To think you don't need shops like Lidl/Aldi

[PisforPeter]

If you can buy a chicken to serve 5-6 in Waitrose for £2.94??
I also get 450g minced beef for £2.20. They have lots of special offers on at the moment.
I honestly think if you take advantage of offers and cook mostly from first principals you can still be very frugal in Waitrose/Sainsburys.

If you think about it, its waitrose that we don't need
We don't need to pay more for the same quality just so we can say" I shop in waitrose, don't you know"
As they say, a fool and their money are soon parted

We find ourselves going specifically to Lidl now for things we can only get there.

I find a lot of own brand products in waitrose particularly poor quality, for example steak cut a very awkward shape so it cannot be cooked without one end being cremated and the other rare.
Typically I prefer: Fruit and veg and dairy, sainsburys, meat, tesco finest or morrisons

Agree sliceofsoup - the big magnum type lollies and the Greek yoghurt.

"Cook from first principles"?

What the fuck does that even mean?

I am sick to the back teeth of Lady Bountifuls like the op sharing their money saving tips, which they use when they the are saving for that extra week in Tuscany or the school fees are due. They really don't have a clue how the poor live.

As I exasperated myself saying on a thread last week, a 'cheap' meal that require hours of cooking time or a raft of store cupboard ingredients that poor people don't have is not a cheap meal.

I so agree about the stock control - I shop a lot in Lidl because I like the quality of most of their stuff (YY to the yoghurt!) but frequently they're out of basics like bread flour, plain flour, sugar, eggs - great gaping holes where the things used to be. And the manager of ours is spectacularly rude and seems to think it's his calling to be so! I still like it.

All you lucky people that have a choice of umpteen different supermarkets on your doorstep, I shop at my nearest which are Waitrose and Asda, certainly won't be trekking miles to go elsewhere, that wouldn't be very cost effective.

Thank god for shops like Lidl, keeps you out of it.

Erm I need my local Waitrose, for the last couple of years it's cheaper than our other local Supermarket for branded goods.

Moral of that story is, don't live near me, it's not fucking cheap. (Apart from short date mince).

YABVu OP - Lidl are selling bagpipes for Burns Night.

So they get my vote

Still reeling from the £1.44 wsitrose onions dh got when I asked him to pick some up when he was picking up a John Lewis parcel there. 3 onions for £1.44! 4 for 89p at lidl and 4 for a pound Asda. Gave us a laugh anyway.

I love Lidl. I occasionally drag my Sainsburys shopper friend round with me. It does make me laugh the way she tries not to touch anything in case "poor" is catching! She even occasionally buys a bottle of wine ("oh what a bargain!") just to be a good sport and join in.

If there weren't shops like Lidl and Aldi then the Waitrose or Tesco of the world wouldn't have any incentive not to just keep hiking prices.

You can be frugal in Waitrose, but nowhere near as frugal as you can be in Lidl or Aldi except on the rare occasions that their offers suit what you need AND they have them in stock (which is usually one or the other in my experience)

Lidl has better quality stuff than waitrose and Sainsburys

Yanbu. Waitrose has better environmental and ethical standards than lidl and Aldi. After the news this week of farmers going under at an alarming rate due to the shit prices they are paid, I'd rather pay a few pence more and let them have a living.

Plus I value my time too much to shop in more than one shop and I could never get all I need in aldi.

Don't be taken in by the label "outdoor bred pork" It just means they are walked outside to be mated then back in to the factory farm... very clever labelling with pictures of fields and flowers but likely the pigs will never see it.

Waitrose and Sainsbury have ethical policies on palm oil, they will only use sustainably sourced, Aldi and lidl don't, they contribute to the deforestation and loss of species like orangutans. Again, I will pay more for this. The difference is minimal, what price for life and environment?

The very yummy New York cheesecakes are half price at Waitrose also, so that's a very good reason to go there

Waitrose is a good thing if it means I can be certain that I won't bump into horrors like the op when I am out shopping at Aldi.

Chata, I avoid palm oil altogether.

Whether at Lidl or Waitrose

Did not know that anout outdoor bred pork!

Just as an aside, and rather off topic, Lidl is very generous to its employees. A friend's son has moved from working at WH Smith on minimum wage (£5.13ph) to doing the same type of till-work at Lidl and gets £7.01ph.

Chat

corporate.aldi.co.uk/en/responsibility/resources-for-our-products/sustainable-palm-oil/

"ALDI UK has decided to move its own label products to sustainably produced sources of palm (kernel) oil and aims to meet this ambition by ensuring all palm (kernel) oil contained in its own label products comes from certified sustainable sources by 2015 for food products and by 2018 for non-food products"

Chandon unfortunately palm oil can be passed off as 'vegetable' oil now I think I do get fed up of the Aldi and lidl bores who only care about price and not ethics. It doesn't have to cost much to shop ethically. I acknowledge it's up to individuals to decide whether they care about animal welfare, environment and supplier prices but it makes me sad when people gloat about how cheaply they buy their food with no regard for how it got there.