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Original poster

£8.10 on a flipping chicken!

367 replies

mnahmnah · 13/08/2023 15:39

Went to Lidl yesterday to spend as little as possible on a small shop to get us through the weekend. Needed a chicken for Sunday dinner and as a vegetarian I didn’t want to hang around looking at them all. I was sure I picked one from the shelf labelled as £3.75. DM has just informed me that it was a free range fancy chicken costing £8.10 on the label! Already in the oven. It had better be a bloody gorgeous chicken for the people eating it! I don’t even benefit!

What’s been your most costly shopping mistake? Make me feel less stupid please!

OP posts:
PurpleButterflyWings · 13/08/2023 17:07

RoyalGala · 13/08/2023 17:06

Chickens raised for meat suffer horribly, the whole process is a life of misery and suffering, it’s inhumane. If you choose to eat meat, buying local and free range makes a difference to their existence.

https://www.worldanimalprotection.org.uk/blogs/10-things-you-should-know-about-factory-farmed-meat-chickens

Agree!

Freshair1 · 13/08/2023 17:08

Considering the cost of things like a bottle of wine, or craft beer etc, that's ridiculously cheap for a chicken. The farmers will be squeezed dry by supemarkets pursuing cheap meat prices, don't they deserve fair pay for what they do? People are bizarrely cheap when it comes to eating animals yet spend on all sorts of crappy processed foods!

toastofthetown · 13/08/2023 17:08

I’m a vegetarian whose husband eats meat. When we buy meat we mostly buy from our local butcher. I spent £4 on a chicken breast a few weeks ago, which I’m happy to pay as I know the food is higher welfare and it’s all sourced within 5 miles of where we are. A whole chicken starts at £15. It wouldn’t be sustainable if we were both eating meat every day, but I’d rather DH spent the money there less frequently than at the supermarkets more frequently.

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Cost of living General food
Cowlover89 · 13/08/2023 17:12

Thats expensive!

Cowlover89 · 13/08/2023 17:13

mnahmnah · 13/08/2023 15:51

Ok. Meant to be lighthearted. Apparently it is a cheap chicken, even though I have never seen one cost more than £5 in your standard supermarket. This is chat. Not AIBU, but apparently I am very unfair. Never mind.

Ignore the vegans/vegetarians.

Wintercomesoon · 13/08/2023 17:13

Waitrose and Sainsburys are buggars for putting a price ticket underneath the wrong (always more expensive) product. The cheaper product the ticket actually belongs to is close by, making it look accidental but it’s clearly not . OP I’ve made many mistakes this way so I always check I’ve picked up the correct product now.

Shutupandsitdown · 13/08/2023 17:14

I once out a full tank of ‘super’ unleaded in my car instead of standard because I was desperate to get home to watch the episode of Eastenders when Alfie was going to crash Kat and that gangster bloke’s wedding and didn’t realise what I was doing. I was a poor post grad at the time so my microwave meal budget took a severe hit the week after!

watcherintherye · 13/08/2023 17:14

UnfunnyJester · 13/08/2023 16:32

I'm not a vegetarian but if the chicken has had a good life, reared from a chick on good food with space to roam and be free, then it should cost about that.

I’m afraid it won’t have had the idyllic life you imagine…

AsTreesWalking · 13/08/2023 17:15

When I buy a chicken I buy free range. I get full value from it : hot roast, risotto, sandwich lunch, chicken stock. That's meat for 10 portions (there are 4 of us), 2-3 pints of stock to put on the freezer, and the dog gets 2/3 fancy meals with the scraps and veg left from the stockpot. I call that good value!
And it tastes waaay better than the miserable £3.99 ones.

panko · 13/08/2023 17:16

bellac11 · 13/08/2023 16:04

This is MN where posters eat smoked organic unicorn

In real life, people buy cheap chicken nuggets because thats what they can afford and their kids like it and they'll be no waste.

Cant do a lighthearted cheap chicken thread here.

Show quote history

I don't see how it can ever be lighthearted?

Haffiana · 13/08/2023 17:17

FuckYouEzekiel · 13/08/2023 16:03

We import 80,000 tons of chicken from Thailand every year. That keeps the price down.

Can you supply the source of this information?

Soubriquet · 13/08/2023 17:18

IthinkIamAnAlien · 13/08/2023 16:16

It's a chicken FFS

“Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're onlyanimals.” —Theodor W. Adorno, German philosopher,

That's the way our sick society runs, the life of an animal is worthless and so we treat it as sht, and we ourselves pay a price because to think that it is a healthy meal is just rubbish. It's stuffed full of sht just like our rivers and oceans and soil and air.

I can’t believe you’re comparing the life of a chicken, to the horrors of Auschwitz. Jeezus

panko · 13/08/2023 17:20

PrincessHoneysuckle · 13/08/2023 16:56

It would have said on the till when scanned that it was £8 surely?

Not everyone pays attention, I do for big items or ones that were on offer/reduced. Or if they do you can't really put a chicken back on the shelf if it's been round the shop with you.

panko · 13/08/2023 17:21

Soubriquet · 13/08/2023 17:18

I can’t believe you’re comparing the life of a chicken, to the horrors of Auschwitz. Jeezus

Show quote history

Unless the poster is Theodor W. Adorno they didn't?

willWillSmithsmith · 13/08/2023 17:23

I rarely buy whole chicken but I have noticed that if I eat organic, free range, corn fed etc it has a weird effect on me, like a strange feeling coming out of my pores (a bit like if you eat too much garlic). Yet if I eat a bog standard cheap chicken I don’t get any side effects. No other meat does that.

BaldButNotOut · 13/08/2023 17:23

Crikey, this thread has it all.

Auschwitz??!

UnfunnyJester · 13/08/2023 17:24

I’m afraid it won’t have had the idyllic life you imagine…

I know but they should do.

User13986509 · 13/08/2023 17:26

I usually pay between about £8 and £12 but if you don't buy chicken you wouldn't know the different ones anyway

Ickystickystickystickybubblegum · 13/08/2023 17:27

Lets do a poll, who is a more sanctimonious wanker? Vegans or waitrose shoppers?

Justgorgeous · 13/08/2023 17:31

Just bought from the farm shop for £12. Feeds 4 people.

WhisperingHi · 13/08/2023 17:31

Fellow vegetarian here. Seems like great value for money to me. You must be able to make multiple meals from a whole chicken, unless it's feeding loads of people or people make it the biggest part of their meal.

Personally, I'd prefer all the veg or a nut roast anyway.

And I spend around £5 on a pizza to feed one, so £8 on a whole chicken seems about right. It is strange that you're vegetarian and complaining that meat isn't cheaper though...

LuckySantangelo35 · 13/08/2023 17:33

kitsuneghost · 13/08/2023 16:19

It's only a chicken
They are mass produced specifically as food. They don't need to be expensive to soothe people's conscience.

@kitsuneghost

it’s only a chicken…
ffs
a chicken is a living creature deserving of respect

whynotwhatknot · 13/08/2023 17:35

bloody hell what a pile on the op is vegetarian get off your high horses

LightlySearedontheRealityGrill · 13/08/2023 17:36

Why is it a costly mistake to support animal welfare? That is the oddest take from a vegan I have ever heard.

liveforsummer · 13/08/2023 17:38

That's very cheap for a free range chicken. They do cost more as they are reared less intensively and a higher cost to the farmer. It will indeed taste nicer than the £3 one though