To ask if any of you can beat my recent food shopping bills?

[ilove]

I discovered recently that the cost cutter over the road drops today's date stuff to 20p at about 5.30, and Morrisons down the road do their third price drop at about 6.30

Both shops close so can be done in one trip

In the last week I have had...

49p

The HUGE fresh cream cakes
Fruit pies
Whole cooked chickens
Layered cheese salads

19p each

Three whole salmon (which the fishmonger kindly filleted for me)
Whole mackerel (10 of them)
4 large pizzas
Ready meals (several curries)
Chicken portions
Sandwiches for DH for work that night
COD fillets
Various pies (meat and potato, chicken & mushroom)
Small cream cakes

5p each

Loaves of bread
Crusty rolls
Tomato and cheese flatbreads
Small pizza (spicy chicken)
Yoghurts/desserts
Bags of fresh bakery stuff
Packets of scones
24 pack of bread rolls

To mention just the recent things. Fortunately I have a huge freezer, and I don't buy a tenth of what's there, but I'm really pleased!

On a strict budget and the yellow stickers really helps!!

I can safely say I've never, ever seen anything that reduced. Not even close!!

My local M&S tend to mark down on a Monday, but it varies and I'm sure it will be different dependant on location.

Parsley thanks for the itsu tip! I occasionally have to work around Canary Wharf and tend to pick up food on my way to the hotel but never thought of of checking for reductions!

Thanks hacker

I did Christmas reductions at ASDA . it was like being a brain distributor in a zombie apocalypse.

madmomma I have a local M&S in a BP garage and they mark down about 7pm - good reductions too

My local tesco are weird about their reduced prize goods. "was £4, now £3.99!!!". still, many are seduced by the yellow stickers. the only thing they reduce properly is the bakery goods. and sometimes you can get lucky with the fresh food, if you catch the staff member with the yellow sticker gun. we don't have other shops around really.

Cuckoooo i live in Herts too (the edge of London suburbs bit) and i manage to find good M&S reductions on a Sunday in the smaller towns, if you go about an hour before closing its usually really cheap - lots of stuff for under £1. Also the Little Waitrose inside John Lewis (big shopping centre) ALWAYS has great reductions daily from about 4pm onwards - its never very busy in there so they seem to have a lot of stock to try and get rid of at the end of each day.

My Mum worked at an M&S for years, I was raised on cream cakes that cost 5p when I was younger. Our local tesco does the mark down thing in a special cooler. Staff load it up with the stuff and I watch in amazement as pensioners battle with Eastern European Ex Special forces look alike’s for the the best bargains. They shove and push each other out of the way to get at the nearly out of date stuff. I just go to Aldi because it makes me sad that they are so desperate.

I once got a huge boneless leg of pork in Sainsbury's for £1.79, chopped it in half when I got home and froze it - two roast dinners!

I've told this story before but... my DB, who is the king of the reduced shelf, by dint of crafty 3 for 2/twofer offers once managed to get a minus 30p balance on his shop at Waitrose. They made him go and pick up a chocolate bar or something just so that he was out of negative figures, as apparently the till won't accept that.

He freely admits it was one of the proudest moments of his life

The lady whose job it is to do the reductions in our little Sainsburys has been sacked for theft by consumption
So hardly anything is being reduced at moment.
I guess she was ramming bits of broken Easter egg in her mouth or something whilst doing her yellow stickers.

My DD did this when at uni as they lived near a large sainsbury and m & s - knew exactly when the mark downs happened and would lurk around the meat and fish counters - they dined on Guinea fowl and gurnard amongst other things!

I once had a lobster for 39p.

It was reduced from £12 to £3.00 when we first passed the counter, ds2 kept pestering about it (odd child) and just as we approached the counter he stuck a 39p sticker on it!
Thank you very much and very nice as a seafood pasta!

Ohhhh we love the yellow stickers! Waitrose on a Sunday can be good, and I often pop in mid-afternoon on the way home from work to see if there are any good bargains.

The husband adores bargain-hunting, he takes as a point of personal pride to get things as low as poss!

I went again last night, didn't get as much but there's a lot of stuff dated tonight and tomorrow! Will have to tootle back down