By going to Marks and Spencer at 6pm tonight to try and get a bargain. Shall we play who's got the best Christmas bargain today??!!

[Husbandrippedmeoff]

Who's in?

We took a bus :)) it's the only supermarket I buy cakes from and DS loves their frozen pain au chocolat. We have huge Sainsbury's on our doorstep for daily shop.

I’m a bit worried about my M&S turkey crown. It says 48 hrs to defrost in fridge. Put it in my less cold (small) fridge yesterday afternoon and not much progress today. Adjusted dial to be less cold at lunchtime. Still very frozen this evening. Now have it out on countertop in garage. Hoping it will be ok as we cooked the ham tonight and ate half, so don’t have enough ham left to be the main event if turkey doesn’t work out😧.

Personally I was eyeing lobsters. Not going to pay £50 for like 50g of protein :))

Oh yay, just googled the only community fridge I know of and saw this, so at least all those turkeys we saw in the store earlier won’t have been wasted 😍🎄

I'll retell my usual Christmas story, 3.45pm, back in the day when Asda etc closed at 4pm on Christmas Eve, a woman screaming at a young member of staff because they had no fresh sprouts, Don't you know it's Christmas???? and the agog customers all dying to start singing!

I absolutely 💯 agree with your comment but it is an example of why I'm not vegetarian/vegan.....my ethos is no waste.... they are still going to kill the same amount of animals whether I eat them or not....so would rather they went to good use and be eaten..... on the bargain side, I got 2 big packs of smoked salmon, usually £12.99 reduced to £3 a pack....... I'm not fussy with this evenings "use by" and will be having them on NYE 😁 Merry Christmas everyone xx

Bargain. Bronze? Has it been at the fake tan 🤣

I would leave it out on the worktop all night and in the morning if it’s still solid, get it into a sink full of warm water.

Yes I definitely think the volunteers who collect get much of the best stuff and there is a lot of bread! We have had some lovely finest meals from a friend who collects.

Yes, Bronze, and??

I don’t want to be a misery guts, I love a good bargin and happy for others to get good bargains but:

1 It’s so obvious how much this food is marked up by stores and yet people still pay extortionate full prices for it.

2 The gluttony of it all, so much over indulgence. Don’t get me wrong I love a good treat and can definitely over indulge but it’s like it’s forced gluttony, it’s like if you don’t over indulge it’s not Christmas.

3 How much food is wasted in a country where so many people including many employees of our state services are living in poverty.

I think I’d cry if I knew the real figures on how much waste is put in landfills.

It's a type of turkey. It's not been on the sunbeds or at the St Tropez!

My Dad collects food from the local supermarkets to give to food banks.

He picks up a huge amount. All kinds of things. Things you'd expect and all kinds of weird and wonderful.

And what isn't taken by clients at the food bank is offered to volunteers.

So actually yes a lot goes to land fill but a large amount of that is reclaimed before then if it is still edible these days.

There's lots of rights and wrongs in this I do appreciate, but lemy point is that less gets binned than you might expect.

The supermarket I went to on Tuesday was also bagging up a whole bunch of large Christmas joints which had been yellow labelled. They weren't going out on the shelves - I'm fairly sure that staff were getting first dibs on them - which actually I think is really good all things considered.

If you don’t want to be a misery guts, maybe don’t?

Yes food is generally overpriced, what do you expect people to do - not buy it and not eat? 😂😂

You need to lighten up, might I suggest a reduced profiterole?

Then rejoice at the last minute bargains and the people who get them.

It's cheaper for shops to lose money on items than have to dispose of them. Less food is going to landfill, it's going to feed people instead. Huzzah!

Indeed. The food pantry I volunteer at is similar, we save a huge amount of waste, and help households at the same time.

What do we think the chances are of there being reduced party food this afternoon?! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

Stores I was looking at close at 7pm today. Already asked DH to pop in on the way back home.
I'd recommend mushroom vol au vents and mini pies if they still sell it. Salmon parcels and smoked salmon appetisers - not so much. Mini chicken kievs leaked butter both times I cooked it, so turned out a bit dry.

Turns out a lot of people stocked on half-price huge salmon fillets from Sainsbury's around Christmas, definitely will do it again it next year.

From my observations in three supermarkets, most fresh celebrations/party food is dated 2-3 Jan.

I was in Waitrose at 1.30 & M&S about an hour later and no reductions in either. Both supermarkets were rammed and car parks were chaos

Was in M&S at 2pm and got yellow stickered cherries, apricots, green beans and a melon. Some of the party starters were heavily reduced but I didn't need those and no freezer space.

They make the biggest reductions about 15 minutes before the store closes; no point them doing it in the middle of the day when people may still buy items dated today/next day.

My nearest M&S Food Hall closes at 7pm, so if I'm able to get down there at 6.45pm this evening I'll pop in to see if there's anything worth buying and freezing.

Got few photos fron M&S in Central London at around 6 pm - no yellow labels at all.

Nohting yellow sticker worthy in my local M&S last night around 4pm when I picked up a parcel for DH. The shelves were very empty. I did buy two Christmas puddings - one was a Florentine one with fruits and stuff, the other was wrapped in a nice tea towel. Both half price.