Reduced bargains shopping

A question about : Reduced bargains shopping

If you went to the supermarket with a fiver to spend on bargains how much stuff would you typically expect to come home with?

Best answers:

• Unfortunatly it's all about luck, i've come away with 4 carrier bags of stuff for Ј5 before but that would depend on if you were in the right place at the right time which is getting rare these days. You have so many others looking for the bargains most of it has already gone before it goes down to 20p prices.
• Pure luck...I might just come back with what I went for...a loaf of bread and milk. Sometimes 4 carrier bags full of stuff....then wondering where it's all going to go.
• BEST SHOP FOR ME Morrisons Christmas eve one year back as the shop was due to close. i only wanted an extra loaf but came away with chickens for 10p 4 pintas 2p gammon 20p etc the manager was at the door encouraging people to indulge so the excess was not wasted!!
  it was a new store and think they overstocked!!
  also at co-op one year fresh expensive small or huge turkeys Ј2!!
• I have been doing this for 5 years now and nearly half my shopping is yellow label. I rarely if ever come back with nothing, provided I get to the shops before 6 p.m. However I'm fortunate in that I now have a Co-op, Tesco, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and M&S all within 2 miles so I tend to do at least 3 in one hit and often 4 of the 5.
  Different shops are good for different things. Waitrose is very good for cheap bread. M&S if they have anything it's often cheap milk. Sainsbury's are good for chilled stuff and Tesco generally have cheap fruit and Veg. You have to be prepared to wait,watch and listen. If you can't do that then it is a matter of luck. For example by looking at other shoppers trolleys you may see a bargain you missed. I did that the other day and got wine reduced from Ј9.99 to Ј3.09. Also I now instantly recognise the sound of the PDA's reducing stuff in Tesco.
  You also need to have a good idea how much fruit and veg you have waiting to be used at home and how much room you have in the freezer and fridge. No point in buying cheap if it ends up getting thrown away.
  When buying yellow label I tend not to buy anything that's over 40% of the original price unless it's something that's not normally reduced - like a long life item or an item that's desperately needed like milk.
  You can make your own luck - if I'm waiting for items to be reduced I will look at the stock that's about to expire in the next 2 days. If there's a lot of a less popular item that I like I will make a note of visiting that store that day.
  We will all have our limits and I can get away with the bar being set this high because I am prepared to do the leg work and go to the shops every other day on average. Not everyone will have that time or patience.
• If I took Ј5 to a supermarket in the expectation of getting some YS organic food, I would be sorely disappointed 99.9% of the time.
  Very occasionally I have gotten reduced mushrooms, carrots, chestnut mushrooms, spinach, watercress and apples. Nothing else.
• It depends which store I visit and what time.
  Yesterday at Sainsburys, I picked up 2 chicken breasts wrapped in pancetta, mozerella (sp) and basil for Ј1.50 and bag of satsumas for 30p.
  In Asda, I buy things in their reduction chiller which I cannot find normally in the chillers.
  I sometimes do a 'whoopsie' evening meal by just having what is available in the two supermarkets I drive past to/from work.
• Again, it depends. Some "bargain shelf raids" are better than others. Sometimes, you can find items you planned to buy anyway plus a complete meal, side dishes and dessert. Sometimes, the cupboard is bare.
• It depends. Can always always get cheap bread in our local Tesco Extra. Sometimes there is a bit of a scrap on for the cheap veg - sometimes lots of people after it, sometimes barely anyone.
  It depends on who is managing the store that night - sometimes you get 25% off, sometimes 90%, just depends.
  I tend to pop into whatever store I'm passing but I always go to T Extra for bread.
  I do save lots though, couldn't buy many yellow stickers last month and shopping bill went up by Ј80 for that month!
• In M&S yesterday I managed to buy an organic chicken for Ј1.25,2 packs of pork stuffing for 50p,a large pork pie for 50p,2 packs of steak mince for 75p each.A bag of apples for 30p. Very pleased.
• It's totally luck
  A few months ago we filled our empty freezer for Ј10 (meat, ready meals, quiches, bread, cakes) but that's a rare event
  I've noticed in the last couple of years an obvious increase in people looking out for ys and part of this means that reductions are being snapped up before they have the kind of reductions that I'd go for.
  Last Sunday we went to morries for a couple of specific things and as we walked past the ys area, there was a HUGE queue of people there, the person at the front would not not let go of an item while the employee was trying to reprice it. A sad SOA
  I think while I could get a bunch of stuff for a fiver, I would not buy stuff that hasn't been reduced substantially (I'd probably go about 33%). Sometimes I go and a measely 20p has been reduced from something that costs a fiver - surely you'd spend the 20p to have something fresher that would last a longer time? Had there not been anything reduced enough when I went with my fiver, I'd just buy the bare minimum I needed (e.g. bread, milk, apples etc) and check back another day for reductions
• Not worth it for me. It's usually the overpriced stuff new lines that they have made a mistake on that is reduced so not a bargain at all. You really need to know what your prices are across the length and breadth of what's on offer. People usually vote with their wallets.
  Sometimes I will go for high value stuff reduced by 40% at least if eating it that day or meat for the freezer. The shopping bill will be higher if shopping like that but sometimes it's nice to have the best quality stuff or convenience food though.
  If I am around at 7pm the bargains are much better but here luck really does come into it. You would get more value for your fiver then. Tesco use their computers - PDA's to work out how much stock they have at three times of the day to work out how deep the reduction will be. That's why YS shopping is rarer these days.
  It makes for variety in the diet if cooking a whoopsie/YS meal but again can be more expensive cooking and shopping that way due to level of quality or convenience. It's more of a bargain if the exact stuff you usually buy is on reduction.
  I wouldn't expect to come home with anything and only go if I need something and was passing anyway.
• I went to the Tesco Extra near me last night for the first time in a month. Absolutely tons of food and more people after it than I've seen in the past, but they were doing 75% off veg rather than the usual 90%
  No one seemed to want any of it, except me - got mangos for 25p each, 2kg of organic new potatoes for 60p (still very fresh and hard) plus broccolli and cauliflower. Everyone was scrapping over the bread but there was so much there was plenty left over after the scrum had gone.
  The chiller section was a waste of time (it often is in T's), just 10p off most things - well whoop-de-doo!
  But I have no idea why the instore bakery makes quite as many bread rolls as they do - there must've been 100 packets of tiger bread rolls for 13p a packet of 6, last night.
  I only have a freezer box so I can't really stockpile, have to use it up right away.
  I also use the green stay fresh bags from Lakeland so any yellow sticker veg lasts much longer than it would if it wasn't in the bags, never have to chuck it away. Anyway, some things get cleared before they are even ripe! I have four rock solid avocados in here that I got a couple of days ago.
• Hit and miss. Me and OH will hit both Mr T and Mr A in an evening and come home with maybe 4x bag-for-life bags full for less than Ј10. 70-80% of our shopping is from the yellow stickered stuff and we often laugh that we eat like royalty, plus get to try stuff out that we wouldn't otherwise buy!
• I'm a traditionalist and tend to opt for 3M's own. I tried the Niceday ones but was disappointed the dog was only on the outer wrapper and not on the stickers themselves. Viking own brand - the colour was too strong, too garish and not matt enough. Stationery Box/Ryman - uncompetitive prices, it felt like I was buying printer ink.
  So I am sticking with sticking Post-Its to everything.