Thames Valley Mums Blog

Shopping hell -- a challenge for you all

So you know your normal weekly grocery shop? The one where you write a list but leave it at home accidentally and forget your bags and have the kids with you nagging for comics and it costs you double what you think because you haven’t planned meals and have fallen victim to every two-for-one offer there is? It’s not a barrell of laughs is it?

Or perhaps you are a meal planner. Perhaps you cleverly think out what you’re going to make each day and how you’ll use the leftovers in the next meal. And you save yourself a good wodge of money. But it’s still exhausting and by Friday you’ve given up and get a curry take out anyway.

Well try this.

Supermarket weep

A hundred years ago, when I was young, footloose and child-free, supermarket shopping was a fun and engaging opportunity. Casually browsing the ready-meal section for a Weight Watcher's lasagne, clicking my kitten heels past the ogling youth on the fish counter, swinging my basket toward the delicatessen, and always open to the chance of a flirty encounter over the frozen veg. Tellingly, my choice of food provider has varied over the years in direct proportion to my disposible income; from Budgens, to Co-op, to Sainsbury's, peaking at Waitrose with the occasional foray into M&S food halls, then back through Tesco, Scummerfield, Morrisons and Aldi. How the mighty have fallen.

Hubby going to the US? Don’t get mad, get shopping!

I always know when my husband is going on another business trip state side. He’ll call, or send an email, saying something like “honey, there’s a big show in (fill in major US city, most likely Las Vegas) next week and so and so says he can't go, so I might have to instead”.  Or “(Fill in major client name) is having an account review meeting in New York next week, and I might have to attend to make sure it goes well”.

In reality the trip is already in his diary and he has already booked the travel. But he has this thing about “setting expectations” and he thinks that if he gives me some advance notice of extended travel, that I will not rip his head off by the time het gets home. I guess there is some truth to this.

But what he hasn’t realised is that I’ve changed my stance on US travel. Instead of being annoyed with him it, I look upon it as a shopping opportunity. With the dollar still weak against the pound, there are deals to be had in the US!