These days feeding your family cheaply can be a difficult task, with the prices of essential items like butter, cheese, and milk soaring - and let's not even get started on how much toilet paper costs right now.
But amid the price hikes in supermarkets up and down the country, Waitrose recently announced they were going to cut the cost of more than 200 everyday items in their stores.
The prices have all been reduced by at least 10 percent with some of the biggest savings said to be on mince and bread.
I decided to put these changes to the test, comparing my regular Tesco trip to a visit to Waitrose, to find out if it would be any friendlier for my wallet.
I feel I have to preface this by admitting that I don't regularly do a big weekly food shop as I only have a small under-the-counter fridge with one shelf of freezer space at home.
As my husband and I just don't have the room, we tend to only buy a hefty basketful of food at the start of the week to see us through for as many days as possible and then we nip to Tesco to grab more milk or bread as needed if it runs out.
We're often both out at work events several evenings a week, and as such want to try and avoid accumulating too much food waste, which this helps with. It's not a perfect system, but it works for us.
Our nearest supermarket is a Tesco, so we predominantly shop there and I'd say on average we spend about £30 a week on the main shop, which is for two people, and this includes meals for a few days, plus any extra snacks we fancy.
It can go up to about £40-£45 if we need to grab other essentials like toilet paper, toothpaste, washing powder, etc.
Waitrose was recently revealed by Which? to be the most expensive supermarket once again, so even with the price cuts I wasn't feeling overly hopeful about my shop there.
I headed in, knowing I only needed a few items as I still had some bits left over from my last Tesco shop.
However, the small basketful of food I went home with, which contained barely enough to scrape together a meal, a lunch, and a breakfast, as well as tea to drink and crisps to snack on, still came in at almost the same price as my regular Tesco shop which would have contained much more.
For almost £30 (£27.26 in total) I didn't feel I got my money's worth at Waitrose and the cuts certainly weren't always enough of an improvement on already steep prices - with discounts of just 5p and 10p.
Although several things were noticeably cheaper, like butter. I bought a 200g pack of Lurpak butter which was down to £1.90 in Waitrose, reduced from £2.25. The same butter in Tesco is currently £2.15.
Similarly, the Aria Lacto-Free milk is currently on offer for £1.35 at Waitrose, which is 65p cheaper than at Tesco at the moment.
What I got in my shop
- Lactose-Free Semi-Skimmed Milk (was £2.10 now £1.35)
- Waitrose Chicken Breast Mini fillets (was £4 now £3.50)
- Waitrose Essential Double Cream, 300ml (was £1.40 now £1.25)
- Waitrose Essential Spaghetti (95p)
- Waitrose Essential Crumpets (70p)
- Waitrose Essential Mixed Salad (was £1.10 now 95p)
- Waitrose Essential Cucumber (85p)
- Waitrose Essential Parmigiano (was £3.35 now £3)
- Waitrose Cavolo Nero (£1.70)
Waitrose Parsley (80p)
Waitrose No1 Pappardelle (was £2.70 now £2.16)
Proper Chips Sweet Siracha Chilli Lentil Chips (was £2 now £1.25)
Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter, 200g (was £2.25 now £1.90)
Waitrose Nutmeg (£1.50)
Geetas Mango Chutney (£2.45)
Twinings Peach and Orange Tea (£2.95)
I didn't have a full plan for what I was going to buy when I went to Waitrose, so I thought I'd see what was included in the cuts and go from there. And as the fresh Pappardelle, cream, and Parmesan were all reduced, I decided that I could use these ingredients to make a chicken alfredo pasta dish.
The nutmeg for the sauce wasn't reduced, which was the case for all of the herbs and spices in the store - which feels like an error as I'd say they are pretty essential when cooking.
But moving on, any leftover chicken could be used to make a salad for lunch, which I already have a dressing for at home and didn't need to buy.
The spaghetti, which at 95p is much more expensive than the Hearty Food Co's 28p pasta in Tesco, will be used at some point to make Nigella's Marmite Spaghetti. (Don't knock it until you've tried it!)
Her unique recipe combines spaghetti with Marmite, butter, and Parmesan to make a delicious umami dish. For this, I can use the butter and cheese from my shop, but I'll once again be supplementing using Marmite I already have.
If I'd needed to buy some it would have cost an extra £2.40, which would take the shop to £29.66.
The cavolo nero, like much of the other green veg in store, didn't have a price cut but this will work as a side with both pasta dishes. I also picked up some crumpets that can be used either for breakfast or lunch, which were a tad more expensive than Tesco's own brand ones that cost 45p for a pack of six.
Aside from ingredients to use for actual meals, I wanted something to snack on and while there were reductions on crisps such as Pringles or Doritos, the cheapest ones I could find were lentil chips.
These were slashed from £2 for an 85g bag to £1.25. Pringles in comparison are £1.85 and Doritos are £1.75.
As well as this I grabbed some tea, opting for a summery flavour to try as iced tea as a way to cool down in this heatwave. Sadly this wasn't on offer and was pretty pricey at almost £3.
And the milk and chutney were just restocks of things we use a lot at home.
Final verdict
I admit there were definitely a few ways that I could have made the shop a little cheaper, for instance, leaving out the fresh pasta and just using more dried spaghetti, ditching the branded mango chutney, and swapping cavolo nero for a slightly cheaper green veg like the Waitrose Essential Kale (£1).
But as these are all things I'm likely to buy at Tesco anyway, it didn't seem a fair comparison to forgo them. With this in mind, my regular shop still seems like the better option as I definitely get more bang for my buck, especially as I'll need to supplement my shop with things I already have at home to make full meals.
While some of the cuts were great, some of them are on items you probably wouldn't bother including in a weekly shop, like bottles of wine, and some of the reductions just don't feel all that much of a bargain, even if every little does help at the moment.
That said, if you're a regular Waitrose shopper I think you'll see some savings when compared to your last shop.
But if like me you usually shop elsewhere, I wouldn't rush to switch supermarkets as there's a reason Waitrose is the most expensive one.
It's good for a special treat every now and then, but it's a bit much for the everyday.
Charlotte Di Cello, commercial director at Waitrose, said: “We’re investing millions in lowering the prices of everyday food across our aisles so customers benefit every time they shop with us.
“We’ve made these cuts with absolutely no compromise on the high quality, high welfare, and delicious recipes our customers expect from us.
“We’ll still react to any drops in food inflation and pass on savings to our customers as soon as the prices we pay begin to fall, and we’ll continue to pay farmers a fair price for their products too.”
Have you managed to do a cheap shop at Waitrose? Let us know in the comments below.
