My Lidl bargain!

Oh, I love a bargain like that! Our local garden centre sometimes sells what they call 'soup boxes' for £5, which are full of veg - and sometimes some fruit - which is past its best, but still edible. I made two huge pots of soup from the last one - one leek and potato and the other butternut squash and sweet potato - as well as using the other veg in meals over the next couple of days, and chopping the remainder up to freeze.

Love a fruity bargain, well done , save a lime to slice into a nice cool drink too!

I see those boxes in Lidl, but I have never bought one because we are comfortablly off and I feel I ought to leave them for families for whom these cut prices boxes are a godsend when they are struggling to manage on a small income.

However, if I saw them at a Garden Centre I would probably snap one up.

It’s not often I see them when we’ve been to Lidl. I wouldn’t dream of buying more than one.

We get them all the time. Tgey are amazing 🥰

Well done, Sago. I love a bargain (even though we’re ’comfortably off’ Monica).

Grandmadinosaur

It’s not often I see them when we’ve been to Lidl. I wouldn’t dream of buying more than one.

Why not?

Well done!! X

Grandmadinosaur

It’s not often I see them when we’ve been to Lidl. I wouldn’t dream of buying more than one.

There were a lot there though and may have been dumped if not all sold?

They are for sale because they will go off soon, not donations to a foodbank!

Our Lidl must be very different then. The boxes are of very poor quality and nobody wants them . They are frequently there in the evening when I shop. The quality of vegetables and fruit in our shop is not great so the boxes are full of very over ripe bananas and sprouting potatoes with broccoli and several packs of lettuce. People used to buy them at £1.50 but not £2. I like Lidl for everything else just not fruit and veg.

And doesn’t everyone love a bargain? Surely that might explain why ‘the comfortably off’ would be shopping in Lidl.

Primrose53

Grandmadinosaur

It’s not often I see them when we’ve been to Lidl. I wouldn’t dream of buying more than one.

Why not?

Because I’d only buy what I could use and one would be sufficient for our needs. I also think it’s a little bit greedy ie last week in Asda there were 4 tins of soup reduced to 11p. I bought 2 and left the rest for someone else.

Our Lidl is excellent for fruit and veg. I haven't seen the boxes for a long time. Maybe they've stopped doing them.

We have a 'community fridge' in our town where for £1.50 you can fill a supermarket basket with whatever goods are about to go out of date. It's not just for those on low incomes. It's also so prevent food waste.

I sometimes pick up an M&S sourdough loaf or some exotic food stuff. There were dozens of tubes of truffle pate once.
I don't feel guilty at all. We are saving it from landfill.

Doodledog

They are for sale because they will go off soon, not donations to a foodbank!

I know they are not donations to a food bank, but there are people shopping in Lidl who are on very tight incomes. I have seen people handing items back because they do not have enough money.

This comfortably off person shops in Lidl because it is the supermarket nearest to my house, only a couple of hundred metres away and the other supermarkets in the town centre are not as big and do not have the same range of goods.

I do mop-up shopping at Waitrose, M&S, Iceland and Pound Stretcher, depending on what item it was I could not get at Lidl.

In the area of the country we lived in previously I shopped almost exclusively in Waitrose, the local market and farm shops. Waitrose was in the town centre while other foods shops were scattered all around the place in remote locations. Where we are now the town centre is well supplied with food shops, but the market is poor and expensive and there are a lack of farm shops in the immediate vicinity.

My only consideration when doing the weekly shop is convenience.

Grandmadinosaur

Primrose53

Grandmadinosaur

It’s not often I see them when we’ve been to Lidl. I wouldn’t dream of buying more than one.

Why not?

Because I’d only buy what I could use and one would be sufficient for our needs. I also think it’s a little bit greedy ie last week in Asda there were 4 tins of soup reduced to 11p. I bought 2 and left the rest for someone else.

Some people buy one for themselves and buy another for a neighbour.

There are people shopping in M&S who are on tight incomes, too.

There are a lot of assumptions on this thread, I think. I have no idea whether my fellow shoppers (in whatever store) are comfortably off or otherwise, and I wouldn't presume to wonder whether other shoppers were worse off than I am.

I wouldn't buy food I couldn't use, but if I could use or freeze it and the price was low I would be happy to get two of whatever it was, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy a lot of something like knitting yarn if it were on offer. If I had two bargains it may be that I would pass one on to a friend or neighbour, or I may not - much would depend on what it was.

I've made 7 jars of raspberry jam today. My DH bought 12 packs last night as Co-op were almost giving them away. That will keep us going for a while.

M0nica

I see those boxes in Lidl, but I have never bought one because we are comfortablly off and I feel I ought to leave them for families for whom these cut prices boxes are a godsend when they are struggling to manage on a small income.

However, if I saw them at a Garden Centre I would probably snap one up.

Presumably then poor people don’t go to garden centres.

I feel like I have had a ticking off.

Yes, why a Garden Centre but not Lidl?

Are GC’s full of affluent people?

I always look at the reduced section to see if there's something I would use. It's for customers and I'm a customer.

One problem for customers who really might need the boxes is that they don’t have transport. Catch 22 😥

petra

One problem for customers who really might need the boxes is that they don’t have transport. Catch 22 😥

Agreed. We've seen advice on here for those who are hard up to get boxes of fruit and veg from local markets in late afternoon, based on the fact that the advisor lived near one when her children were young, was available at that time of day and could, presumably, drive home with them in the boot, then convert them into 'nourishing soup'. Now the poor are supposed to buy bargain baskets that the 'comfortably off' generously leave for them in Lidl.

It's so short-sighted, and ignores the fact that many people in need of benefits are now working full-time, not everyone has a car, many HA or council estates are not in town centres where supermarkets are situated, and the attitude that they should be marked out by being the ones buying reduced items would further stigmatise them. In a food bank everyone there is struggling so nobody stands out, but at least in theory everyone in a supermarket is equal - if reduced items are supposedly for 'the poor', anyone buying them will be marked out as not 'comfortably off'.

Sago

M0nica

I see those boxes in Lidl, but I have never bought one because we are comfortablly off and I feel I ought to leave them for families for whom these cut prices boxes are a godsend when they are struggling to manage on a small income.

However, if I saw them at a Garden Centre I would probably snap one up.

Presumably then poor people don’t go to garden centres.

I feel like I have had a ticking off.

No, why should anyone be ticking you of?

I think poor people are less likely to go to garden centres because they are usually in out of town locations that require customers to have a car to access them. They are generally expensive for everything including plants, so why visit if you have no spare money to spend?