"if you don't need it, it's not a bargain"

The experiment is going well, according to my figures I spent £16 on food, which if I'd bought it at original price would have been £22 more. Yes, that's a saving of £22! Of course it helps that I started with a near empty freezer, which is probably now more than half full.

I liked what Kathleen said in her comment so much that I used it as the title for this post. Yesterday I popped into Morrisons as I'd been to the doctors which is very close by (as an aside I'll say that I'm trying to combine my supermarket trips with other errands, since it's no good saving money on food if I'm wasting it on fuel!). One of the fridge area reduced sections was absolutely crammed with stuff, and yet I only left the shop with five things. That's because there always seem to be a lot of microwave meals and that type of convenience food, and I refuse to buy those even at reduced prices. Personally I'd say that shepherd's pie or toad in the hole will taste ten times better made from scratch, and they'll probably still cost less than the reduced microwave-able version. (Especially if I use mince or sausages which I'd bought at a reduced price!)

Actually, there is one exception to this rule - I did pick up two 'meal bags for one' yesterday - it's the equivalent of a takeaway curry meal in a bag, with curry, rice and poppadoms. You can freeze them, which I did, and we'll be able to get them out at a time when we fancy a night off cooking. And they were reduced to 99p each, so I don't think that's bad!

I think I also have high expectations of the reductions on certain items. What happens is that there's one reduction done in the morning, once they discover that an item hasn't sold and today is the sell by date. Later on in the day further reductions are made. Yesterday as I stood by the fridges there was a guy doing all the second reductions on that area. That meant I could select what I wanted and pass it to him to be reduced further. They sell things like stuffed peppers or vegetables prepared for roasting - all you have to do is remove the foil and stick them in the oven. Usually these retail at £2, but even with a first, and possibly second reduction, I'm unlikely to buy them. These are the bargains you'll occasionally find at the end of the day, marked down to 19p a packet. And that's when I'll happily stock up!

(I'm suddenly aware that this post is either interesting or frightfully boring. If you're finding it boring feel free to pass on reading it, and come back when I post Sophia pics or something like that!)