Why do the elderly go to supermarkets on Saturday?

[CheeseLover2026]

I’ve just got back from doing the family shop. I work full time long hours, so it’s shopping on weekend or nobody eats.

Shop is heaving. Everyone is slightly tetchy, rightly. The meat aisle is practically a bin fight. Trolleys in the way. Kids messing about.

And yet, so many elderly people, many of whom have mobility issues and are probably slightly frightened by the way my kind swoop in and swoop out to get an item while they are stood there pondering over this or that.

Yes, they have a right to do what they like. But WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would choose a frenetic Saturday when they have more civilised options?

Maybe they like hubbub of a busy Saturday

Because they want to.

This, my DH only comes shopping with me on the big Christmas shop no other time

Because I work full time, away from and long hours.

My Grandad (92) goes on a Saturday so he can get the Saturday paper while he's there.

Why would you have this thought process?

Why do you have your kids go in and swoop around elderly people? control your children. It’s a supermarket, not a playground

I read once it was to see the school kids around to cheer them up. I get more annoyed with hapless spouses clogging up the aisles looking at their phones. Just wait in the car already.

Because they want to? Because they need to? Because it's habit?

My elderly dad tends to shop on Saturdays because I work all week and he needs me to take him after having given up driving. I'm sorry if others feel that he should go at another time so that he doesn't get in your way, but really, I think that's your problem.

Oh right. So you're too busy to find an hour during the week but nobody else can be?

I don't know, any more than I understand why so many joint parents bring all their kids with them.

A mystery to me. 🤷‍♀️

I like doing a food shop on Christmas eve just because I like the vibe.

I don’t take my kids to the supermarket because they’re teenagers. However, I understand working parents taking their young children because young children can’t be left home on their own.

I’ve just got back from doing the family shop. I work full time long hours, so it’s shopping on weekend or nobody eats

oh come on, you’re being ridiculous. Nobody eats indeed.

there are online deliveries available. Get a regular shop set up, they deliver 6am til midnight, including weekends.

leave the weekend supermarkets to the people who may not have internet access.

have you ever thought the reason they’re there at the weekend is cos not everyone has a car. If you can only carry two bags home you need to shop nearly every day. They don’t pick Saturday deliberately, if they don’t shop then they don’t eat 🙄

I've done my supermarket shopping today. I'm retired and over 60, but not elderly! I usually shop during the week, but tbh I still had stuff to use in the fridge, so avoided my usual (mostly) Thursday shop. But I needed to go to town today to get a piece of meat for a Sunday roast and to stock up on veg to accompany it, so i did the rest of my grocery shopping at the same time.
So I basically shop when I need to rather than by a set day.
I don't think anyone has the monopoly on shopping days. Plenty of younger people shop mid week too. Should i complain that they're in my way?

Oh yes, it's the hapless spouses that do my head in. All the Daves and Grahams hanging about while their wife peruses the jeans and jumpers, looking utterly bored and getting in my way 😭

My parents used to go every Saturday out of habit. Before Sunday trading, you went on a Saturday.
They used to do a big shop on Thursday as a lot of dads got paid in cash, weekly, every Thursday. Of course mums did but Thursdays were a big thing.
Then extra bits on a Saturday.
My mum retrained and got a much better job in my teens and started doing the extra shop in M&S. She was like a lottery winner.
But they always went together, never separately. I can remember when one died the other one asked me to go with them, not out fear. My dad always used to say he missed going with my mum as she would be ages looking at things and would get her list out and buy the same stuff. He moaned at the time, and then missed it.
I can remember every week getting in from my Saturday job for a Marks and Sparks tea. She actually did a Marks and Sparks buffet for Live Aid in 1985. And it was her pride and joy. Angela, do try a Chinese chicken wing they are smashing.
I miss both of them. I don’t miss going to the supermarket with them, though!

I don't understand why people take young kids to the supermarket. Surely you can see how much this disrupts your requirement to shop quickly and every other shopper too.

Yes, as someone commented the other day ‘An old person’s place is in the wrong’.

How elderly is elderly? A lot of people in their 70s work full time too.

YABU to use the offensive, old fashioned description 'the elderly' as if all older people are the same. Why are you in the supermarket on a Saturday? Online shopping and late night shopping exist so you can avoid other people if you so wish.

Since you're observing them closely enough to see who's accompanying them - or not - perhaps you could accost a few and ask why they're there.

So who’s looking after your kids if you’re away from home? Why doesn’t that person sort the shopping?

if your kids are old enough to be left for long hours while you’re working they’re old enough to go to Tesco. Or take a hello fresh box off the doorstep.

stop being a martyr. Delegate or get a delivery.

Agree.

People of any age can go shopping whenever they want - and don't have to justify their decisions to the OP.

Never get old.

Because its a free country and they can go where they want when they want.