Do you buy reduced food on sell by date?

[Friedchickenrocks]

We save an absolute fortune by going to the nearest big Sainsburys at 6pm. Mostly go Fridays and Sat. but reductions are there every day. Food is a quarter of the price but that day's date. No problem as we freeze some straight away and eat it over the weekend and anyway keeps 3 days. Ready meals, £3.29 to 82p. Chicken thighs, breasts. Cooked chicken breasts for the dog, good quality not the added water reformed stuff. Prawn cocktails sometimes. Pork pies, meat pies, sandwiches, different veg. Loads of asparagus last week. You name it. Have you heard of Charlie Bigham's ready meals? Dear at £9.35 but good at £2.35 and are like homemade. We find that Tesco never go as low as 75% off.

In my experience asda is better but if you want cheap cheap prices then its between 7-8pm for the cheapest reductions but can vairy on store, tescos never usually seems cheap,

Sorry, am new, didn't mean this to be in AIBU with votes.

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We have a big Sainsbury's opening in walking distance this month. I'm very excited at the prospect (and I hadn't even considered the reduced food opportunities)! I am officially old. 🤣

Have tried Asda but seems Sainsburys has more stuff and as I saw, a quarter of the price which no-one can argue with really. Always do it at 6pm too. We could do with a third freezer really.

Am sure it can't be just ours that does stuff so cheap. Go and see. Ours has 3 shelves. One for fruit and veg. We got tons of cheap strawberries in summer and love our cheap mushrooms. Another for deli like sandwiches, pate, pork pie, ready meals and cooked meats and the biggest for all raw meats and fish.

I agree that Tesco's reductions are a bit rubbish, don't have a Sainsbury's neaby,
Asda's are quite good - the bakery section is always crowed about 3pm on a Sunday, they reduced pretty much everything down to 10p. I prefer the way M&S do it- reducing things and leaving them in their original place rather than moving it to a special reduced section that people crowd around. I've never seen people fight over things where I live but have heard of it on here!

I think you have to hit the right time.

Whenever I go to Sainsburys and have a quick gander at the reduced section there is reductions of about 20-25% off food that often looks 'on the turn' or squashed or may even be more expensive (with reduction) that the 'nectar price'

I'm not buying something that needs to be used up immediately, and even then might be past it's best for a trivial reduction, or even no reduction at all.

I've never seen reductions of 50 or 75% but as I say I'm probably not there at the right time - but if it's 6pm by then I'll have planned/cooked dinner and my freezer is usually full anyway.

You're very lucky. Our local Waitrose, our nearest supermarket, used to be fantastic for reductions and like you I could get quite a haul for very little money. Those days have gone and reductions are very poor, 70p of a £7 product for example and if not freezable wouldn't even think of buying it.
Unfortunately all the other major supermarkets are a drive away which could negate any savings especially if there's little or nothing on offer when you arrive. I do a shopping M&S once a month, again a drive away and usually pick up some fairly good reductions as part of that shop but not as good as yours.

For asda I prefer the bakery section for around those times, sometimes its alias sandwiches but usually bakery

My local asda they don't fight but more hang around the area and some don't que when waiting and try to jump in first before others soon as the reduced trolley was ready

They start when they open with 25% off then about 4pm am told it's 50%. You've to be in and quietly watching from about 5.45. They go quickly. We never buy anything we don't like or won't eat. I love lamb but it's expensive. My eyes lit up in June when they'd lamb cutlets at a quarter of the price so we took them all. Week after Christmas, loads of smoked salmon which I love but hate the price.

They do that at our local Tesco on Sundays around 2.30pm when she brings a trolley out with the final reductions, some like 20p, 40p. Have been there when police were called to a scuffle over some cheap beef joints. A member of staff on the deli was punched over a cheap chicken as she gave one to each person and one wanted both. They hang around then dive in oblivious to anyone else. Stopped going because it's ridiculous. Used to see the same faces every week...

Yes, but it's not something i go out of my way to get because the reductions aren't always all that great IMO.
I'll always pop into the shops when passing which is usually Monday - Friday on my way home from work.
I've found Sainsburys to be the best.

Timing is key and it varies from store to store and location
I never find any bargains in Tesco or Asda - Sainsbury’s is hit or miss, Booths works best for me
I have a second freezer in garage so stock up in there with reduced items
I am GF and only like certain brand bread and wraps so bulk buy when yellow stickered

Some weeks are better than others. Last week wasn't good at all but Friday we got loads of stuff. All depends really.

DS does good to go but I don’t like the randomness of it and you can end up with nothing you like!
A few weeks ago he did a good to go Booths meat and fish deal for a fiver and there was over £50 worth of stuff and we eat most things in that line so unless it was full of kippers - and even then the cat might benefit

I got loads of steak the other day less than half price which I was happy with - the only thing was it set the security alarm off when I walked out so the guard asked to check my bag against the receipt which was embarrassing - luckily I had a receipt, the self-service tills give you the option to reject so not sure what would have happened then?

Tesco in my area now does 75% reduction at 6pm.

I always buy reduced bread when I canand find it lasts for at least a week beyond the sell by date in my bread bin.

Have you looked at the too good to go app. You pay a set amount for a bag of short date food. Some places are better than others but you can save a fortune.
I find most things are good for at least 2 days past their BB, and many things can be frozen. I use my judgement and haven't poisoned anyone yet.

I always buy yellow sticker. I live 5 minutes walk from a good size sainsburys and walk up with my trolley so tend to pop up at reducing time.

I dont like asda as early on its not reduced much at all then admittedly it goes very cheap but its bun fight.

I know I go too much at reduced time because last month I was there and whilst wandering in the next aisle to the meat reductions the guy who is doing them 90% of the time just said beef and pointed at the other aisle. I popped back and there was a 2kg joint for £3!

I did a Too Good to Go bakery goods one the other week for £3.50 at our local supermarket and got 14 loaves of fresh baked bread, 2 pizzas, 2 croissants, 12 sausage rolls, three large Danish pastries and a couple of donuts. It was insane! Luckily we have freezer space to keep the excess.

It's basically how I got through university with no financial assistance - I'd wait at the open market for the veg reductions on the greengrocers stalls, then hot foot it to Safeway (as it was then) for the 10p loaves and other discounts. Then a quick half of cider while waiting for the bus home to make a huge veg soup to last the week. 😅

I was confused how this could be unreasonable 🤣🤣

Always.

My freezer is stuffed with various colours of reduced stickers. Best place is our local Co-Op about 7pm, a time when I'm often passing anyway. I don't go so much for the ready meals, more the packs of chicken, fish or beef. We are far from living on a very tight budget but I just don't see any point in paying more than I have to.

I also think - having years of experience in bargain hunting - that it depends very much on the manager. A while ago the local Asda clearly had a new one and the markdowns were crazy, they'd do everything going out of date that day around 9am and mark it down to 15% of the starting price immediately. Then they changed the system so that they would mark down the following day's expiry products in the evening, but only take 20% off. Now it's back to markdowns in the morning, but they take about 40% off, what doesn't sell is marked down again late afternoon.

Local Tesco is rubbish, they only take about 10% off. Co Op takes about 30% off to start with, then another 30% ish around 6pm so it's about a third of the original price.

M&S final reductions are good too, local Waitrose doesn't have much and we don't have a Sainsburys!! Local Aldi seems to have moved from 30% off stickers to 50% off - got half price lean steak mince there on Friday.