To ask people that do their normal shop at waitrose how they afford it?

[jdoe8]

After spending a few days with a family member that does and doing an aldi shop, the quality is very stark. As much as the super 6 look good, the apples are very powdery and the oranges pithy and not that sweet. It makes me feel a bit poor. In other countries you would have market stuff that is good, but obviously not in the UK.

I feel like I would have to earn 150k to afford it. I like it for the rare treat, but unless you live on cheap stodge im not sure how so many people afford it.

'I shop at Waitrose. I spend £120-£150 per week for 2 adults and 2 children, why? Because I can afford it, that's why. Scrabbling around in 4 supermarkets to save a few quid, eating factory farmed meat and cheap powdery fruit is not my idea of feeding my family and growing children.'

BloggyBollocks - why are you looking down on people who can't afford to spend £150 a week on food shopping?

I'm not rich at all but there are a lot of things I would sacrifice before I scrimped on food. Waitrose, Sainsbury's and the farm shop. I don't drink which helps.

Oh and DM&S for imported off season fruit and ping ping meals

I try to minimise my use of supermarkets as I have issues with the way most treat the producers/allow their suppliers to treat their producers.

We buy most of our fruit and veg from local farm shop/farming co-operative. Same with meat- either local butcher or local farmers/farm shop (a few round here have farm gate pickups for instance). We get out milk and butter from local dairy, cheese from cheesemongers and bread from local baker. It does mean that I have to try to be organised and plan meals in advance.

I will get some things and the very odd ready meal (M&S), as well as washing powder and other basics from the supermarket- either M&S/co-op/Morrisons/Aldi. Depends which one I am passing. We don't have Waitrose near us.

I think it is worth it to use local produce- what we get locally is amazing quality and I don't think it is that much more expensive really. Plus we can support the local producers, which I think is vital.

Second, the price matching with Tesco. We don't shop at Waitrose for Tesco prices. If we wanted Tesco prices we'd shop there.

So it's not expensive because it's price matched with Tesco, but this is a bad thing because ...?

I buy fresh fruit, hummus, breakfast cereal etc at Waitrose. Then I go next door to Aldi and buy fish, olive oil, bog roll, wine etc

Seems to work.

I don't find it that much more expensive. Tesco is about that same. Morrison's a tad cheaper maybe. Saintsbury is way more expensive! I buy pretty much the same weekly shop at whatever supermarket and Saintsburys is noticeably more expensive than waitrose.

I shop between Waitrose, Morrison's, and Lidl. I get my high welfare chicken thighs, chicken liver, and pork chops from Waitrose but Morrison's do good cuts of meat like oxtail, beef shin, pork belly, that I can't really find in other supermarkets. Plus they gave me a voucher today for a free bunch of flowers. Only to the value of £2 but I'm easily pleased! 💐

I don't actually look at the costs which is an awful ting to say but when you spend say £50k a year on school fees and at one point £90k on the mortgage or £30k on the full time childcare the cost of the food is just so so much smaller than that.

I have used Tesco for years and have fairly simple needs but the older children (teenagers) moved me to Waitrose and that's fine. I'd be perfectly happy back at Tesco.

And yes some of us on here do earn a fair bit. I had a conscious plan from a young age to pick a high paid career and I've always worked full time.... although it certainly wasn't so I could buy food at Waitrose. Make sure your daughters aren't side tracked into low paid work and pick really good high paid careers!

'Make sure your daughters aren't side tracked into low paid work and pick really good high paid careers!'

Hilarious! So people choose low paid work? What if you don't have the skill set for a 'highly paid' career. This is such a typical Toryesque 'if you're poor it's your own fault' narrative.

I presume you don't use the NHS Tiger since who on earth would let their daughter become a badly paid nurse?

is this Xenia?

BTW, it's "To ask people who do their normal shop at waitrose how they afford it?"

You are wrong. Using 'that' to refer to a person or people in a defining relative clause, as in the thread title, is perfectly grammatically correct.

Grammar snobs who get it wrong are unbearable.

Yes it is, Lottie.

I do have a valid point in there though.... some of us on here have teenagers (I have two). They have talks at school and home about careers and what they want to do. One factor is what will that career earn. Some teenagers barely turn up to school and don't pass their exams. It is not a particularly strange comment of mine to suggest when you go off to university as half our children will you might be thinking as a teenage girl this career will keep me in steak and this one might mean I'll be on MN in 15 years' time eking out the shopping budget. I am not saying everything is down to wise choices and hard work by any means. Luck plays a part as does important choices like do you give up full time work when babies come (rarely wise).

I shop there all the time. And I am not rich. Better quality food and they treat thier staff and suppliers better. (I worked in a subsidiary industry and used to supply all the suppliers of the major supermarkets so I know a bit about it).

Every week we get virtue signalers complaining about "the poor" and "benefits" and then smirking because they don't pay reasonable prices for their food and clothing. They think thy are clever for bagging a bargain - and forget that the staff, manufacturers, delivery people all have to do it for peanuts - but hey ho aren't we clever>

Waitrose recruit and train local staff in my area. Tesco bus cheap labour in.

Let's all "share" Facebook posts about badly treated animals then buy horsemeat from Romania from wherever. (Not Waitrose). Let's all wear a Red Nose to show how right on we are but let's not ask too many questions about who mad our 5-for-a-pound packs of socks.

Sorry for rant and NOT aimed at anyone here - just a general thing about people who won't use what power thy have for good whilst pretending to be the champion of the underdog.

Oh yes - and it's not expensive if you buy properly - as others have said. Better quality, less waste, less junk. I spend the same as I would somewhere else for what I buy.

We have a budget of £400 a month for all or shopping including nappies, baby stuff, toiletries, cleaning, laundry stuff and food. Two of us and toddler, all meals as I'm at home and husband takes his lunch to work. We shop almost entirely in Waitrose, but largely their essential range, and top up a little it with co op. We spent a lot of time last summer when our food bill got a bit out of hand doing comparison and seeing if it was worth shopping about more. The answer for us was that Waitrose branded stuff was much better quality on the whole than similar elsewhere, for a small increase in price, and branded stuff evened out.

'Some teenagers barely turn up to school and don't pass their exams.'

Some teenagers do turn up to school every day and that still won't be enough for them to end up with a glittering career. My teenage daughter spends her time looking into what careers will not only be enjoyable for her but will be lucrative. But she's very academic and has a number of other talents. That's luck.

'Every week we get virtue signalers complaining about "the poor" and "benefits" and then smirking because they don't pay reasonable prices for their food and clothing.'

Yep. It's vile.

I don't want to derail the thread. There is certainly a lot of luck in life about how you end up. Obviously some things we do like working hard at school and work and not being heavy drinkers or smokers do have an impact. I am sure we all agree luck plus other factors play a part in what we can afford to buy at a supermarket. I would be more than happy with Tesco if one of my teenagers didn't have strong views on wanting Waitrose.

Here is our Waitrose receipt from yesterday (it does not include my older son's goods as he used a separate basket and paid for his own stuff as he's an adult)

We shop at Waitrose for the weekly shop and top it up with bits and bobs from the tiny Co-Op nearby. Our meat is always from the local butcher, and fish is from Regal who do a big delivery every couple of months.

We earn a fair amount between us; DH's business does well. But we also aren't frivolous with it. I fully appreciate that not many are in that category, though, and am certainly not snooty about Waitrose because food is food, really.

It depends on what you're buying. I could spend a fortune in Waitrose - our only supermarket near us - but I budget, cook from scratch and buy my meat/fruit & veg from the butcher/farm shop to avoid this.

What I don't get about the OP's post is the stuff about the fruit - Aldi don't make the fruit! It's the variety you choose - Red Delicious apples are floury and grim and taste just as grim bought from Aldi or Waitrose. Just buy a 'crisper' variety like Gala or Pink Lady.

Just seems like weird reasons to totally dismiss a whole supermarket.

And I guess people manage to do their whole shop in Waitrose because they can afford it and those that can't, don't. It's not rocket science

We have to use Waitrose and Co-op as they are our only options. I find Waitrose has more choice of fresh food, and it's closer to our house, so I do more shopping there. The fruit and veg can be expensive but I get that from a farm shop for half the price. I get fish from a fishmonger and some meat from a butcher but pretty much everything else comes from Waitrose. I shop carefully, using own brand/deals (the 3 for £10 on meat etc)/MyWaitrose reductions. It works out cheaper than you might think, and certainly a bit cheaper than Sainsburys used to be, but obviously way more expensive than Aldi/Lidl. I do miss being able to fling stuff in my trolley without analysing the cost of every item which I could do in Lidl. Although I don't pay loads in Waitrose, I always feel very conscious of my need to budget when I'm in there.

It's an odd question OP as PPs have said. It's like asking someone how or why they'd buy an Aston martin rather than a Ford Fiesta.

Because they can afford it through their employment is usually the answer!

I can afford it because a) we are older, b) children left home c) mortgage paid off d) we both work e) we have few expensive holidays (out of choice) f) don't change our cars every couple of years...

Good quality food is a priority over clothes, eating out and other luxuries.

I buy a lot of Waitrose own brand - washing up stuff, laundry liquid, loo rolls - cook from scratch including cheap meals with pulses, make a chicken last 3 meals.....