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Original poster

To wonder why people do "top-up" shops

549 replies

RedSkyAtNight · 30/06/2017 09:01

Just as the title says really. I've read a few threads where people either mention a fortune doing a top-up shop or mention doing a top-up shop as a job that needs doing in the week.

We shop once a week and buy enough food for the week. We then don't buy any more food until the following week. Other than folks who have very little storage (or possibly very large families?) I can't really understand the need to do a top-up shop. I mean obviously if you want to go and get something different to what you have in, that's fine. But why do it if you see it as a chore?

OP posts:
dontcallmethatyoucunt · 01/07/2017 20:50

of course. Perhaps I'm lazy, but I just see a work around as easier.

TinselTwins · 01/07/2017 21:10

People don't take note of dates on fruit and veg do they? That's insanity.

nobody on here says that they throw away food half way through the week, or won't eat it past its date even if it looks fine.

I buy the longest dates on the shelves to give the best chance of it lasting, so I do pay attention to it in that respect, why buy the bag of salad that's been under the shop lights for 2 days longer than the other bag?

Dark leaf salad, berries etc don't last all week

bananas, apples, iceburg lettuice etc do

Avodados play by their own rules.

Sometimes I want salad on a thursday or friday, not just the day after shop day!

UsedToBeAPaxmanFan · 01/07/2017 21:17

It depends on your circumstances. I do a weekly online shop at a supermarket. Because it's online I don't habe control over use by date etc.
I do a mid week top up shop in our village shop. The shopkeeper reckons that if every household in the village spent £8 per week in the shop it is viable as a shop. So I want to continue to support it.

I buy bread, salad and milk mid week. The supermarket stuff doesn't last for a week.

tabulahrasa · 01/07/2017 21:20

"can see plenty of other ways to achieve a veggie diet without spending lots of time, I see as wasted, in a shop."

It's not lots of time though, it's like a couple of minutes...

Online shopping never works for me, they don't bring me what I asked for and I can't be bothered spending enough time in a supermarket to get everything I need for a week and then have to store it all as well and have to have a specific order I'm using the stuff that does actually go off in a couple of days.

So, I stop at a shop for a few minutes and buy what I'm going to use for the next day or two instead and every so often do a bigger non perishable shop.

Anatidae · 01/07/2017 21:25

defrosted bread tastes of sadness and broken dreams.

It honestly isn't a moral deficiency to nip to the shop midweek for a few bits. Or is our worth still measured by how good we are at housekeeping?

I'd best go stone the front step ....

Ecureuil · 01/07/2017 21:29

A lot of time in a shop? It's 2 mins from my house, I'm in there for 5 mins maximum once or twice a week.

SleightOfHand · 01/07/2017 21:30

defrosted bread tastes of sadness and broken dreams. you're doing it all wrong I tells ya.

squoosh · 01/07/2017 21:33

I'd best go stone the front step ....

Yes. And make sure it's freshly scrubbed. You don't want to be known as that woman who only scrubs her front step once a week Shock

TinselTwins · 01/07/2017 21:33

My local supermarket is actually a shortcut, as in on my way home from work if I go in the back door and out the front door (via the check out with my FREEEEEESH non fridge/freezer violated bread Wink) I actually walk a shorter distance home than if I go around on the main footpaths

Anatidae · 01/07/2017 21:34

It does though. You can't buy the uk style loaves where I live. You can buy fresh bread but it doesn't (and indeed shouldn't) last.

Polarbröd is of course an exception and must be frozen immediately upon return from the supermarket. Grin

Anatidae · 01/07/2017 21:36

I do laundry on a Tuesday too squoosh

Bring on the social opprobrium!

Actually a friend and I collect these shamings . She actually has been shamed on a fb group we are on for not feeding her child organic lettuce. I must win this week because I shop midweek. Huzzah!

DreichAgain · 01/07/2017 21:48

..Avocados play by their own rules..

Sometimes you read something so profound; that you had always known yet never been able to put into words.

Thank you TinselTwins.

StrangeLookingParasite · 01/07/2017 21:58

Other people clearly have different values.

Wow. Snobby.

I shop several times a week - we have a small apartment, not a lot of freezer space, I like going to the market at least once a week, especially at the moment, we always forget something, or find we're running out just after we've been, we don't own a car so bags and the nanna cart get regular use, I live in the middle of a huge city, and bread needs to be at most two days old (and that's pushing it - baguette tradition is more of a bat at the end of the second day). Not having fresh bread every day is sad.

lalalalyra · 01/07/2017 22:02

I top up shop weekly for bread and other odd things because I do my bulk shop monthly. So supermarket and butcher deliver monthly. Fruit and veg is delivered weekly. Milk is delivered every day by the milkman. So I need to get fresh bread and any other odds and sods that have run out or been missed on the shoppping (or suddenly I need because someone has remembered they have cooking in school) each week. Usually takes about 10 minutes tops.

Oly5 · 01/07/2017 22:07

Urgh to frozen bread!!!
Love getting more fresh bread midweek

PratStick · 01/07/2017 22:15

Avocados take exactly one week to ripen. They are then only ripe for exactly 3.5 minutes before they go off.

MaisyPops · 01/07/2017 22:16

Avocados take exactly one week to ripen. They are then only ripe for exactly 3.5 minutes before they go off.

You buy an avocado in case you want it on your salad in 6 days, 54 minutes. Grin

I think it was Aldi sold ready to eat ones that were actually ready to eat but then stopped doing them, which disappointed me.

Giddyaunt18 · 01/07/2017 22:39

Aldi still sells them.

PratStick · 01/07/2017 22:43

As long as you top up shop daily you always have an avocado ripening. It's just a matter of setting your watch for 16:24 in order to catch the avocado at its peak.

InvisibleKittenAttack · 01/07/2017 22:55

See, this "but it's a waste of time!" people are thinking about the time taken for a big shop, assuming you have to do a special journey.

My 'top up' shops include walking into the supermarket I would be walking past anyway, picking up a couple of things, paying at the self pay bit and walking out in around 10 minutes. This 'waste of time' is countered by not having to do a military plan of what I'm going to need all week on the weekend and trying to make sure 'use by' dates correspond with the meal plans etc.

I do get that if you don't have supermarkets near by, if you don't pass them anyway in your daily life and have only done 'big shop' food shopping (so never just been inside the supermarket for just 10 minutes), then it would seem like adding a significant extra job to your week. But for those who do top up, it's just making life easier to not be rigid about what food is needed for what meals, or having to overbuy to avoid running out.

Pagwatch · 01/07/2017 23:01

Avocados are dickheads

TinselTwins · 01/07/2017 23:06

They give all the non-asshole avodados to coffee shops that charge you £12 for half a decent avodado on ONE teeny slice of sour-dough.

You cannot recreate the same avocado texture from a supermarket avocado because they're all bastards

You can get a decent avocado sandwich from some international food shops but I can't be arsed to make the extra trip so I keep playing the avodado bastard lottery with supermarket bought… I don't know why… think it's because decent good natured cafe avodados are so tasty and I keep convincing myself I can re-create that at home and become one of those MNers who doesn't spend any money on cafes ever and paid off 30k in debt in 6 months that way…...

OlennasWimple · 01/07/2017 23:13

Urgh indeed to frozen bread, but frozen avocado cubes have been a recent revelation in the Wimple household. No guessing whether it's ripe or gone over, so far less wastage.

We have to get milk and bread two/three times a week, as it doesn't stay fresh here (it's very hot)

TinselTwins · 01/07/2017 23:14

but frozen avocado cubes
tell me more

PickAChew · 01/07/2017 23:20

Yep, funnily enough, I read this thread, yesterday, on the way to do a top up shop. In actual fact, I needed to return some stuff to Next and wanted to grab a few things from Lakeland. These are in the same retail park as an M&S from which I bought a few bananas (because I was running out but they treat their bananas badly, so didn't see the point of buying enough to see me past Monday, at which point they'd be black mush, a fresh loaf of bread to see us through until Sunday, a packet of hot cross buns for the gannets who insist on them with breakfast or else and a bottle of wine.