Your weekly grocery shop

Just wondering how many of you buy supermarket's own value brand.

Before our holiday I went on a cost cutting exercise, and converted my normal buys to own brand labels.

So far I have tried and tested most things, saving £££'s and to be honest none of the family have noticed any difference.

We buy a lot of own brand stuff! There are some things that I just won't swap (mayo and ketchup, tea bags)

But we've changed to Sainsbury's Basics and own brand stuff on a lot of things. I've been eating Sainsburys Special cereal (like Special K) and I prefer it!

We also get own brand bread, beans, tinned veg, garlic bread etc and haven't had any problems with it.

I have started doing the same. You can make some big savings and rarely drop the quality.
I also do a lot of shopping in Lidl, you get to know what is good and what is not so good.

We use a lot of own brand basic stuff but like Shelley not things like ketchup or Mayo - if it ain't Hellmans I'm not interested!!

Things like beans, chopped tomatoes, pasta, bread etc we do and don't notice much difference in quality but big difference in cost.

On the subject of teabags Shelley, have you tried sainsburys red label teabags? They make a lovely brew! No sainsburys near us unfortunately though!

Yes, we buy Basics on a number of items. The only one that was unpopular was the tea bags, but tinned tuna, tomato juice, pasta sauce (you can add to it yourself) tinned tomatoes, fruit/veg, Breakfast Juice, etc. are all good. Plain/digestive biscuits aren't bad. The salmon and chicken are okay but a small difference was spotted. When they have an offer on the 'normal' chicken, sometimes the Basics chicken has been more expensive.

My only gripe is it seems that once the Basics range became popular the prices shot up - if I remember correctly, the tinned tomatoes went up by around 10p overnight. Now it seems that in some items, the Basics range could end up costing what the normal range used to cost.

I have always bought a lot of own brand stuff - but with some things I won't swap! (beans, salad creme, tea-bags (I can only have decaff, and tetleys taste the best - and have the best price!))

Tesco Market Value range is really good. Got some rump steak - enough for Baz and I, and it was less than a fiver

I noticed since starting my diet, I have saved a fortune, just by cutting out the rubbish...its shocking how much the extra rubbish we eat costs us.

I dont buy a full weeks shop anymore, I tend to do a couple of days at a time {we had an asda open just up the road} I plan ahead most of the time,

I think im saving £40+ a week doing it that way, foods not being thrown out, I buy what I need when I need it and skip buying junk..

I also no longer do food shopping if I'm hungry as I end up buying all sorts of crap just because Im hungry and fancy anything that's on the shelf!!

Thats probably saved me a fortune in itself!

I buy own branded stuff. from Asda, Tesco We don't have a Sainsburys by us, but I have been in one in Liverpool. and I found that it is quite an expensive supermarket to start with.

I did start buying own brand bread, but noticed that it went stale rather quickly, In Tesco and in Asda I think. they have an offer thats been going for quite a while now. buy 3 loaves for £3, thats kingsmill and it's lovely bread, so I freeze 2 and it saves me loads.

Elaine xxx

I have bought the value meat when really been on my hankers. But I have a problem with my concience there, as I beleive most of it is battery farmed.