More Grocery Savings

Well, after posting the other day that I had used the last of my Waitrose vouchers and was now free to shop where I pleased, (well, I always was, but just didn't want to miss out on such big voucher discounts) sure enough more vouchers plopped onto the doormat, again from Waitrose.  I realise that it's all a ploy to get you shopping with them in the lead up to Christmas, so that continue to do so over the festive period and beyond, but I'm happy to go along with it, whilst it means my getting my groceries for less.

In all honesty, I didn't need too much this week, as we went to France at the weekend, to do a supermarket shop.  We thought about not going, in light of what happened in Paris, but the ferry was booked and paid for and we were only going to Dunkirk for the day, so we decided to go anyway. It was our way of making a stand against the horrible violence.

Quite a few things from the weekly shop got put into the trolley, mainly cheese, yoghurts, etc., which reduced the shopping list for this week.  We also have enough coffee and alcohol to keep us going well beyond Christmas and probably well past Easter too.  I'm not sure we would do another day trip of this kind, this was the first time we had done our once a year French shop this way, as it is much more economical to tag it on to the end of a trip to France and much less stressful.

Having said this, it was interesting to see that there was a whole section of organic foods in the supermarket we visited and I did indulge in buying a few staple groceries, such as wholewheat pasta and branded tomato ketchup, which came in quite a bit cheaper than it can be bought for here.

Despite this, I still managed to spend more than the required £75 spend today at Waitrose, to qualify for the £16 discount, largely through buying a couple of things for Christmas, and stocking up on some organic meat and jars of sauces that were on a very good offer.

They were all things that we use regularly and will get put into meals for the remainder of the month.  I can definitely see me not needing to use one of the vouchers next week though.  I don't think I'll even go to the Waitrose store, as I won't need enough to justify spending so much and anyway, there won't be room in the cupboards and freezer for anymore stock piling.

I got a total of £19 off my shopping, which was definitely worth having and we've probably got enough food in now, to last us through most of the rest of the month, save for replenishing fresh foods each week. I'm still within budget for food too, although OH paying for the French shop did help.

In addition, I'm slowly starting to squirrel away bits and pieces of food for Christmas.  I'm not buying anything to freeze, as we will have to defrost it to take it all up north and won't be able to re-freeze it, so any meat will have to be bought there nearer the time, but other things such as nuts, chocolates for the tree and other dry goods are gradually being put aside to save us spending too much in the week before Christmas.  I'm trying to keep this Christmas as simple as possible, as the fewer tempting, overindulgence inducing food items we have to hand, the less likely we are to overindulge.

In other news, the spare freezer got shipped off to relatives at the end of last week, so we won't need to take it with us, which is a relief.  OH is happy to get the corner of his office it occupied back and I'm happy that there is one less unused item cluttering up the house.  At least it will get used regularly where it is going.