Food Shopping

Do you believe in mind control, & hypnotism? No well it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are controlled every time we do our weekly shop. Most of us don’t even realise it.
The big retailers are masters at controlling us. They control our buying habits, the items we purchase, how much we spend.

They have spent decades, and millions of pounds learning how to do this. So much so, the most important lesson to teach anyone about money is to take them to a supermarket and ask what they can smell when they walk in. The answer will usually be bread or a bakery. This is because the smell of bread makes us hungry; when we’re hungry we’re likely to buy more food and the supermarket wants us to spend. Now, don’t get me wrong, business is business. I applaud them for the techniques they use, but if you can learn to play them at their own game, everyone wins. Remember, they are buyers too. Don’t you think they fight for every penny when their buyers are doing their job. Do the same thing, if they want your cash, make them fight for it!

Now that’s just one simple area of control, but it goes much deeper than that. Here are some simple examples.

Sweets and magazines placed by the till. These are impulse buys, so putting them near the till gives the store one last attempt to grab our cash.

Shop layouts make us walk the whole distance. Regularly bought items tend to be spaced around the store, so that to complete our shopping we need to pass many other tempting goodies.

Eye level products are where the profit is. The most profitable stock is placed at eye level (or children’s eye level if it's targeted at them); yet profitable goods tend not to be the best deals, so the age old adage ‘look high and low for something’ really does apply.

Sales are meant to sell. While grapes and other attractive products may be placed near the front of a store, even at below cost price to entice you in with a genuine bargain... the same signage and displays will be used elsewhere to promote deals, yet these mightn’t be competitive. Bright colours and the words 'discount' and 'sale' make us feel good, yet the reduction may be pennies, and other equivalent cheaper products are hidden elsewhere.

You see, the game is to extract as much of your hard earned cash from your pocket as possible. If you want to spend £50.00, they will try to seduce you into spending £70.00

So here are some basic tips when you go shopping.

Check your cupboards, freezer and fridge; never guess what you need to buy.

Write a shopping list. Haven’t got time, OK, waste money then. If you were in charge of stationary in your office, would the boss be happy if you just guessed what you need to order, of course not, so why be different when it comes to spending your own money.

Always take a calculator with you. Never be in a situation where you only know what you have spent when the checkout person asks for your money.

Never shop hungry. This is a real old chestnut, but it is important. If you are hungry when you go shopping, you will buy extra cakes, sweets & stuff.

Try own brands. These guys don’t can their own beans; quite often the big named brands supply supermarkets with private label goods. Now, this won’t work for every item you buy, my wife will only buy Heinz beans. A few years ago, supermarkets sold beans for 8p a tin, Heinz were 41p. To me it was a no brainer, but my wife refused to buy them, so none of us are perfect.

Hunt out bargains (but only if you would have bought them anyway). If there is a BOGOF on something you always use, buy it. But remember next time that you have it in stock at home. (SHOPPING LIST)

Check out the reduced section. Supermarkets throw away 1000’s of pounds worth of goods every week. They would rather get a bit of cash than nothing. Now, this is where the