With energy bills having gone up hugely and general costs of living continuing to spike, we've all been trying to find ways to save cash recently. The skyrocketing cost of fuel, National Insurance rises, and the price increases in supermarkets are making things difficult right now, and have made many of us more keen on finding the best deals out there.
While I don't proclaim to be anything close to perfect when it comes to minimising my environmental impact, I try my best to keep food waste as low as possible. So it came as a welcome surprise, during the first lockdown, when I heard about the Too Good to Go app.
If you've not come across it before, Too Good to Go works by connecting customers to restaurants, supermarkets and cafes in their area that have an unsold surplus of food. By going on the app, you can find a huge range of places near where you live that offer food at cut prices throughout the day. You pay in advance - it normally costs one third of the original price of the items - and collect your 'magic' bag at a certain time. You can get more food news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Read more: Too Good To Go guide for Cardiff: When and how to get the best food bargains
The catch, of course, is that because businesses don't know what will be left unsold until nearer the end of the day, what you end up with in your magic bag is a surprise until you pick it up.
While it's definitely worthwhile and good for the planet - I've used it myself quite a bit and received an impressive and varied amount of food for a fraction of the price - it can be hilariously unpredictable. Earlier this month one of our reporters had a big shock when they tried out a £4 magic bag from Pret A Manger. You can read how that went here.
With that experience in mind, I decided to try my luck again by ordering a £4 magic bag from Starbucks in Cardiff. The process was typically easy - use my location to find the nearest Starbucks to me, pay online and wait for my pick-up time.
Although I wouldn't usually pay many visits to Starbucks, I was somewhat familiar with what's on offer. Teas, coffees, and the standard enough smattering of assorted sandwiches, toasties, ciabattas and cakes. As I strolled up to collect my bag of goodies, I had no idea whether I'd be left with enough tuna melts and cheese toasties to get me through the rest of the week's lunches, or a few packs of sugary caramel waffles and still be in need of cooking dinner tonight.
The cafe was pretty empty, and after making myself known to the waitress I was handed one of two paper Starbucks bags sitting on the counter. I immediately dashed back out to my car, eager to peek inside and see how lucky (or not) I'd been.
If previous experiences sometimes show a lack of variety, this time I couldn't complain. Inside my 'magic' bag was a sausage sandwich, two chocolate chunk cookies and two cinnamon swirls. A generous mix of sweet and savoury, I was quite surprised at how much I'd been given despite having no real expectations going in. Helpfully, the bag also contained a typed note with details of exactly what was inside, and instructions on how to reheat any items supposed to be served hot.
Like a kid on Christmas morning, I opened up my takings in front of me when I got home and dug in. The sausage sandwich looked a little sorry for itself on first look, but after a bit of sprucing up in the oven for 15 minutes, the bread was crusty and the sausage nice and hot, if not overly flavoursome.
Moving onto dessert and filling up, I tried some chocolate chunk cookie and cinnamon swirl, both of which were, once again, perfectly acceptable and not far outside of what I'd have expected for a cafe chain dessert.
Interested to find out how much I'd saved on my bag of magic, and not frequenting Starbucks often enough to know, I looked up how much each item in my goodie pile cost. A quick Google search brought up a price list website which, if correct, told me my bag would have originally costed £13.30. While I'd hardly have ordered multiple cinnamon swirls or cookies myself, I considered this quite a lot of money, and felt a bit better having snagged it for just £4.
Reflecting on my Too Good to Go experience with Starbucks, my conclusion is similar to previous experiences with other restaurants; if you are lucky enough to get food with decent sell by dates (my sausage sandwich was expiring the next day), or you have a freezer, you can save a good amount of money. Otherwise, you'll likely get a bargain but might literally end up biting off more than you can chew, unless you've got family members or housemates who can help you out.
I won't be rushing out to Starbucks again for a while, but I certainly can't deny I'd got value for money, and I'd recommend Too Good to Go as a good way of making use of unsold food. Just don't have dinner beforehand.
