to automatically ignore value brands

[somedayma]

I probably am BU because I could definitely do with saving some cash on my grocery shop. But I've had some v bad tesco value items in the past (soft rice crispies, plasticky tasting chocolate etc).

I was looking at value chicken breasts today, thinking 'they're probably going to taste the same as the other slightly more expensive ones once it's in a stew anyway'. but for some reason bought the more expensive ones anyway.

Value ready salted crisps taste the same as branded ones. Just FYI

I am the queen of cheap, but Heinz is the only ketchup. Oh, and the only tomato soup. And the only baked beans. Everything else- up for grabs.

duckdodgers

I honestly manage a weekly shop for less than £50 at aldi, top ups in tesco/asda for me, dp, and two dcs who are 3 and 4, the 4yo is ft school though so has snack and school dinners there. Our average spend is £40, and that includes snacks and 24 yogurts (where do they put them?) But 12pack of kids fromage frais is 89p so its easy to see why I can manage it at such a budget.

This week was a big shop at £47.89, meals are, roast chicken and trimmings, lasagne salad and garlic bread, chicken salad and rice, toad in the hole and veg, pasta with homemade sauce, hunters chicken, fish new pots and veg, we also have a couple of pizzas/fish fingers, chips and frozen veg for if we have a rushed evening and need a quick option. Then there's sandwich stuff, eggs, fruit (grapes, apples, oranges, bananas, kiwis) and salad bits (tom/cue/pepper), crips, snacks (raisins, plain popcorn, rice cakes, 'dairylea' style dunkers etc) cereal (3 boxes).
I had 67 items on my receipt. I love Aldi. Included in that amount was veg from tesco 9p each for 1kg bag of carrots and 1kg of parsnips, 2 heads of brocoli, dp pops in at closing :)

I certainly am not the Queen of Cheap but to a degree because I have so little time. But if you are looking at cheap ketchup - Sainsbury's Basics at about 25p for a big bottle tastes just like Heinz - not quite as thick but it really is OK and the way DS uses it, it more than does the job. I also think Sainsbury's Baked beans are pretty good but do agree about Heinz Tomato Soup - also Hellman's Mayo. If I had time and closer budget supermarkets I do agree that I could cut my food bills by half - notwithstanding the empty legged teenagers.

A word of caution though and this is not a criticism of anyone who really has to operate to a tight budget. My MIL had three children (she was a deputy head and her husband an engineer - they were not struggling) and she always stretch a pie or cake for 4 to 5 and erred on the side of too little and counted food. All her children remember the meanness and the counting out of food and it is a rather unedifying memory of their childhood. If necessary fine but not when the the money saved is being salted away for a rainy day.

I may have to walk to Aldi one day. I've just spent 40 sodding quid topping up our most recent big shop, which was only on Monday and came to £140.

Have to say I'm very impressed with the lidl nappies. £5.19 for 56 and they're very watertight - no escaped poo either - will be buying these again.

Another Aldi lover here. And honestly, the butchers we go to is streets ahead of the supermarkets in terms of quality, size and cost. There's no comparison, and we certainly don't have money to chuck about.

WOAHHHH hold on there a minute ohnoudidnt wind your neck in love

[value one]

ohnoudidnt

I do have a life away from mumsnet you know, no need for such impatience (2 hours after my last post and 5 minutes in between your 2 posts !

You don't have a clue about me or my children actually - I don't eat takeaways and I don't smoke for example but not that its got anything to do with you if I did - how on earth do you make that judgement because I said I don't care about the meat I eat?!

As I said if I cared that much I would become a vegetarian - by the time its in the supermarket its food. To think that some random stranger thinks Im not a good role model for my children just because I don't buy organic RSPCA chicken makes me laugh

JJandthe bean

Thank you, Im determined to go to Aldi now and give it a go!

Lidl and Aldi are absolutely brilliant.I think the quality is second to none and I have halved what we spend on food since starting to shop at these supermarkets over a year ago. I look back and cant believe what I used to spend in Tesco.Still go for a handful of things I cant get at L/A but even if prices became the same in all supermarkets I wouldnt dream of not going to Lidl or Aldi now-far superior in my opinion!

Good luck duck I've converted my mum this week, her average spend of £100 was down to £60. We did pop to farm foods for bread and milk (hovis and kingsmill 3 for £1.80 and milk arlas one 2 for £1.80) although aldis 49p loaves are nice enough.

I hated aldi when I was a tesco fan one big shop and I was converted.

Oh I'm JjandtheBean btw

The average life span of a chicken is anywhere between 5 to 10 years if left to nature.
A chicken breed ( a broiler)for the pot non welfare will be slaughtered around 8 weeks old. A free range broiler will be slaughtered at between 3 and 6 months as broilers are breed to fattern quickly and if left once they have fully fatterned will have problems moving around due to the way they grow (plump breast/little legs)

Doesn't matter if it is free range the both have a short life span with an unnatual growth rate.

Are Aldi and Lidl much alike then, or is 1 better than the other?

love lidl, it's great. i buy most basics there but cheddar (cornish cruncher... bliss) from Marks and meat from the butchers. occasionally i go to tesco and am really shocked at how cunning they are about fleecing you. no bogoffs at lidl.

Love lidl and aldi. Do buy occasional other items in Tesco/morrisons. In Tesco they have 6 free range eggs 79p, 2kg lentils £1.99 and 10kg rice £9! Also, morrisons value eggs are free range.

Most value stuff is fine. Not teabags, not sausages and if I am not totally skint I avoid other meat. Everything else is just fine.

i always remember a thread on here about counting value toms. since then i have checked the lidl ones. average five tomatoes...

and the baked beans are delicious, and did well in a good housekeeping test.

To be honest I think op your being a sonb

Something's are nicer than others tesco value apple pie is awesome teso value cornflakes taste like stale nachos

Milk is milk and eggs are eggs

Value loo roll is thing but my arse is clean

I find some tesco finest food a bit rich and their Garvey is awful the ale rage won't dissolve very well so I buy bistro

I just buy what woks not what brand things are

Sorry, morecoffe, but my Tesco's most certainly does NOT have 6 eggs for 79p! The smallest box of value eggs they do in my Tesco's is the box of 10 that costs £1.09 (i.e. 10.9p each). We get boxes of 10, 15 or 30 here. Still cheap though. The free range ones, the cheapest are the box of 12 medium that cost £2.50 (i.e.20.8p each). What else would you pay DOUBLE for when you have such a small budget as I do?

yes i was wondering if that was a typo, actually. iceland definitely do six large free range for a pound, if you have one nearby.

Nearest iceland is 45mins away on the bus. Realistically, for everyday, I have the option of Tescos or nothing. I can't do Asda Home Delivery because of the 'ghost payment' thing they do, which means I have to have twice the amount I need for my shopping in the bank, they tie one lot of it up for 7-10 days, AND they actually take the money for the shopping. So I end up left with NO money for the rest of my bills. Funnily enough, a key meter won't wait 7-10 days for the money to be put on it!

The Asda is a 25 minute bus journey AND a 10-15 minute walk from me - fine on the way there, not so fine once loaded up with a week's worth of food. Iceland is a 45 min bus ride away. Sainsbury's is an hour's bus ride away. Closest Aldi is an hour's bus ride away. Other Aldi is 1hr15 minutes away on TWO buses. Butchers and greengrocers is a 45 minute bus ride away. Then you have to add in the COST of the bus journeys. Which can become VERY extortionate in the school holidays, when I have to take all 4 of the children. Tesco's is a 15 minute bus journey away. Then it costs £11 to get to and from ANY of the supermarkets. Except Tesco's, which costs slightly less - it costs me £9.50 for all of us.

Honestly, having to use public transport to do food shopping for a family of 5 is AWFUL. It's times like that that I hate having epilepsy and not being allowed to drive.

What's the ghost payment thing. I sometime do a big ASDA shop for fizzy water, loo roll, cleaning stuff, tins, tea, coffee, etc., haven't for a long time though, and I don't recall that at all. It's worth doing it though even with teh £5 delivery fee because that sort of stuff is so much cheaper than at Sainsburys or Waitrose.

We don't have a Tesco nearby the closest is a 20 minute drive and it is so huge it just takes too long - turns into a whole morning's outing. I liked it 10 or 12 years ago though when the dc were small and I wasn't working.

I don't have a Lidl, Aldi, Iceland within spitting distance. There used to be an Iceland but they only ever seemed to have one till open and it was a diseconomy to stand there for 20 minutes.

Aldi free range eggs are only £1.89 for 15. They are perfectly good and I have never had a rotten one.

They do lovely pate for 59p too, which is great on hot toast for lunch.

Tha ghost payment thing was on Watchdog a while back, it shouldn't happen, and Ive been ok. The only time there might have been a problem was when they couldnt deliver back orders because of snow - so they advised me to order a new delivery slot and they could deliver - but obviously this meant paying again! Funnily enough I made it to the shop to get my food that they couldn't deliver, Im only outside Glasgow not the Outer Hebrides!!

I had it happen in November, on a fortnight's worth of shopping that I had spent £200 on. Which they refused to deliver, because although the 'ghost payment' had gone through, when they went to take their actual payment, unsurprisingly, there wasn't another £200 just sitting around in my bank account. So I wound up with no money in my bank for food for the 9 days it took for the money to go BACK into my bank account. So I cannot risk using Asda Home delivery again, as I got into serious debt with that as I had to get a provident loan with 44% interest just to be able to buy FOOD.