Fighting back against supermarkets

Another common misconception, that supermarkets want you to think, is that by shopping in a supermarket, as opposed to local shops, will save you time.

Once again, I can prove this theory to be completely false.

Shopping local (Every week):
* Drive 3 miles to another village for meat, from a local farm butchers, where I pick up my fresh cheese for the week - at prices that are far cheaper than supermarkets, with less waste packaging.
* Back in the car, driving another 2 miles to the next large town, parking on the outskirts (for free) and walking 10 minutes into the centre.
Here I buy my fruit and veg, again for much less than a supermarket price, along with almost no packaging at all, from an outside market.
The benefits of doing this are that most of my produce comes from around the county where I live, their fruit and vegetables are also rarely frozen or chilled and will keep days longer than the supermarket alternative.
* On the inside market I pick up baby milk and jars of baby food (yes, cheaper than the "buy 10 for £5/£6" offers in supermarkets). I pick up shampoo (a country mile cheaper than the supermarkets) deoderants, hair gel, soap, etc.
* On the way out of the inside market, back on to the outside market, is my local fishmongers. Only been in the trade for 30 years, I ignore the larger more established fishmonger next door to him.
Not only do I pick up beautiful tastey fresh fish, my fishmonger is cheaper than supermarket counters and has a wealth of knowledge as regards recipes and cooking fish.
* A 10 minute walk back to the car, add on the drive home, I am out of the house for between 50 minutes and one hour.

Shopping in the supermarket:
- Products like bread, tinned goods, cat food, etc, are sourced at supermarkets in my immediate area, normally when my local shops are out of stock. For example, my local garage store sells warmburton's bread 14p per loaf cheaper than both tesco and asda who are close by.
- A 15 minute, 2 mile drive into a relatively small town, to visit the asda there.
- Once armed with a small trolley, I am in and out (helps me avoid marketing tricks) hitting the bread section, through the tinned goods and around the back to the cat food aisle at the top of the store.
From here it is down through the frozen food aisle for some frozen peas or fish fingers and up the baby aisle for some nappies.
Back down to the front of the store for a checkout and away to the car.
- Providing the store is not busy I can get back home (after two 15 minute trips) in about one hour 15 minutes, if I push it.
If the store is busy, this often extends to more than one and a half hours for the round trip.

Do not take my word for it, try it for yourself.
The marketing hype that supermarkets put out in adverts, that they save you, the customer, time, is complete hype.
In my weekly experience, they do not save me time, when compared to shopping in local shops, stores and markets.
In fact, if I compared the shopping I now do locally to buying the same goods in a supermarket, I would wager that not only would my shopping bills be a lot higher, but also the shopping would take me longer!