Supermarkets are such tricksters. I've known this for a while and try not to fall for the 3 for 2 offers unless it's on something that I wouldn't use any quicker like shampoo or cleaning spray. I took Archie to Tescos with me on Saturday, and I find it's always easier to get sucked in with a toddler in tow because half your brain is concentrating on them and what they are doing.
So on Saturday we had a list, we were sticking to a budget. We usually have the luxury of a very loose budget and spend about £100 - £150 at the supermarket. But this shop was just to tide us over until payday in two weeks and so it was just 'essentials'.
Well the first trick I nearly fell for was grapes. Grapes are expensive and the kids love them. They could happily eat a whole punnet in one go and so we have to ration them, giving them each a little tub with a counted out number of grapes in. This means that grapes are classed as a treat in our house, which can't be bad. I also love the fact that tescos do punnets of half red grapes and half green grapes, because Emily prefers the red ones and Archie prefers the green ones. So, on Saturday, grapes were £2.45 per punnet or 'any 2 for £4' so I immediately started looking for what else was on the same offer to get the £4 deal and seeing as grapes were the only fruit on my list (we still had some apples and bananas left over from the previous shop) this would have been something extra. I almost went for blueberries because Emily loves them, but Archie won't touch them and they were £2 a punnet and so I would've saved 45p. Instead I just decided to get more grapes and save 90p and as I reached out for them a little voice inside my head suddenly screamed "budget! What do you think your doing? If you just buy the one punnet of grapes at £2.45, you're saving yourself £1.55 by not being sucked in" (ok so I don't really hear voices in my head, but that was just my thought processes).
The next trick the supermarket had in store was to put some of the things I wanted on the end of an aisle with a big sign telling me they were all 'only £1'. Belter - carrots £1, on the list, parsnips £1, on this list, cherry tomatoes £1, not on the list but we do use them and I wanted to take salads things to work for lunch. So, chuffed with myself for getting 3 different things for only £3. And now here's where Archie saved me this time, he ran off down the aisle that sold carrots and parsnips and picked up a great big bag of carrots - "what about these mummy?". Having already got carrots I wouldn't have normally looked at anymore, but as I put this huge, three-times-bigger-than-the-one-I-had bag of market value carrots back, I noticed they were only 69p. The carrots looked fine, they were all clean, granted some were broken, some were funny shapes, some were fat, some were skinny, but they all looked perfectly edible. And then I noticed the parsnips nestled next to the carrots, again there was some martlet value ones, there were slightly more parsnips in the bags and they were nice and fat, whereas the £1 bag I'd picked up were all really skinny and uniform, as we love to roast them, the fatter the better. And guess what? The market value ones were only 69p too. Feeling slightly annoyed at myself for almost being conned I went to check the cherry tomatoes and actually they were a good deal, the ones for £1 were nice a red and looked better quality than their other value offerings.
Spurred on not to be beaten by anymore tricks we moved on. We got to toilet rolls. Now Archie and I were getting the bus home, so not only did we have to careful with cost, we also had to watch weight and volume, so I couldn't get the usual 12 pack rolls. Cuchelles 9 packs were displayed on end of the aisle at half price - £3.50, this seemed like a good offer but I was determined not to be fooled again. We walked down the aisle and I spotted the tescos own and the tescos value packs. Having resorted to tescos value in the past I knew these are horrible so I looked at the tescos own, they were something like £1.89 for 6 rolls and I was tempted but when I squeezed the packet, I noticed the roll was easily squashed down to half its thickness, whereas the cushelles hardly squashed at all. So this is a quality trick. The cheaper toilets rolls look like good value for money, but you actually get less on a roll because they must wind the tissue on less tight so they look the same size as more expensive ones, but actually half of it is just air. Seeing as my kids go through toilet rolls like there's no tomorrow, I went with the cushelles.
I probably got conned by loads of other things, we got 4 muller rices for £2, and I know morrisons are doing them at 10 for £2, but we can't trek all the way to morrisons for the sake of yogurts and while I think the choice is often better in morrisons, I've found it expensive recently. I also went for 4 for £12 on meat and fish, getting a large packet of mince which will do two meals, some casserole steaks, some pork loin steaks and some salmon steaks. I'm not sure if that was good value but we needed meat and Archie was getting bored by this point and touching everything so I didn't have time to work it out.
We often do our shopping with tescos online - I dread the think what kind of tricks they employ to make you spend more that way.
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