220 shop, and lower it to £30 per week, £120 per month in total, pretty much half of what we normally spend. After doing a list of all the essential needs, off to Lidl we ventured.
In the store we discovered, stress free, clean, basic, bulk shopping, no frills, no aires or graces, does what it says on the tin shopping with an amazing smelling gorgeous looking bakery section. Guy seemed to spot this area as soon as we entered the store! So we decided if we could keep our shop under £30 we would treat ourselves to a fresh croissant each, at a mere 35p compared to Tesco 70p per this tasty pastry. And my, those pastries were fine.
Sufficient selection of fruits and veggies, all fresh and firm looking just as provided in other stores. Many different varieties of meats. You do have the choice also of purchasing a cheaper pack of mince holding 20% percent fat or a slightly more expensive pack (still cheaper than the leading supermarkets) with a smaller amount of 5% fat. I do advise you to still read the labels especially with meat as there is no compromising health and fat intake over cost. We have since discovered that now more than 30% of A/B shoppers (middle and upper class) are now shopping in Lidl and Aldi, so even the posh'os are grabbing a bargain when it comes to their carrots.
With a choice of only two brands of pasta and two brands of tinned tomatoes I think this is how Lidl and Aldi do it. Less bulk ordering = less choice = less waste. We reached the checkout where you must ALWAYS remember to bring your bag, this is standard in any UK store now as they charge you another 5p each carrier bag if not, which also adds up on top of the shopping each week. We can end up spending 50p alone on plastic when you have all those bags piling up in that cupboard at home, we all have them, don't say you haven't because I know if I came round to your house and looked behind the bin, or in the cupboard by the washing machine or if your an organised one like me in the Cath Kidson bag holder hanging from the kitchen door handle. ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR BAGS!
All in all my baking and our feasting has not changed at all, if anything I have been venturing out of my cooking comfort zone and playing with more ingredients as we can now afford to try them and not simply have things as a luxury. The standard of shop is just as good, if not better, now we have it down to military precision we are in and out in less than 30 mins and thats the fortnightly shop done! It has changed our lives and allowed us to save more for our mortgage each month, if you can try the shopping challenge and let me know your thoughts! always love to hear your feedback and opinions.
In the film and TV world for whatever crazy unjust reason our day rates do not tend to increase every April like the other 31 million people living in the country who are in full time employment who enjoy an increase with inflation annually. For example I seem to be on the same day rate now as I was 5 years ago , sometimes even less, due to the amount of horrid undercutting going on. Hence why we need to unionise! Anyway enough of my intense waffle, that is another blog post for another time.
Long story short, we need to cut back what with the cost of living in London increasing at gastronomical rates. We begin to look into shops like Aldi and Lidl. Previously shopping in Waitrose,
The challenge we chose to accept. Take our monthly £220 shop, and lower it to £30 per week, £120 per month in total, pretty much half of what we normally spend. After doing a list of all the essential needs, off to Lidl we ventured.
In the store we discovered, stress free, clean, basic, bulk shopping, no frills, no aires or graces, does what it says on the tin shopping with an amazing smelling gorgeous looking bakery section. Guy seemed to spot this area as soon as we entered the store! So we decided if we could keep our shop under £30 we would treat ourselves to a fresh croissant each, at a mere 35p compared to Tesco 70p per this tasty pastry. And my, those pastries were fine.
With a choice of only two brands of pasta and two brands of tinned tomatoes I think this is how Lidl and Aldi do it. Less bulk ordering = less choice = less waste. We reached the checkout where you must ALWAYS remember to bring your bag, this is standard in any UK store now as they charge you another 5p each carrier bag if not, which also adds up on top of the shopping each week. We can end up spending 50p alone on plastic when you have all those bags piling up in that cupboard at home, we all have them, don't say you haven't because I know if I came round to your house and looked behind the bin, or in the cupboard by the washing machine or if your an organised one like me in the Cath Kidson bag holder hanging from the kitchen door handle. ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR BAGS!All in all my baking and our feasting has not changed at all, if anything I have been venturing out of my cooking comfort zone and playing with more ingredients as we can now afford to try them and not simply have things as a luxury. The standard of shop is just as good, if not better, now we have it down to military precision we are in and out in less than 30 mins and thats the fortnightly shop done! It has changed our lives and allowed us to save more for our mortgage each month, if you can try the shopping challenge and let me know your thoughts! always love to hear your feedback and opinions.
Happy shopping adventures!
xxx
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