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

Yes it was the Lidl fruit and veg boxes that gave me pause @bjjgirl - I don’t think anyone is going hungry for the want if a 25p profiterole stack, but the fruit and veg boxes definitely pricked my guilty conscience a bit.

I work in a supermarket. I usually finish my shift at 9pm.
The reductions are made at 7pm. And by the time l finish my shift there's very rarely anything left with a yellow sticker.
We have our regulars who buy almost everything with a yellow sticker, and very little else.
Then we get others who will have a lot of yellow stickered food, and a lot of wine/spirits and top of the range food as well.
I always feel a bit sorry for the people who only have a couple of yellow stickered items, and nothing else.
It's first come first served, though, l suppose.

That is a bit odd. There are websites you can enter your details into that then go on to enter you in a ton of competitions. No one buys Take a Break each week and carefully fills in all the puzzles to enter anymore.

^This.

Would you rather leave something, knowing it would be chucked?

I don't have a bottomless pit, but if there's something with a "yellow sticker" and I'll be using it that day, I'll buy it.

Don't be daft, that would be virtue signalling and martyrdom at it's finest!

It would be morally wrong to pile your trolley high with reduced food when your freezer is already full so you end up throwing it out because you got carried away with the bargains and greedy. Or you're one of those weird people that takes too much notice of the label that says freeze on day of purchase and use within 3 months, throwing it away after 91 days...

Other than that, fill yer boots

This.

Giving an extra donation to the food bank in return for my yellow sticker fortune is a good idea, I think i will adopt that.

I'm certainly not going to have my elbows out fighting to get at the reduced cabbages, but I don't mind the odd bargain if it's presented to me!

I'm going to chip in here with my perspective as someone who, in my younger days, spent a few years in serious financial trouble and could often not afford enough food ... it is absolutely fine for you to buy yellow stickered items! Honestly, there will still be things left for people who are on a tight budget and it does, as others have said, reduce food waste.

Also, worth noting that quite often, the things in the yellow sticker section are things that are quite random and probably not actually on most people's shopping lists. When I was on a really tight budget I was generally shopping to a list and picking the cheapest own brand versions of everything, which at the time was the Tesco Value range. So if I had 50p left to spend, and I had a choice of what to spend it on, I would have spent it on another bag of pasta or some extra tins of tomatoes, that would make me several meals, rather than two individual cheesecake portions or a tub of fresh olives. I used to check the yellow sticker section to see if there was anything in there I needed but it was quite rare that I grabbed a yellow stickered treat.

A new day, a new non-issue that someone gullible comes up with for self-flagelation

The malarky on some of these threads does not cease to amaze me

Get a grip OP

Overthinking.

My freezer is jam packed full of yellow sticker bargains. I haven't bought full price meat/fish in months.

We are not on a very tight budget. You ae reducing food waste and shopping in a sensible manner. It's a bit like the threads where everyone confidently proclaims that charity shops are "for the poor people" and that people who can afford to buy new should never set foot in one. They are bonkers too.

(Dinner tonight - spag bol made with yellow sticker mince. Last night's dinner, half price rump steak reduced from £8 to £4. this morning picked up a pack of pork and chorizo sausages half price, and three packs of puff pastry for 29p each).

Stop overthinking it. It's fine.

OP I agree with you. DH has a couple of staggeringly wealthy relatives - several millions, no dependants. They are always boasting about the wonderful yellow stickered bargains they pick up. I privately think - leave them for families on really tight budgets.

That's daft, do you also buy the most expensive brand of everything to leave the cheaper brands for people who don't have much money?

I'd say go for it if it's things you'll eat. If it will get wasted then don't.

No because it stops food that is nearing its sell by date from going off.

Well, buy the bargain food, and donate the savings.

I love yellow sticker stuff. I deliberately go to Booths at reduced time. I stock up on meat and fish especially. I don’t see it as depriving those on very low budget as the types of things reduced are not what you would buy if you had a very tight budget - venison steaks, exotic fruit etc.
Co op reduces stuff to 25% and then bags and throws it away. I have no hesitation buying it saves food waste.
I also use too good to go app.

You're over-thinking it.

I went to do my weekly food shop earlier. Saw the "yellow sticker" section was stuffed, so stopped for a look. Got some chicken thigh burgers at about 50% off. That's tonights tea sorted. I had planned to buy kievs, so I just mentally substituted them for the burgers. No biggie.

I go one stage further- I have been using olio and in the past 6 weeks have had food worth £122 at full price for free. Freezer full and enjoying luxuries I would not normally buy!

And as others have said, how do you guarantee that? Maybe the supermarket should position a member of staff by the reduced to clear asking to see bank statements?

Stop overthinking and inventing something to martyr yourself over.

If the store can sell it at whatever price, then I can buy it. If the yellow sticker section has anything in it that I would like then I will buy it.

When I go into our local Tesco I do look at the food bank container when I go in to see what they are hoping for that week. I put a donation in there whenever I can.

But people on a tight budget aren’t likely to choose a sea bass with £1 off but still costing ££, or other luxury items that are still, in relative terms, taking up a disproportionate amount of their budget. A fancy cake is nobody’s priority if they are struggling to provide their children with filling, nutritious main meals. So lots of the very random yellow stickered food could well still end up being thrown away.

I'm with you op. I think getting an item or two of yellow stickered items is fine but clearing the whole shelf out out when you aren't financially struggling, just to hoard it all in your freezer is selfish. The issue is that it's often hard to know who is struggling and who isn't.

This...this is why we can't have nice things. This is why people think MN is full of witless middle-class bores who don't know when to shut the fuck up. FFS.