Don't always buy whats on offer !

I caught the end of a TV program yesterday, I have no idea what it was called but it was telling people to buy only the food they need and not to throw half of everything away. In the end they cut a families food bill from something like £22k a year down to £10k.

I have no idea how people can waste 50% of their food but apparently it is a common problem, I guess some people are born stupid, me?, I just learned it over the years.

Making the most of your money while shopping is not just about buying the food you actually need, rather than one for you one for the rubbish bin it is also about seeing our way through the maze of cons and misleading displays in the supermarket.

I shop in Sainsbury's, I tried Tesco just not me, Asda way too chav and Waitrose is only for people with too much money, so I go once a week to Sansbury's. They are the master of shelf cons and while I felt sure I had written about this before I can't find it so here goes (again).

Sainsbury's has many ways to catch you out but I will only cover a few. The most simple is the price per Kg and price per 100g. On the same shelf they have several brands, the most expensive will be prices say 57p per 100g and then next to it a cheaper item in bigger bottle/packet/tin so higher item price but actually £3.75 per kg. Its obvious that the £3.75 is the best value but how many people fall for the trick.

This week apples were a good con, last week a bag of 1Kg of apples was £1.48, this week a bag of apples was shown as "now only £1", but wandering to the scales I found that the bag was also "now only" 800g so any thought of saving 48p is gone and you are actually saving just 18p.

At this time of year forget apples at Sainsbury's head off to a local orchard farm shop.

Their next ploy is the "ONLY £1" for the packed meat, yes it might be only £1 but its price by weight is far higher than other similar meats right next to it.

Their most sneaky pricing con at the moment is in the wine section where there are loads of signs for 50/o off, I can't show it here but they have the signs printed so that an eye scanning the shelves reads it as 50% off, by the way they set the % sign. Otherwise who would care that there is 20p off a bottle of wine when others are half price or less.

Although good food may cost less at Sainsbury's if you read the shelf carefully you can save even more, every little helps!

( Please be aware that other supermarkets are available, some store may charge for your visit, cars parked for more than 4 hours will be charged £70, all customers shop at their own risk, no responsibility will be taken by the store for children left in locked cars or pets seated in the shopping trolley.)