Save money supermarket shopping online
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Save Money | 21 comments
Photo: Laptop screen
“I usually shop at Sainsbury’s.” Sam confided. He likes good food. He’s a great chef. But was it really worth motoring over to Cambridge or Bury to shop?
“Oh no I don’t have time to do that. I buy online. I’ve done it for ages. Initially my neighbours all thought I was mad. But gradually, one by one they are all doing it. Go for it – you can save time and money, Fiona. And the delivery rates are much cheaper now.”
We don’t have brilliant local shops in Newmarket. No green grocer, no fishmonger. There are several good butchers. Because I’m time rich at the moment I visit the market each week towards the end of the day to scoop up vegetable and fruit bargains. We also shop in the local Waitrose and Tesco. I enjoy the physical process of shopping. I want to see what I’m buying. I’m addicted to Condemned Food Counter bargains. It’s fun to compare prices and goggle at the offers. Yesterday I discovered that you can do all this with the exception of the CFC bargains on line. I found the supermarket comparison site mySupermarket. I was feeling so tired and couldn’t face doing the weekly shop so thought that I’d investigate. And I’m so pleased that I did.
When you enter your post code the website reveals which of four online supermarkets can deliver to you. In our case it was all four Asda (Bury St Edmunds) Tesco (Newmarket) Ocado (Waitrose) and Sam’s favourite Sainsbury’s (Bury St Edmunds).
I wrote out my shopping list and started shopping. Which ever supermarket you choose the same products are selected from the other supermarkets and a rolling bill total appears for each supermarket. This is fascinating stuff. You can jump between supermarkets in seconds with just one click. There is a great downshift button which points to a cheaper alternative product. The website also flags relevant voucher codes too. You don’t even have to buy online. If you are time rich with a penchant for bargains you can print out your shopping list which pin points the best prices at each of the stores. Then hike round the stores – far cheaper than going to the gym in our case as Cambridge and Bury are both fifteen miles away!
Thank you Sam. I now regret not taking up your tip sooner. This is the answer to a much cheaper weekly shopping bill and saving on petrol too. Shopping at mySupermarket is fun and if you are on a tight budget you can guarantee that you are au fait with all the latest supermarket offers and bargains.
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Oh, yeah. The whole report’s here
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/miscellaneous/supermarkets.aspx
For heavy stuff, online shopping is great. Relatively better environmentally, too. One van on a planned route cuts out loads of car journeys
Totally disagree with “It’s a shame that the Coop is taking over your Somerfield store”. Somerfield treated its staff like dirt, was low quality, had no ethical base. The Co-op has a strong ethical base.
This table shows some of the reasons http://www.ethiscore.org/images/reports/282218environmentaltable.jpg
Hi Angie
It’s a totally new world to me. I love it – it’s great being able to shift between supermarkets.
They also have a great new healthy eating feature now.
I have never tried mysupermarket but will definitly do so now! I used online shopping a lot but also got cross last time when I’d ordered 10 carrots and only 1 came nicely wrapped up. It’s just laziness and lack of common sense sometimes by the pickers! But it means that I then have to go out anyway to get what they didn’t bring, so decided I might as well do it myself. However, working more now and with Christmas & fayres to organise looming, would like to return to using the internet. I try to make a weekly menu list anyway, so that should help.
Will try it out for the first time later!
Angie
Hello Mandi
I think that you should write a book on agoraphobia – you write so well 🙂
I can’t imagine what a life spent avoiding crowds must be like, as they are everywhere.
I’m like you – always been delighted with little things that most people don’t notice. We are lucky.
Now I’m not well I do realise that I had far too many balls in the air for far too long.
Hi Fiona
No, no trips out shopping, cinema, restaurants, well infact anywhere! Apart from my job, which thankfully is only 3 miles from my doorstep, and I only have to interact with about 15 people in total, usually no more than 3 or 4 at a time.
But I don’t complain. Far from it! Compared to when I was really sick where my life was totally housebound and asleep for 16 hours of the day, now my existence seems windswept and interesting LOL!
Living in constant fear is very depressing without a good sense of humour and sense of irony, which fortunately I am blessed with, and I find being open and honest with everyone about how I am/feel is the best way for me to cope. My wedding and honeymoon were the worst nightmare ever, and only coped by being totally ‘rescue remedied and st johns worted up’ for the last 2 months before hand LOL, and even then I nearly cancelled the honeymoon as I was convinced we were going to plunge into the atlantic and eaten by sharks.
I have often thought of writing a book on agoraphobia, like a survival manual, as most of my life has to be planned out in minutest detail for even simple things like roads routes not having to stop at traffic lights for too long, how to get petrol without having to queue at the till, coping with hospital doctors and dental appointments without running screaming from the waiting room or hiding in the loo’s and missing your appointment etc.
It would certainly be far easier a life to just give up altogether and stay indoors forever in my pyjamas!
But I’ve come a long way with the fear and together we intend to keep edging forward, even if its cm at a time with a bottle of rescue remedy in my back pocket and copy of ‘feel the fear’.
The one thing I suppose I miss most is the streets at christmas with all the lights and decorations, but some years if I am feeling really brave me and my husband take a walk very late at night and I can gleefully like a child peer in darkened shop windows and see them, some even have the lights going when they are shut which is a bonus.
Being this way gives you so much, so don’t pity me, everything other people take for granted brings me a different kind of excitement, seeing a squirrel on the way to work, when the lambs are in the fields, when a new flower grows in my garden and blooms for the first time, because I have such a ‘little’ life these things are enormous in my world and keep me smiling for days.
So Fiona I know you’re feeling trapped where you have been poorly for so long now, but you will recover, in time, and when you do, and you’re back on your feet chasing around like you always do, I hope all the little things, stay big things, once you have the whole world back at your feet.
love mandi x
Hi Suky
That’s amazing – I like Sainsbury’s but rarely shopped there as it was so far away. But now things are different with shopping on line!
Hi Jackie
Great point that you can go and just check if you need something. I’m such a feather head that I often return without the things that we need.
I like the interface of mySupermarket too. With my list all four were pretty neck and neck until I started buying meat – then the Waitrose began to shoot up at a terrific rate.
Hi Gary
Thank you so much. I love awards.
Hi Ben
Good point I think that some of the stores stipulate English/UK fruit and veg products. That air mile idea is great. Thanks.
Hi Mandi
I was so sorry to read this. Poor you. Does that mean no cinema or theatre or London?
Yes most people are lucky that we have the choice – shop online or visit the shops. I like visiting the shops as generally I bump into someone I know. But the online option is great as we can save quite a bit of dosh and with me not earning at the mo that’s a priority.
Hi Alex
Great news that you’ll be up on all the bargains!
Hi Sharon
I was amazed to discover that Asda and Sainsbury’s will deliver to us in our village miles away. Always happy to share.
Hi Tamara
That sounds like a perfect shopping solution for you!
Love the John Major story ?
Hello Willo
Three years in bed. How awful. And here I am feeling sorry for myself not working for just a matter of weeks.
Yes the social and financial implications of being ill are massive. That’s what prompted my to try shopping on line.
I love the internet too. All that knowledge and freedom and the chance to communicate with people right across the world.
Lucky you. Strawberries for breakfast.
Hi Kate (uk)
Yes doing the shopping can be exhausting. I’m really excited about online food shopping. And am wondering if I could do this for my mum too. Thanks for the nudge.
Hi Alison
I agree the fruit and veg in Waitrose always seem fresher than in Tesco. We only need to supplement our home grown stuff now and that makes an enormous difference. Thanks for your advice.
Hi Pamela
It’s a shame that the Coop is taking over your Somerfield store. My mum has a Coop near her and it’s expensive. I’m trying not to do a big shop anymore. Preferring to shop when I’m in town. Now the weather is a bit colder the larder is nice and cool.
Hi Tess
Thanks for the tip about the offers – wouldn’t have twigged that.
My mum has the same problem over three for twos – with only a small freezer. If we shop together then we combine our lists to save cash.
I have been using My Supermarket since a nasty bout of sciatica rendered me unable to drive.
My tips: Always look at the top offers but print your list to check when they finish if you book a delivery mid week it’s usually free over 100 pounds but many of the offers finish on the monday so you can pay full price.
Also now I can drive again, I can shop directly with my list in hand and I keep getting a 10 voucher from one or other of them to shop online ..well worth it.
By the way why does Waitrose think I want to buy Three for the price of two whan I only want one?
I bookmarked this website months ago and quite enjoy just checking out what you can get and where. I haven’t used it to actually buy my shopping because living just 2 minutes from my local supermarket means I never do a big shop now, I just pop out and buy what I am going to eat that day. Unfortunately the Somerfield store is now gradually filling up with Coop products and the prices are rising as a consequence, even on the CFC! Somerfield have a great system going whereby you do your own shopping and if you spend over £25 – and how hard is that to do these days? – you can then choose a time slot to have it all delivered free.
I know Ocado is more; I should probably try the others again. But I stopped shopping with Tesco because I was fed up of always receiving substandard fruit and veg, and I stopped shopping with Sainsbury’s because I was fed up of never getting all the products I ordered.
With Ocado, it is very unusual for more than one item to be substituted, and the fruit and veg is expensive but perfect. I also do the family shop in under half an hour; less time than it would take me to drive to the supermarket and back.