The Grand Experiment: Week Eight

This was the fourth and final week at Morrisons, and provided a bit of a dilemma: should I buy just enough to get me through until Monday (and thus back to my normal shopping day, but leave them with only three and a half weeks), a full week (giving the right time, but leaving the annoyance of another week of shopping on a Thursday), or until the following Monday?

In the end, I decided to go for the longest option. This means there are quite a few things to discount from the list.

Anyway, this week's list:

• Shredded Wheat (30), £2.32
• Fruit Juice (2 x 1 litre), £2.46
• Milk (2 x 2 pints), £1.72
• Cheddar, £1.87
• Rolls (6), £0.95
• Yoghurts (18), £8.88
• Peanut Butter, £1.57
• Cooked Meat (3 packs), £5.00
• Almonds (300g), £3.00
• Chillies, £0.50
• Tomatoes (6), £0.88
• Pizza (2), £3.29
• Shampoo (2), £1.69
• Bananas (9), £1.29
• Lettuce, £0.50
• Cucumber, £0.70
• Mouthwash (boaky green flavour), £2.93
• Yoghurt, £0.78
• Cotton Buds, £0.35
• Mint (fresh), £0.75

The total for the week came to a mighty £43.12 (ouch!). However, from that I am going to deduct one of the packs of yoghurts (£2.96), one carton of milk (£0.86), two of the packs of sandwich meat (£3.34) and the cotton buds (£0.35). This reduces the total for the week to £35.61, which is considerably higher than the target of £13.30. Indeed, the total for four weeks of shopping at Morrisons now comes to £145.67. The total for Tesco was £123.36. As I'm not consciously aware of shopping for more, or for more expensive things (and, indeed, the salads should be less on average than the various curries), this fairly clearly indicates that Morrisons is not the winner. Given that I really didn't enjoy shopping there too much, I'm not too disappointed by this.

A week on Monday, I'll be off to Asda for the third and final leg of the Grand Experiment. In theory, they should work out to be the cheapest of the three. We'll see.