My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
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Shopping is one of those double-edged sword experiences. Stepping into a supermarket brings back all the pleasures of childhood. It's like an amusement park – we push our trolleys up and down the aisles, attracted by the colourful packaging on display. Hands up anyone who bought that fancy tea just because they were attracted by the packaging? What, ALL of you? I thought so! Drifting in a dream-like state, we buy things which most of the time we don't really need. It's only once we empty our shopping bags at home we realise we've wasted a lot of money on 'impulse buys' and forgotten many of the essentials We Need a StrategyWhen we innocently walk around the supermarket aisles we're oblivious to the tactical planning of the Supermarket People. Our behaviour as consumers has been dissected, studied and analysed by experts whose ultimate goal is to make us buy anything and everything, whether we need it or not. Here are 7 tips on how to shop without overbuying1) Treasure Hunt. How many times, when visiting our regular supermarket, have we been baffled to find that basics like salt, eggs, sugar have been moved? So we walk up and down the aisles looking for our eggs, only to find other products grabbing our attention along the way. They weren't on our shopping list, but somehow they ended up in the trolley anyway. Solution – if you can't find something, ask a floor manager. They will take you directly to where it is 2) Never Shop on an Empty Stomach. Your growling stomach will shop for you. A lot of research, for example this study undertaken by Cornell University Food & Brand Lab., has established that an empty stomach pushes us to buy high-calorie and “unhealthy” food. Solution – buy a snack before you go shopping and nibble it while you walk up and down the aisles. 3) Check Your Shoes or Look at the Stars. Perhaps you've never noticed that the most expensive products are always placed at eye level. The best bargains are often placed high up, or more usually, down low. Solution – when looking for a product, check out the lowest shelves before looking up. 4) Go Online. We're all of us creatures of habit. Every week we tend to buy the same things from specific places, but in doing so, we're often not aware of the full range of prices. Solution– there are now several comparison supermarkets like MySupermarket.com. Before going shopping it's worth spending a little time comparing prices. You might save a little money! 5) Treat Yourself. Shopping is tiring. All that walking up and down the aisles, scanning the shelves and trying to decide which washing powder we want to buy can be very frustrating. We need to treat ourselves. Those supermarket people are always thinking of us and have thoughtfully placed, right after the cleaning products section, aisles full of biscuits, cakes and alcohol. Solution – if you want to buy biscuits, cakes and alcohol, go directly to that section. Buy your treats first! 6) Fix a Budget. We all share the opinion that a mental shopping list will be more than enough to guide us, but we often don't have any idea how much we're going to spend. The end result is, more often than not, we overspend. Solution – set a budget and tot up the prices of the things you buy as you go. No good at maths? You might want to consider leaving the card at home and taking along the amount you budgeted in cash. 7) Are You a Premium Customer? We're all attracted by words like 'premium' and 'branded'. We associate these words with quality. The supermarket people know this and have sorted everything they sell into four different categories (listed in order of expense).
If you're not convinced that supermarket brand products are the same quality as premium, there are several online guides such as SuperMarketOwn that rate and review supermarket own brand products. Why not check them out!
Happy shopping! |
AuthorI love cooking, and when it comes to quality I'm quite fussy. Archives
February 2018
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