Money, money, money...

When you get to my age (7.5 in dog years - sounds much better) there not many things which can raise your eyebrows to where they once sat.  

Now that son number two is at uni, I find myself once again falling into penniless mum territory, with a lot of my hard earned cash heading north to be spent on cheap alcohol and takeaways.  So things have had to change, and one of the potential areas where savings could be made was my grocery shopping.  Now as you know, I have always been an internet shopper with Tesco being my supermarket of choice - this has been the case for the best part of twenty years, and I like to think that their continued success is partly down to the heavily packed virtual shopping trolleys which trundle across my mouse mat on a weekly basis.

My best friend, Mrs S, suggested that I come to Aldi with her and see what savings could be made to my weekly food bill.  Now this put the fear of God into me.  You see, I'm not very good when things are where they shouldn't be, and on the one occasion I'd been to Aldi (two years ago), my OCD went into overdrive when I saw how my local store neatly displayed lawnmowers and axes between one of the alcohol shelves and the frozen vegetables.    It was all to cock, as they might say north of Watford.

So it was with some trepidation that I met her in the carpark yesterday with a hastily scribbled list of things to buy. Now that the house is fairly empty, there's not much to buy anyway, but the husband still has to eat, so my list included various bits of meat and lots of fresh fruit and veg.

The trick, according to Mrs S, is to focus on what you want to buy, disregarding anything else surrounding it.  For example.  When I was looking at the multi-surface cleaner (59p..) I had to force myself not to gaze at the saucepan sets and odd looking straining apparatus which were sharing the shelf.   Also, for some reason, they have two separate areas for alcohol.  It's almost like you've got what you want from the first one you pass, but they put the second one in as if to say, 'Are you sure we can't interest you in a bottle of Austins?'  This is Aldi's version of Pimm's, and having tried this a couple of years ago, it comes in a very close second.

Anyway, I made it all the way round without crying or falling apart.  There was a small hiccup at the milk fridge as I couldn't find skimmed and semi skimmed of the same brand which meant that they wouldn't match in the fridge (cardinal fridge sin), but this was solved by just buying the skimmed.  Of course, I failed to realise that this new one wouldn't match the one already in situ at home, but not to worry - I just turned it round so the labels faced inward.

So, all the shopping was scanned and paid for (a very pleasant surprise) and I headed back home with my new and exciting looking food.  Feeling rather smug, I decided to do an internet comparison with Tesco, buying the same products, to see what my bill would have been.

£31.22 cheaper....

Enough for a new jumper, or a scarf, or three bottles of Prosecco (five from Aldi), a small bottle of perfume, or a hair cut.

The possibilities are endless...