I abandoned supermarket shopping and saved £100 in a month

I entered my self-imposed supermarket sobriety with great enthusiasm, sick of excess packaging, relentless offers, pointless points systems and mind-bending dynamic pricing.

We’re supposed to use supermarkets for convenience and value, but I’d started to find that the more offers a place crammed down my throat, the less I could stomach a “big shop”. Maybe this is one reason I was turning to Aldi more - not just the low prices, but the fact that what you see is what you get. No coupon counting or app-based gymnastics pre-shop.

As someone who has always loved shopping and cooking, my supermarket experience has soured in recent years. It’s a given that shopping to feed a family can be perfunctory, dull and time-consuming.

But shouldn’t the food shop - at least occasionally - be seen as an opportunity? It’s your chance to choose delicious ingredients to turn into comforting or exciting meals.

My supermarket break wasn’t meant as a punishment. I am 100 per cent for simplifying anything and everything. But if we’re going to eat at least three times a day, I don’t want that to come from a place of anger at the endless trolleys I’ve pushed around under blinding striplights as my daughter begs for yet more UPF-based snacks wrapped in single-use plastic.

There’s no doubt that, as a nation, we eat so much crap because it’s marketed and discounted so effectively by the big retailers. I hate the way that you pop in for milk and eggs and come out with three kinds of pasta, a new outfit and an air fryer.

I’ve always been a promiscuous shopper and am lucky to live near a range of independent shops, which I use regularly. I have no intention of giving up using the big retailers - there’s lots to love about them - but I wanted to see how the extra effort of shopping in independent stores made me feel, and - crucially - if it really does cost more, as we all assume.

I discover bargain Dubai chocolate - but waste hours driving to a farm shop Week one - total spend: £107.82 I have all kinds of ideas about meal-planning and using local shops while on my way elsewhere, so it doesn’t become yet another chore.

First stop is a nearby independent supermarket that majors in Middle Eastern ingredients along with hipster condiments and vegan chocolate. It’s the kind of place where you can choose from 20 types of olive oil or feta, but are they much more expensive than in the supermarkets? Not always.

I spend just under £40 on my initial shop, but I would have bought much more with a trolley and a car park. Some items are genuinely cheaper. Really tasty cherry tomatoes, for example, are £3.99/kg, while in most supermarkets they’re at least £6 or £8 a kilo. I get four decent aubergines for £1.67, whereas on the current Sainsbury’s and Aldi price match, they’re 95p each. Shops like this also sell a much wider range of some products than supermarkets, in this case yoghurt, olives, halloumi and feta, and there are options for less than the supermarket price.

Delicious Perello olives, which cost £3.50 in Sainsbury’s and £5.10 in Ocado, are £2.99. There’s even a Dubai chocolate dupe for £3.99.

I find bags of almonds and walnuts for better-thansupermarket prices. But many things are more expensive. Rice cakes are almost double what I usually pay and it’s hard to find cheaper tins of tuna, a pain as we get through a lot.

I pick up salmon and eggs from the fishmonger - the salmon is marginally more expensive than the cheapest supermarket option - but fresher and avoids excess packaging - and go to the butcher for chicken thighs, sausages and local cheese. Though I live near both, stopping on my way home involves parking gymnastics so it’s by no means a stress-free shop.

I spend £107.83 over the week which is in line with our usual outlay and we eat well: chicken curry, sausage pasta, salmon poke bowls, fresh blackberries and much more interesting salad leaves than I’m used to finding in the supermarket. I declare the week a huge success, but my eagerness to toast my victory reminds me of another item I rely on supermarkets for - great value wine.

Also the vibe is ruined slightly when I have to pop out to the local farm shop for carrots, potatoes and onions and get stuck in some roadworks. I end up wasting nearly two hours when I could have walked to the nearby Co-op or Tesco Express and spent half as much.

We wasted less - but had to plan more Week two - total spend: £69.60 I bought so much during the first week of supermarket sobriety that the fridge is well stocked and I don’t need to do a substantial shop. Instead I pick up bread, fruit and milk on Monday, topping up with bacon from the butcher and a quick stop at the farm shop for potatoes, asparagus, strawberries, tomatoes and dairy products.

I don’t mind spending more when I know where the food has come from, but I am also planning our meals very carefully as I want to beat my supermarket spend. On the one hand, this is a win-win as we eat better and waste less. On the other, the whole family may benefit from me solving pressing issues other than when I will next bake. When it’s my husband’s turn to cook, he doesn’t play ball and spends £30.13 at the supermarket for his burrito night.

Delivery boxes were better for us, and the farmers Week three - total spend: £92.50 I decide to try some deliveries. We get a fish delivery from Sole of Discretion, a company that encourages consumers to try more varieties of fish, supplied from small boats off Cornwall and Devon. The family box feels punchy at £58.45 for four portions each of four species of fish, but turns out much more generous than I expected as well as wonderful quality. We have the delicate lemon sole with charred greens and fried pollack in butter with new potatoes. The mackerel escabeche (pickled in vinegar, shallots and carrots) looks chic, tastes amazing and does dinner and two lunches.

I also order a large fruit and veg box from Riverford for £28.95. I don’t find that smaller shops necessarily have better quality produce than supermarkets. However, ethically grown veg like Riverford’s is pricey because the cost represents paying everyone along the way a fair price, as well as not abusing the land. And the box lasts us more than a week (with a few top-ups of cucumbers and tomatoes).

We learnt to make do with what we had Week four - total spend: £77.72 My husband heroically goes to the independent shop for products that we could have got far cheaper at a supermarket: bear paws, Bonne Maman and toilet roll.

I guess three weeks is a pretty good innings to carry out this experiment with no significant dramas, though words were definitely exchanged when I forgot to get the “right” bread for packed lunches.

I feel triumphant to have kept well within our usual monthly spend. The total is £347.64 compared with our usual £450. Result! But there are plenty of items I’ll need to buy next week, from porridge oats to tinned tomatoes.

And I’ll admit to cheating at the final hurdle. As I collected a John Lewis parcel at Waitrose, I couldn’t help but come out with beer and barbecue food for the weekend.

The other thing is time. However much I enjoy the meditative benefits of a slowly prepared meal, if you work and want to spend time with your children and/or have your own life, there’s not always time to chop an onion, never mind julienne bunches of beetroots and a huge kohlrabi as I valiantly did last week.

Probably the most important lesson I learnt is to say no. If I didn’t have the right ingredient in the cupboard, I made do. I let everyone else know that if they ate three helpings of dinner, they’d be making their own lunch the next day. I refused to go to the shop for snacks before cupboards were bare.

I can see myself doing a monthly supermarket shop and sticking to my ethics more closely the rest of the time. It made the shopping and cooking experience more enjoyable, though I could do without the parking headaches. Fingers crossed a bunch of tickets don’t arrive next month to offset my savings