To think it’s morally wrong to buy yellow stickered items if I’m not on a tight budget?

[FlatpackHater]

Just to be clear I don’t necessarily think it’s morally wrong but AIBU polls don’t really work on uncertainty do they?

Basically I feel morally conflicted about buying discounted food in the supermarkets, particularly now during the cost of living crisis.

I’m not on a tight budget, but I do LOVE a good bargain. Few things beat the thrill of finding profiterole stack reduced to 25p.

But should I be thinking about people who might be depending on picking up such bargains just to make their food budget stretch.

I often shop in Waitrose and frankly think that most people who shop in Waitrose aren’t on the breadline. But I shop in Lidl as well and feel maybe I should be leaving the Lidl bargains for someone else.

Or should I just crack on, enjoy my bargains and focus on the fact I’m reducing food waste?

YANBU - leave the yellow stickers for those who need them

YABU - enjoy the bargains

You are overthinking it

Enjoy the bargains obviously. We don't have an endless pot of money. Just because I'm not living in poverty doesn't mean I don't t need to budget carefully. I love a yellow sticker bargain

What's to say the bargains will be bought by people on a tight budget, also they might end up in the bin if you don't buy them which is a multitude of wrongness. Enjoy those bargains!

I love a good middle-class angst session but even I think everyone should enjoy a bargain in asda.

Better that someone buys them than food be thrown away.

Think of it as preventing food waste. You have no idea whether someone on a tighter budget will come along in the 2 hours after you or whether, if you don't buy it, it will end up in the bin.

I'd stick to the food waste angle - if nobody buys it, it gets chucked out, so better to buy the bargains.

quite rare to get the amazing bargains because at the time of big reductions a crowd often gather and snap up everything as it’s put out

i feel for the ones who are clearly struggling whilst people push in to load up their trolley with meat they’re clearly going to stick in the spare chest freezer

I can see what you mean but it's such a hypothetical scenario. I 100% expect people do specifically look to the reduced stickers to stretch their food budget - but you can't ensure that's who will buy it if you don't buy it. Just make sure you only buy what you can eat and minimise any waste.

With the reduced it's first come, some people will fill a trolley and freeze the items, so it's basically if it's what you want and it's cheap, then put it in your basket. Without the yellow stickers , I would not be able to try half of the luxury food I have eaten, or stretched my budget further without them.

definitely overthinking it. Yellow stickers are a free for all and I say that as a poor (ish) person.

I voted YANBU because it is actually really nice that this occurs to you.

However as someone above said, if it's yellow stickered it means it's probably about to be chucked if someone doesn't buy it. So if it's something you actually want, go for it.

There are plenty of things to be feeling bad about, this really doesn't have to be one of them.

YABU
I love a bargain. It makes no sense whatsoever to pay full price for an item that is also available reduced and needs to be used that day.

You could go a step further, and say there should be no reduced produce at all. That way, those items could be donated to a community fridge/larder where people can pick them up for free.

Enjoy the bargains and stick a few tins in the food bank box on your way out?

YABU. No one really needs a profiterole stack, and the reductions in Waitrose are so pitiful they’re barely worth the yellow sticker so no one’s missing out on a bargain there.

Bargains are for everyone. If you can afford it and it helps your middle class guilt, stick something in the food bank collection.

Exactly.. it's a bit like the whole 'if I see a tenner on the floor, should I leave it in case the owner comes back for it? Or maybe someone who needs it more than me will find it?'

Most people would just pick it up because someone else will probably come along and grab it if you don't. No guarantee that it will be anyone more deserving than you.

If it has been reduced and you want it, then buy it.

The shop won't care and if you don't buy it, you can't guarantee that the person after you is on a tight budget anyway.

I Hoover up the yellow sticker free range chickens and fill my freezer.

I love yellow sticker meat. To be fair though, I go to Sainsbury's for my bits and it's rarely 25p cheap. More like £1.99 cheap but that's still better than paying double for full price.

This.

I'd imagine most people on the breadline aren't focusing too much time on securing profiteroles in Waitrose. If you want to do something nice for those you proclaim to be worried about then do something that will actually help them rather than feeling morally superior by forgoing a reduced to only £1.20 apple sized papaya.

I do pick up yellow stickered items if I happen to be in the supermarket at the right time, but I also make a financial donation to a food bank every week. There’s no guarantee that people less well off will be able to afford to buy all of the yellow stickered food, that they will have enough money for energy to cook some of the items, or that they will have the fridge or freezer needed to store larger quantities. I’d rather know the perishables were actually used, because I can store and cook them, and give money to food banks so they can buy what will actually be used.

It's strange as I had a similar dilemma this week, so I used it to love a Lidl fruit and veg box, for the food waste prevention, love the thought of offering a good home to all the bruised or broken boxed fruit and veg as I cook a lot.

Then when chatting to the shop worker they told me that people come in and wait for these to be made up, they queue as they are such good value. This made me feel that I should leave them as obviously people need them more.

Then I went to a Liverpool Lidl in an area which a lot of poverty and their veg boxes were huge, really amazing value but there were loads of them.

I enquired and found that they were not Always sold out so I snapped one up, as I thought it's preventing food waste again.

For context Lidl fruit / veg boxes are £1.50

I got
2 big broccolis
3 lettuces
4 bananas
4 apricots
8 onions
4 potato's
A punnet of post tomatoes
2 plumbs
3 packets of fresh herbs

I feel the same. I don't enter competitions for the same reason. I would rather the prize go to someone who needed it.

But if you don't buy them, there's no guarantee that the next person will be "deserving" of them, or indeed that they'll be bought at all.

Exactly.. it's a bit like the whole 'if I see a tenner on the floor, should I leave it in case the owner comes back for it? Or maybe someone who needs it more than me will find it?'

Well no, that's not the same at all. Stealing someone's money that they have dropped, is in no way the same as buying reduced food that has a short shelf life.