I get frustrated while grocery shopping

[Amanda333]

- It is time consuming

- Healthy products are expensive

- My budget is tight

Does anyone else get frustrated like me or in a different way? I need opinions

[kantara71]

Hi Amanda,

Do you live in the UK? I can't believe that you say that healthy foods are expensive? 

Hopefully you are not looking at ready meals from weight loss companies or other processed foods, snack bars etc.

Fresh veg, salad stuff and fruit in all major supermarkets and the budget ones are so cheap! Tinned tomatoes at 25p a tin at poundstretcher, other supermarkets are available, and chicken and minced beef all at good prices.

Get back to basics and start to eat "clean"

Good luck

John

[Hidden]

Hi Amanda333 I get your frustration! Fresh friut and veg can get expensive! 

Especially if you want a variety! 

I have opt to buying frozen veg were  i can. I have saved so much money doing this.

I love  raspberries I buy bags of frozon ones I just get some out the night before.

There are other frozen fruits also! 

Hope this helps 

[Cooper27 Administrator]

Amanda, I think it depends where you shop. If you're in the UK, aldi are very good for veg, and I buy meat from our local butcher. I also buy a lot of veg from a local farm shop, and am always amazed when I leave with a box full of organic veg for about £7. 

We have a whole food supermarket near us, and I was excited to find a shop that sounded dedicated to health foods, but they really aren't so great. Everything I bought there, I subsequently found for less than half the price at a local organic veg shop, so don't assume you have to buy healthy foods from a healthy supermarket.

Have a search online for local farm shops and farmers markets, do a bit of shopping around. If you like the convenience of pre-prepped veg, buying frozen veg (green beans, chopped onions and peppers) can be a lot cheaper.

[ryanbone10]

Buying tinned fruit can save you money. I drain the juice before using the fruit to eliminate the syrup/sugar they are preserved in!

[Venusflytrap]

I switched to Lidl and knocked at least a third off my bills.  Though I still sneak into Sainsbury's for some of my favourites.  The bill for those is often the same as the bill for the 90% of my shopping I have bought at Lidl.  Some products I have found particularly good are the basic/smart price etc ranges in supermarkets.  So I try a new one every week.  But I still shop around and take my last week's bills with me so I can check that I am getting good value for my money.  We now eat good quality low fat meat, but only 100g portions.  We found that was nicer.  I get my fresh fruit and veg from Lidl.  It is a more limited range, but the quality has been better than my other supermarkets.  I like canned fish, which can be cheap.  I buy different types for different meals.  So I might get a basic flaked tuna for one person's lunch and a steak tuna for a 2 person meal.  I also like pilchards, herring etc.  Eggs make a cheap meal.  I often have a couple for breakfast or lunch.  My only moan is that all the supermarkets have switched the bulk of their canned fruit into light syrup instead of juice.  So I now boycott them all for these products and go and get mine at the Co-op.  And they try to pretend that they are cutting sugar from products.  

[Hidden]

Something I started doing is buy veg and fruit in season and freeze. I especially like the colored sweet peppers that I chop up and put in small freezer bags. I get them at Aldi. Didn't know Aldi is in UK too!

[BadHare]

Hi Amanda,

I tend to only buy healthy products, even treats such as dark chocolate & raw food bars, so I can't really compare with the cost  processed foods.  Food should be good for us & contain nutrients that make us healthy, not just give us energy. The only things I find expensive are nuts, but for me, the benefits outweigh the cost.

Can you find a supermarket where they do price reductions? I do this, & take advantage of 3 for 2 offers on fruit & veg,

M*

[Amanda333]

Thank you all for sharing! Makes me feel a bit more optimistic.  Can anyone tell me about a time you had an easy & time-efficient grocery shopping experience? What made it easy?

[Fran182716 Prediabetic]

Hi Amanda, I do a mixture of sainsburys ( tho they are expensive but my son works there so we have a discount card) aldi, and tesco home delivery. I hate shopping of any sort and am always short of time so have worked out the least painful way of doing it! Once a week I take my friend because she doesn't have a car, she is on an even tighter budget than mine, we go in the evening about 7-8 pm Aldi and sainsburys are opposite so we get what we can at aldi and then cross over to sainsburys for the "extras". Both shops are quiet at that time so it's much more time efficient. I've noticed the Aldi fruit and veg is just as good quality as sainsburys ( in fact their strawberries and blueberries have recently been much tastier) just the choice is a bit more limited, but a lot cheaper! The tesco home delivery I do about once a month, it's very time efficient as you don't even have to go to the shop, and if you can be flexible about when it's delivered some of the less popular delivery slots are only £1 I think it would cost more than that in petrol for me to drive there. Hope you work out something that suits you ☀️

[WeightWarrior in reply to Fran182716]

I'm with you on the Tesco home delivery.  If you make it a decent sized shop, it more than pays for itself in fuel savings, I know I couldn't drive there for £1 either!  Plus, I like to do the shopping when everyone is in bed, so there are no distractions and no requests for things we don't really need!  The search box makes it easy to find the items you are looking for and you aren't passing all the items supermarkets put on display to tempt you to buy what you don't really need!

[Venusflytrap]

Yes, the day I planned all my meals for the week and stuck to the shopping list!  I try to allow some flexibility for bargains.  I find the smaller supermarkets are much quicker to go round too.  But I am terrible for going off list.  One day when I had to go but had forgotten my list, I ended up spending twice as much.  Lesson learned!  

[Amanda333]

What aspect of grocery shopping is most important & least important to you? My most important is keeping to a budget - my least important is location. What about you guys?

[linlow in reply to Amanda333]

important - finding what I want to eat at a price I want to pay for it!

not important - the label

Take a look at mysupermarket.co.uk.  You have access to all the main supermarkets on there and can plan your shop ahead of time so you know which shop offers what you want before you set off.

If there is a farmer's market near you a trip out will make shopping more fun and you can get stuff you might not usually buy at reasonable prices.