Tonight:
4°c
Thanks to my grandad, a proud Thatcherite grocer from Amersham, I have always been something of an expert on price comparison. I'm also a food snob. I was taught always to buy the best you can afford. But how do you define that in a recession?
The parameters are shifting. After sales at M&S food fell by 1.1 per cent last week, yesterday Waitrose lost its market share. This bad news comes too late for me anyway, though. My Waitrose and M&S Food days were over long before the recession hit. I stopped shopping at these temples to good taste three years ago after the birth of child number two. They had become too expensive - and were home to too many exciting but expendable treats.
No, what concerns me now is the dip at Sainsbury's, my current shop of choice. Its sales have gone up only four per cent while Lidl is up 11 per cent and Aldi is up a whopping 20 per cent. And everyone, it seems, has gone to Iceland: it's up 13 per cent. The pressure on me to at least investigate these unappealing low-cost outlets is mounting.
Most worryingly, my neighbours - whose house is worth twice ours and who reside overall, I suspect, in a rather more comfortable income bracket to us - have been spotted with Lidl bags. Not even that, they've been brandishing them. Apparently the German biscuits and mini packs of apple juice are wonderful - and they're virtually giving them away.
What will it take for our household to slide into the budget-shopping demographic? Aldi boasts its car parks are full of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis. I feel like it's beckoning me personally. (We have a Mercedes A Class. We qualify.) Nonetheless, I have decided I would rather give up going on holiday this year than buy knock-down smoked salmon. Indeed it will take full-scale redundancy and negative equity before I defile the memory of my grandparents and go down the German biscuit route.
My grandparents' proudest achievement was to become middle- class. For them, this meant being able to avoid shopping at Londis or the cash and carry. They were thrilled to treat themselves to ready-made M&S trifles. It would be a betrayal for me to shop at places where you can buy food at less than what it costs to produce it. Am I losing money by being a snob? Maybe. But it's all about priorities. Too many people are using the recession to justify this middle-class vogue for buying low-priced tat. It's a form of class tourism: "Look at how high we piled our trolley - and for pennies."
I'm not even convinced the Aldi converts really need to make these savings. Not yet anyway. And after two generations of my family moving up the food chain, I'm not prepared to accept downward class migration for the sake of a few pennies (or even pounds). Especially as I've already come down a notch from the trifle option. (One day I'll be back, M&S Food. Please wait for me.)
A little extra help from Angela
What is the recessional etiquette regarding a spouse's birthday? After my husband spent four weeks in bed with flu, I decided I could justify spending just over £100 on taking him out to dinner — even if I would bitterly regret this Marie Antoinette moment in the months to come. Thanks to clever Angela Hartnett, Gordon Ramsay's protégée, we almost managed it.
At her newest restaurant, Murano, on Queen Street, she offers a three-course à la carte menu for £55. The extras make it seriously good value: you also get “free” truffle risotto balls, two rare kinds of Parma ham, five types of artisanal bread served with organic olive oil, eight (yes, eight) kinds of sorbet and countless petits fours. The ideal last supper.
Then came the bill. With the new VAT totals the cost had gone down to £53.84 a head. Hey, every little helps.
Still priced out of Putney
Thanks to the Evening Standard's Property Barometer I began to rant and rave to my husband that we could afford to move back to Putney because property prices were coming down. We can't, of course, as (a) it's mad to move now and (b) our own house in Teddington will have depreciated anyway. I do like to forget about that bit. Plus, in my blind optimism, I misread the prices. The five-bed Putney house of my dreams is still £900,000. I read the price for the year 2000: a much more realistic £400,000.
I harboured a fleeting admiration, then, for Peter Mandelson who seems to have accrued myriad mortgage arrangements in order to live at the most covetable of addresses. What's his secret? I know, I know, let's not even go there. I am hereby banned from reading the Property Barometer.
Reader views (6)
As a single, I recycle my supermarket carrier bags and use them as bin liners. As a non smoking, almost non drinking single, I treat myself , many, many times, to M&S food - until this week that is.
I refuse to pay even 10p for one of their bags to advertise the company on my way home. Having prepared nearly 32 pounds worth of M&S food goodies at the checkout, I was told in no uncertain terms, that I could only have one measly, mini bag to carry my goods home in.
I left all 32 pounds worth of goods with the cashier, returned home and cancelled my M&S money card. After all, Sainsbury is just next door and I have two Waitrose within a 10 minute walk.
Oh, Waitrose is so very nice!
- D Payne, London, 15/01/2009 19:39
Report abuse
What exactly, in the author's opinion, is it that makes these outlets "unappealing"? If it is simply the cost (being lower) then surely this is something to be welcomed? Or are we Brits simply snobs, wishing to appear richer and less concerend with cost than we are. In Germany and France, for instance, people are not prepared to pay over the top just for the M&S or Waitrose (or equivalent) label. In fact quite on the contrary: one is deemed gullible and plain stupid if one does so. Not for nothing are Germans known for high quality. The quality at Aldi and Lidl, in my experience, is certainly no inferior to British supermarkets, except that one does not have so many of the frilly UK brand names. Savings are made through bulk purchasing and selling goods straight out of the boxes they came in (much like one would expect at a market stall). I strongly suggest the author try it for herself; if necessary a pair of dark sunglasses and a hat should provide the necessary disguise to keep her incognito.
- Sarah, Englefield Green, Surrey, 15/01/2009 16:22
Report abuse
As a brit living in germany i find these stores, aldi lidl netto pennymarkt rewe and more have excellent products,not the brands brits know but most of better quality.The germans are very choosy.So Viv stop being so inhibited and get on down and take the Berlin taxi(Merc)
- Kit Reed, koblenz germany, 15/01/2009 14:29
Report abuse
I've been shopping at Asda for years but recently went into an Aldi store thinking I wouldn't be too impressed. I was really surprised. The fruit and vegetables are super fresh and very good value for money (even cheaper than Asda!). The quiches are delicious and the frozen salmon and other fish is good quality and very reasonably priced. They also sell some unusual deli items. I would use them more regularly if I lived near one.
- Lisa, London, 15/01/2009 12:13
Report abuse
Have you ever been? Don't knock it till you've tried it....!!!
- Andrew, London, 15/01/2009 12:10
Report abuse
Aldi in USA is known for great fresh fruits and vegetables. Unlike other srores it does't require a bank loan to buy them . I am not too snob to patronize this German food chain, nothing wrong to save money for those high priced Restaurants.
- Chuck, Brazil, USA, 15/01/2009 11:13
Report abuse
