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?

The OPs thread isn’t “why do older people need to eat food” 😆

I have been guilty at times of thinking the same as you OP. If a person is free at other, quieter times, why would they choose to endure busy, hectic times if it wasn't entirely necessary? I've had this thought whilst experiencing frustration with shopping and travelling on public transport.

But I think we both have to concede that we are wrong to believe that our mindset, and our convenience, is more important or worthy than anyone else's.

Why shouldn’t they ? Why do you care could be all sorts of reasons mind your beeswax

It is when you are specifically targeting older people in the question asked!

who are you calling "elderly"

Maybe they too still work - many don't get any pension till 67 and then its not alot and maybe they still have to work

Maybe they have someone else to care for and sat is the only time they get to themselves as another family member can only sit with that person on a sat

maybe they like the business

Maybe mind your own business, do a click and collect yourself and stay home

It does rain on Saturdays though!

Company ,buzz feeling connected to society ?
Old age and loneliness are terrible and killers

^ Oh, just this ... Christmas is the worst, I have no idea why couples shop together and/or drag their kids around with them when one parent could stay at home with them.

Perhaps it’s because it’s the day their child can take them. Perhaps they have shopped on a Saturday for 40 years. Perhaps like me they shop daily

For my MIL, it’s because until she retired she worked five days a week, so has always shopped on a Saturday. Habit/routine. And even now, age 82, she has various things she does on weekdays, but her weekends are fairly free, so it works for her. She goes at 7am, which I really don’t understand however.

Maybe they enjoy the hustle and bustle and getting out into the community. They perhaps miss busy life and want to feel a connection to society. It’s a totally different experience walking round a deserted shop.
Some people like a busy shopping experience.

So now I know who was in charge of the annoying kids running amok in the aisles when I was at the supermarket today. You can’t come on here complaining about old people OP when you also fall in to a very annoying category of shopper. If you let your kids push the trolley as well then shame on you.

It is absolutely ageist if the question is “why are old people allowed to do this perfectly normal thing?

Do you follow them out to the car park?? Jesus. Maybe they get dropped off, then picked up while their busy adult children do their own errands. Or maybe, they just decided they know it pisses you off so are doing it for that reason. All of us inconvenience others just by daring to exist. Its called society.

@letshaveteano it isn’t! Just like me asking “what do your teens want for Christmas isn’t ageist” 😆

One of the best things about being retired is that I don't have to squash all the shopping, laundry and housework into the weekend. I never go anywhere Saturday or Sunday, apart from the pub, if I can help it. But I still drive, and have that choice, if I was relying on lifts I'd have to keep to someone else's schedule. I'm also quite happy to get an online delivery, but a lot of people can't do that.

I get my weekly food shop one reason - other fucking people 😂 it’s not age specific, it’s everyone! but people bumbling about, dithering over which packet of ham to pick up blocking the whole section for 3 minutes, reversing trolleys, queueing to bag up my shopping, load it into the car, drive it home, unload it from my car to the house… nah. Not for me!
And do you know what, if I get a packet of broccoli that’s not one I would have picked up in the shop myself I’m more than okay with that and consider it the price I pay for convenience.

You work 6am til midnight every day?

why can’t you get a delivery on a weekend?

why can’t someone else in your family be in for the delivery?

why is it only you, out of your whole family, can only purchase food, or no one else eats?

clearly you have another adult or kids at least old enough to sort themselves out, so why must the food shop be planned around you and your work?

I’ve been getting Ocado for 20 odd years. The only time it’s been cancelled is once when it snowed and once when the van refrigeration broke down- I still got everything, just advised not to eat the frozen stuff.

it’s occasionally late, but if you book a delivery for 8 or 9 pm how does it affect your work schedule if it doesn’t get there till 10?

you’re having a go at Saturday shoppers but there are plenty of solutions. You don’t need to be there either on a Saturday morning.

Because they want to, seems a good enough reason...

Like I said, I don’t take my older children to the shops with me, but I do absolutely understand why mums have to bring their young children and I understand young children are silly at times. This is mumsnet. Solidarity to mums.

Why are you lying? It doesn’t make your argument more valid! The OP didn’t say anything about allowing people to shop. 🙄

I've always wondered that, but now I'm elderly and would not dream of going shopping on a Saturday. I do appreciate that perhaps some can only go then, when a family member can take them but otherwise I don't get the attraction. Even worse though is when you get the whole family going round the supermarket together as if it's a day out.

I think they probably shop nearly every day to avoid carrying heavy bags home.

@CheeseLover2026 for all the reasons others have given I guess. However, I find them not nearly as tiresome as families of five blocking the aisles like the bloody Boswells or children on scooters, roller skates, bicycles or standing in the trolleys. And younger women who phone up their partners and loudly blast: "Tony, what soup do you fancy?; Tony, do we need toilet paper?.

Age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.