Morning:
8°c
How low can they go? Our big stores are starting to look a tiny bit desperate, so slashed are their prices. But I'm not in the mood to help reboot the high street. This Christmas I'm keeping a tight grip on my credit card.
What I won't be doing is sweating over the small change. Last week my newsagent told me his business has suffered a sudden, sharp decline. Everyone's saving on the little things, he says. He's selling a third fewer copies of The Times, and just a single FT a day, down from the usual 10.
His business stays afloat by using credit cards. Though he exclaimed, with raised fist: "Don't worry, I will keep on fighting!", I realised shops like his are on the front line in this recession.
The dangers of this kind of scrimping have never been so evident. Every week in my house we reassess our luxuries. Should we cancel the milk delivery? It works out at 80p a pint, nearly twice the cost of a plastic bottle in the supermarket. And those muddy parsnips, mouldering in the organic box- can I justify throwing them out one more time?
Perhaps I'm being perverse but I'm hanging on to the extras for now. I can't help thinking of the effect on my suppliers if I change my habits. That's the thing about buying ethically - I know where my veg comes from. It's produced by real farmers whose names and life stories are delivered on a newsletter in my box. If they've had a dodgy potato harvest, I know all about it.
My milk - in a proper bottle with cream on top - is from an organic dairy in the West Country. I believe they're doing the right thing, producing good food humanely and sustainably. I'm a scrimping refusenik because I want to keep supporting them.
But there is another motivation behind my reluctance to tighten the pursestrings: quality of life. A carrot with flavour, milk in a glass bottle, a daily chat with my newsagent - these small things lift the day and add a dash of authenticity to my routines. Why should the credit crunch rob me of these small pleasures?
So as politicians and big store owners urge us to spend, spend, spend, spare a thought for the little people. They'll be the first to go as the country tightens its belt another notch. Our lives and our local economies will be worse for it. Don't let them suffer death by a thousand cuts.
Reader views (9)
With the time saved on long distance shopping trips, Charlotte can probably do an extra hour's overtime a day - more appealing to most than sitting in traffic breathing carbon monoxide.
Giving up the car completely would mean savings on the scale of an extra holiday a year, caviar and champagne and a hog roast every week, milk and organic vegetables delivered, and still coming out ahead of the car-queue motorist clogging up our roads and destroying the planet.
Local shopping makes sense in every way. The wonder is that small shops can survive at all with planning bias (witness the free parking awarded to supermarkets and buses which don't stop near small shops on their way to Westfield). They must be infinitely more efficient than the hypermarkets even to survive!
- Reg, London, 01/12/2008 10:21
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Wow, so Charlotte can afford to have milk delivered? How can she complain about the credit crunch? Put in an article about someone who can't really afford to shop in a supermarket like everyone else! She is not representative of the general public.
Why? A well off (well if you're paying 80p a pint) person complaining that she's contemplating cancelling her milk delivery? Get off your seat and shop like everyone else.
Next thing we know, someone will be complaining about not being able to have their caviar....
- Average Joe, london, 29/11/2008 16:27
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I can assure Matthew Cain that as bigotted or not as I may be, Stoke Newington is 'posh' compared to the blot on the landscape where I live (on the edge of 3 boroughs who REFUSE to take responsibility for the entire area in case they accidentally do a favour to one of the other boroughs). Talking of refuse, we don't even have proper rubbish collection, let alone recycling. Environmental health don't give a damn and as for immigration, I think they'd have a field day if they actually visited the shops and found out who is 'working' in them. I say 'work' as some don't seem to be shops. I didn't even know vinegar had a sell by date until I bought a bottle in my local shop that was 3 years out of date plus some instant noodles that had been chewed by mice! Most local restaurants have got zero on the health and safety website (that means a complete failure to comply with even the bare minimum of standards) - how do they stay open? Cos the council want their business rate taxes! Some shops have turned into prayer rooms and aren't even shops at all and there is no way that the ones that look like shops but don't ever open are making enough money to pay for their electricity bills let alone staff costs, 'stock', council tax, etc, so the question is what are they really doing??? If that makes me a bigot, bring it on, I'm all for confronting money laundering fronts that cover up illegal trades such as drug dealing, people smuggling and coerced prositution.
- Real, London, 28/11/2008 17:23
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I live in N16 and don't recognise "Real"'s account of local shops. Unfortunately, without further evidence, I can only assume Real is a bigot.
- Matthew Cain, Stoke Newington, 28/11/2008 12:17
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I dunno where you lot live, but I live in N London. Where most small shops are bizarrely stocked with out of date products in filthy tins with no English on the label. No doubt the staff are illegally working here, some don't speak a word of English and make is plainly obvious they don't even want any customers. Money laundering fronts I believe is the correct terminology. I would much rather spend my money in Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda, Somerfield and get good quality, well priced, clean, hygeinic, products along with a nice check-out and a carrier bag. Thank you.
- Real, London, 28/11/2008 09:06
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...but of course the real reason for the collapse of small businesses is the overbearing burden of legislation and directives, most pouring out of the European Union and adding a massive burden to the running of any sort of business after they have been rubberstamped by our powerless parliament - but of course large businesses campaign FOR these regulations because the costs of imposing them fall inequitably on smaller business and rub out these competitors. Until we deal with this, no amount of people going on about chatting with newsagents or oohing and aahng over environmentally friendly clotted cream will make a blind bit of difference...all that will happen wil be that the buig businesses will take on the mantle of providing these things. Local authorities are bad as well, gold plating rules, banning small businesses from putting tables outside, using health and safety rules when these are clearly spurious and false (simply to raise revenue). But where are the newspaper campaigns roll back these rules and regulations?
- Damian Hockney, London, UK, 27/11/2008 22:18
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I'll be trying to buy as much of my xmas goodies as possible from my local shops. This may work out slightly more expensive, however, I think it helps save our high streets from the large, faceless chains that have taken over in recent years.
These small independent shops are the life and sole of many neighborhoods so it's important that we try and support them in these turbulent times. Tesco, Sainsburys and Dixons will all be there in 10 year time, your local butcher, green grocer, fishmonger and wine merchant may not!
- Pete, N1, 27/11/2008 16:40
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May I ask Charlotte Ross what exactly is she worried about? Why is she contemplating cutting back on everything? Does she have a job? Have things changed so drastically for her that she now has to cut back? Or is she just another journalist waffling on and being the cause for the economic downturn?
- D Payne, London, 27/11/2008 16:35
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Groceries on line from Tesco,reading the newspapers on the computer,no wonder small,independant shops are suffering.
- Eric, London UK, 27/11/2008 15:18
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