Moral dilemma yellow stickers

[MrsMaryMooFace]

So this may set the cat amongst the pigeons but...

To preface, we are not millionaires BUT we have good wages and we aren't worrying too much about bills, they're expensive but we can graft and do overtime to pay them. We both work A LOT.

When I see a yellow sticker in the supermarket, I'm instantly drawn in because I love a bargain. But 99% of the time I don't grab them, because I worry there are others who genuinely need the reduced food.

So I usually leave it. Because morally I feel like I'm taking away from a more needing family.

So AIBU?

NO YOU ARE NOT UNREASONABLE to leave the bargains for people who needs them

YES YOU ARE BEING UNREASONABLE leave them for the people who need them

take what you want/ know you will eat, it’s first come first served. just don’t do what some people do in my local tesco and use your trolley to block the entire yellow label section from other people whilst you pick and choose at your leisure, leave enough space for at least one other person to be having a look. This seems to be a thing in my local tesco- one woman even had her husband stand ‘guard’ with their trolley and push it in front of anyone who dare approach the reduced section of the fridge whilst she faffed and dithered picking g stuff up and putting it down. madness.

I don’t know the right answer but I love that you think about things like this. What a good person you are.

Taking one or two things is ok, it's the people who come in and take everything that's been reduced, even when they can afford to buy it at normal prices. They are the problem

To be fair, if nobody takes the yellow sticker outturn they'll throw them away.

And as sometime who had been on the bones of my arse, quite often the yellow sticker stuff is still more expensive than the basics! Unless you get an amazing bargain, it's often ready meals that still aren't the cheapest even when heavily reduced

Safe to say, I love a bargain, and I'm pretty well off. I live in a very affluent area, and there's a good chance that someone wealthier than me would just pick it up if I left it. I do have good manners, though, so if there's someone else looking at the reductions shelf at the same time, I'll take turns to pick and share it a out, rather than scooping it all into my trolley as quickly as possible like some people do. I only take things that I will use.

You've as much right to grab a bargain as anyone else......so long as you aren't clearing the reduced shelves I don't see an issue.

Most shops donate to food banks and food surplus places these days......I know Aldi does. Someone comes in each day to collect all the unsold reductions. Even flowers are donated.

I think you are lovely op - I wish there were more folk like you in the world.

The yellow ticket stuff is very important to me and my family.

It means we can afford better quality meals instead of having beans on toast. Again.

I've stopped picking up a lot of them but some are still too expensive for people who are struggling and there are cheaper alternatives that haven't been reduced.
I've also noticed recently that it isn't even worth it in some supermarkets. Morrisons is a classic example of a 10p reduction. Tesco is still quite good.
I'd suggest you fill your boots in Waitrose and M&S though as the yellows still won't be affordable.

Always a lovely bitchy comment on mumsnet...

Thank you to all the other lovely comments, I am by no means a Saint but its something I always think about when shopping, I totally appreciate everyone's point of view on it! I have occasionally seen a gaggle of elderly people crowded around the sticker section in Tesco and it really made me think.

And to the person who said I must have very little in my life... Try living with 4 chronic illnesses, PTSD and depression all whilst working your arse off.

Oh my goodness. Well you are really the reason I posted, thank you for sharing. I wish you all the abundance in the world, and it's because of you people like me can be more mindful x

Good point... ready meals aren't always helpful I totally agree

My takeaway from this thread is I am going to donate something to a food bank box each time I do my Big Shop. Thank you to the 99% of you who gave brilliant none judgemental answers.

I can honestly say this thought has never once crossed my mind. I wouldn't buy them for the sake of buying them but if there was something there I wanted I wouldn't think twice about it. Having said that, we live week to week and are often panicked about where the money for the next big bill will come from so maybe I'm one of the people you think should have them

I hoover up the free range chicken breasts when they are yellow stickered with gay abandon.

When I was a student I lived near a Somerfield where they regularly reduced items to 9p or 29p! A friend and I went on one night for some basics and saw that there were rotisserie chickens reduced to 9p each . We bought about 3 planning to give them to the homeless people we regularly saw on our way home. Sadly they weren't there that time so our housemates were very confused by their 2 vegetarian housemates arriving home with lots of chickens!

If I want them, I’ll buy them…we are, happily, comfortably off 🤷‍♀️

I have a complicates personal rule on this....

Cream cakes are fair game anywhere as nobody needs a cream cake.

In standard supermarkets I leave the yellow ticket items for other people as I can afford my shopping without.

However, in M&S and Waitrose I take the yellow tickets as I figure I earn less than what their target customers do.

I always leave them same with money on the street. I don't need it and the next person along might really need it.

9p for a whole chicken!!!!!!!

If you'll use it, buy it.

I never get near the yellow sticker items in my Tesco. There's a crowd that gathers in advance and they swoop like vultures and leave nothing. I've never seen anything like it. Don't be one of those people.

I’m quite poor and I’m always happy to get some yellow sticker bargains. I have a similar moral dilemma though because I sometimes see yellow sticker meat/fish I would like to buy for my dogs but I feel guilty doing it in case someone needs it to feed themselves!

It's really hard.

I love a good bargain but I rarely look at reduced sticker items because I know that someone will rely on those items.

I am exceptionally fortunate in that I don't have to budget to within an inch of my income, but it makes me so angry to see people hovering over these yellow stickered items as their only means of getting food.

I despair of living in a so called first world country but having a huge population scrimping over basic food and needing food banks.

In days gone by, reduced items were for the thrifty, not the needy.

You don't know how much those people need it. If you can buy reduced meat to put in the freezer it can make the difference between getting through the month or not.