To be driven nuts by these shopping habits?

[pumpkinsquish1]

This is very much something I think my grandparents have passed on and it's slowly pushing me over the edge. My DM is ok financially but refuses to pay more money than she absolutely has to for anything.

She likes to get different things from different supermarkets. She doesn't drive and she spends her weekend going between Sainsbury's, Aldi, Asda, M & S and Tesco to do her full shop. This involves many bus trips.

I will happy take her by car to do her shopping but I can't cope with the multiple shops. She wanted a specific bar of chocolate and in Asda it was £1.50 and she refused to get it as 'its only £1 in Tesco'. She would rather check out, drive to Tesco (or get the bus if she was by herself) and go into another supermarket on the off chance they had it, to save 50p.

I'm finding it harder as she gets older to let her keep going out herself with her trolley bag. I get her an online delivery for heavier items but she seems to sort of revel in this hunter/gatherer role. During the pandemic when you were meant to limit outings she was constantly roaming different supermarkets and wasn't going to let a pandemic get in the way of 'I prefer Aldi brand of XYZ'.

Is this an age thing? Should I be more accommodating? She expects me to do it to and when she's rummaging in our fridge (!) tells me I've overspent by £2 by getting whatever from this one shop instead of shopping around.

Yes PIL are like this. Hundreds of thousands piling up in the bank and they insist on doing and buying everything on the cheap.
It seems bonkers when one day if DH inherits, he will spend most of it on travel and good food which they could have enjoyed themselves.
Dont get it.

@godmum56 that does not surprise me. I've never had money back from Waitrose but I've bought plenty of things where they were paying me to take it away.

I worked near London Bridge and would take my break at 6.30pm and go to Waitrose and M&S at prime discount time. I knew everyone sniggered when I returned and put my bargains in the office fridge until the night someone went to get his soggy Tesco sandwich and said: "How much did you pay for this sea bass?"

[quote limitedperiodonly]@godmum56 that does not surprise me. I've never had money back from Waitrose but I've bought plenty of things where they were paying me to take it away.

I worked near London Bridge and would take my break at 6.30pm and go to Waitrose and M&S at prime discount time. I knew everyone sniggered when I returned and put my bargains in the office fridge until the night someone went to get his soggy Tesco sandwich and said: "How much did you pay for this sea bass?"[/quote]
Getting bargains is a high like no other, and there's no downside, no comedown, just the glorious wave of satisfaction of having got something for (practically) nothing, and it's completely legal and not deleterious to health.

I'm sat here in one of my all time favourite bargains; my Calvin Klein dressing gown that I got from the jumble sale in the posh area for 50p.

I say let mum crack on without comment OP. It's a very good thing that she's well and confident enough to be doing this as some older people let their worlds get so small prematurely and if it's not out of necessity then she clearly enjoys it. Plus it's much greener, healthier, more independent and more economical for her to be using the bus than being ferried around in the car.

It probably gives her purpose to her days. Much better than sitting around - I bet she chats to everyone too.

@cptartapp

Yes PIL are like this. Hundreds of thousands piling up in the bank and they insist on doing and buying everything on the cheap. It seems bonkers when one day if DH inherits, he will spend most of it on travel and good food which they could have enjoyed themselves. Dont get it.

Presumably because they’re enjoying saving it as much as your son will enjoy spending it. Win/win.

Your bloke, even!

i have done this, iceland, asda, tesco, waitrose,
just ended up with an abundance of food!

If we don’t have our tiny personal victories in life, whatever they are, it can become hard to find the joy each day. Mine is dog walking. Someone else’s may be controlling budgets tightly.

@lljkk

My colleague says his 31 yo son does this. I think he may actually keep a spreadsheet. Some ppl have too much time. DH used to do something similar, but then got annoyed with Lidl & we only have 2 supermarkets locally, thank goodness

Too much time? Maybe you're not in the UK, but energy prices have increased by 50% in the last week so it's really not a poor use of time to meal plan and use a spreadsheet to track cost.

I don't think its necessarily a generational thing. I'm mid 30s and genuinely adore grocery shopping, traipsing from shop to shop and seeing what is offer on each one. I really enjoy it.
I think watching a lot of Supermarket Sweep at a young age instilled this joy in me.

@RachelGreep87. I also like grocery shopping and am midway between you and the OP's mum's advanced stage of decrepitude at 68.

I don't have a spreadsheet but lists are hardly sign of an obsessive personality. It's the way to avoid buying yet another bag of frozen peas because you forgot about the three you already have while forgetting to pick up the peanut butter you just ate the last of. Quite freeing, really.

Meal planning doesn't just avoid waste, it stops you eating the same boring old things all the time and having gaps in your nutrition. I eat far more oily fish these days simply because writing things down made me notice I wasn't eating it. That's particularly important when you get to a certain age and your bones crumble and brain cells start chucking themselves off a cliff and your only recreation is traipsing round a supermarket with a tartan shopping trolley

@Blossomtoes I'm sorry. I may have misunderstood you. The free fares on TfL (Transport For London) are a brilliant idea that made commercial and social sense but I understand will have to come to an end because TfL revenues have dropped. That's because fewer of us are using public transport since Covid and also because London has had its central government grant slashed as punishment for voting for a Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, rather the Tory Shaun Bailey who threw one of those Covid regulation-busting parties that are so popular in Tory circles.

I like Khan and am a fan of travelling on the buses his dad drove - though they are cleaner and more frequent these days. It's a rare thing for me to live somewhere the person who gets my vote gets in.

It is a bit absurd to give people who are working free travel, isn’t it? Or perhaps our council is just mean.

In Scotland it's now free for under 22's as well.

Slightly OT but it’s crazy that we’re giving free bus passes to all these people who aren’t “elderly”.

Im in a similar situation. I got annoyed by it as it took so much extra time from me. I had 2 small children and limited petrol/finances. The money they saved, cost me more in petrol/parking!!! So I said I'd do their weekly food shop from x. Anything they want from other places have to be sourced themselves. It caused a bit of annoyance from them at first, but they soon realised that I meant it. Now they get most things in the weekly shop.

With inflation going up as it is, not to mention fuel bills, I suspect a lot more people will be doing this because they have no choice.

I am 70 and wouldn't take kindly to being told how to shop, most of my shopping is delivered as it is convenient and quick, but I do have certain favourites that I can only get in different shops. Up until a couple of years ago I was shopping for my 90 year old mother, who lived an hours drive away, twice a week, and stopped off at a supermarket on the way, she was happy to have what I bought because she couldn't do it herself. The time to change these shopping habits is when you have to do it.

I think it's that the daughter wants to help her dm but is getting fed up with driving her around to various shops rather than one place

@camelfinger

Slightly OT but it’s crazy that we’re giving free bus passes to all these people who aren’t “elderly”.

Why do you think that @camelfinger? To me in my area it makes perfect sense to encourage people to use the abundant public transport for health and social reasons and to free their funds to spend in the local and wider economy rather than using cars.

One of those incentives is free travel not just for over 60s but for children under 12. That releases an enormous burden on parents. I also think that more people on the street of whatever age makes for a happier and safer environment.

I understand that might not be the same in your area. But that doesn't make it crazy in mine.

• relieves not releases, which is the opposite.

Totally agree limited, it was a slightly flippant comment on my part about people not wanting to consider themselves elderly, but happy to use a bus pass. And the ‘true’ elderly can’t be sent out on multiple buses in the cold and need taking to the shops by their children.

@stuffedcookie

It is a bit absurd to give people who are working free travel, isn’t it? Or perhaps our council is just mean.

In Scotland it's now free for under 22's as well.

So if someone is working a small number of hours at 90 years old they should not get free travel?

Generally well off people are healthier at an older age than poorer people. I always think all these well off people who claim everyone at 70 years old is still young, hasn't lived in a poor area.
The truth is without a free bus pass, many more older people would stay at home. That isn't good for them or for the economy.

So if someone is working a small number of hours at 90 years old they should not get free travel

They should get a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce - oh look, they do. The Queen must be the only nonagenarian still working.

@Blossomtoes

So if someone is working a small number of hours at 90 years old they should not get free travel

They should get a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce - oh look, they do. The Queen must be the only nonagenarian still working.

David Attenborough is the same age and working away. And looking very well on it and not at all frail, if you ask me. I imagine he can probably afford his own limo too, though.

Mine is exactly the same. She’ll text me updates on how much broccoli is in Morrison’s this week. I’ve tried explaining she probably spends the 29p she’s saved on petrol getting there, but she’s not having any of it.