do you save money by online food shopping?

My wife does online shopping/ delivery, and meal plans too. She says it reduces waste.

To be clear, she also does stuff like making soup in the slow cooker, using the roast chicken carcass from last night's tea.

I know she doesn't like going shopping with me as I buy loads of rubbish- biscuits etc.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I go when I need something and I walk there. By walking there I seriously limit what I can carry so in turn limit myself getting lots of “3 for 2 deal” or excess and even ultimately just simply spent less.
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I go shopping in a small 2 seater roadster which has a very similar effect!
 
I seem to find myself in the supermarket at least every other day. I doubt we'd switch to online though. The don't go shopping when your hungry is completely valid. We'll often have a list and tend not to impulse buy. Last impulse purchase was a grapefruit, which I didn't eat :(
 
robfosters said:
And horrendously overpriced ingredients. Anyway, weekly shopping is a lot more than just your dinners.
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What is overpriced exactly? A meal for two is what, 8 quid normally. If you're buying interesting, balanced meals with meat, fish, veg etc, it's pretty good value. If you're just living off pasta or pizza or whatever, sure, you could eat cheaper.

If you're cooking for two, you won't be able to buy the ingredients for most of the meals for less in a supermarket, which I've tested by just using the Gousto recipes and doing the shopping myself.
 
I do online shopping mainly due to health reasons, my biggest problems with it are, unavailable items and terrible substitutes, also low quality selections, the person picking obviously doesn't check if it's a good cut of meat or the fruits and vegetables are in good condition.
You also get damaged items, we had shopping delivered yesterday that was particularly bad. Chicken breast had been opened due to heavy stuff placed On top of it, one of the cartons of milk had split and leaked. The apples were terrible quality and the tomatoes were mouldy.
This all gets refunded so it doesn't cost anything it's just inconvenient.
Sometimes the substitutes are better items than what you ordered. You also get extra items sometimes that you didn't order.
 
I like the actual looking around the supermarket and deciding then and there what to buy based on what takes my fancy, I also like to split between Tesco and Morrisons so generally go to both on the same day, I also am just me, so online shopping with minimum spends and delivery costs can cause me problems.
 
iron_monkey said:
I do online shopping mainly due to health reasons, my biggest problems with it are, unavailable items and terrible substitutes, also low quality selections, the person picking obviously doesn't check if it's a good cut of meat or the fruits and vegetables are in good condition.
You also get damaged items, we had shopping delivered yesterday that was particularly bad. Chicken breast had been opened due to heavy stuff placed On top of it, one of the cartons of milk had split and leaked. The apples were terrible quality and the tomatoes were mouldy.
This all gets refunded so it doesn't cost anything it's just inconvenient.
Sometimes the substitutes are better items than what you ordered. You also get extra items sometimes that you didn't order.
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We found this when we did online too. Fresh stuff was often rubbish, a refund is all well and good, but if it then meant I had to physically go to a supermarket anyway to pick up the stuff it made the whole thing pointless.
Supermarkets are full of staff picking things for online orders now, the way they have to rush around doesn't give them much time for checking quality imo.
 
Dis86 said:
Spend less online but that's because a remarkable number of items are out of stock!
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Yet you pop into the shop and it's sat there on the shelf....

Me and the wife are convinced that they say things are unavailable to either a) buy an alternative at generally higher cost b) force you to go to supermarket and buy additional rubbish you wouldn't have usually bought.

We do online shopping because it saves so much time, and we haven't got to deal with inconsiderate people and the hustle and bustle which makes the whole experience stressful.
 
Online I can compare price per gram, which is helpful for things like meat special offers, or branded vs. supermarket range.

Also I'm much less likely to buy junk food online.
 
Gousto forever. Honestly, every other option is just terrible IMO. It’s the future. I’d recommend it to everyone.

So much more variety and no, it’s really not ‘materially cheaper’ to buy such a variety of fresh ingredients yourself. To the extent that it is more expensive, it’s worth it. It also helps with portion control.

Of course, it does depend on your preferences. I like that I get increased variety and I generally hate meals that are ‘3 random simple things bodged together’.

For the doubters, give it a whirl! My preferences are for the curries / Asian / Mexican / spiced dishes which usually have a nice fresh side to go with them.
 
Sorry for the ‘double post’ but just as an example, on Monday we had tortilla wraps with pan fried salmon, with a spicy citrus sauce, sesame seeds and a nice fresh hand made ‘slaw’. It was truly tasty.

There is no way in a million years that I would pick to cook this dish (or even any salmon dish) without spending time researching new dishes etc. Salmon without the Asian twist is just a bit bland IMO but this was great.

Admittedly, I do fully delegate the choosing options to Mrs. Nitefly and encourage her to go random, because it means a ‘surprise’. But she doesn’t agonise over it. When there is one we particularly like, we do make a note of it. There was one curry dish with fennel seeds recently that really threw me as I typically find fennel overpowering but it went really well here. Another great one was a dish with peshwari naans made from scratch, adding a tuneric, sugar and butter glaze. Not expensive ingredients but again, I never would have thought to do this.

TLDR - Gousto is a cheat code for accessing tasty and relatively balanced home cooking. 110% worth it.
 
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mid_gen said:
Just use Gousto. Nice food, sensible portions, no food waste, no messing about with shopping lists.
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I tried a few of these. But never felt the price/quantity/quality ratio was good enough.

Too small portions and not good enough ingredients for too high a price.

I did like some of the recipe ideas. But as soon as the trial price ended it was just too much.
 
We always do online. Just takes too much time to trudge around the supermarket plus faff of getting there. Plus I always get too many treats going there.

I will go if I need a top up shop though. But that's the only time
 
413x said:
I tried a few of these. But never felt the price/quantity/quality ratio was good enough.

Too small portions and not good enough ingredients for too high a price.

I did like some of the recipe ideas. But as soon as the trial price ended it was just too much.
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Portions are bang on if you're eating a sensible amount, and you'd have to try pretty hard to to manage a similarly varied and interesting menu for less money.

My only complaint is the packaging, but it's preferable to having to spend more to buy too much in a supermarket and have it go to waste.
 
mid_gen said:
Portions are bang on if you're eating a sensible amount, and you'd have to try pretty hard to to manage a similarly varied and interesting menu for less money.

My only complaint is the packaging, but it's preferable to having to spend more to buy too much in a supermarket and have it go to waste.
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The packaging was horrendous. The foam and freeze packs in particular. Gf was not keen on that. Filled up too much of thr black bin.

I found that if I stripped the recipe and bought the ingredients from the supermarket it was much cheaper. Especially as can drop some off the non essential things.

I liked the principle. But the cost was just too high for us.
It was much more expensive over a month we found than our regular shop.


I built and excel vba powered tool for helping our 2 weekly shop though using the recipes.
So if I want 4*beef stew + 4*curry (let's say) . I select that, and I get an auto generated list of ingredients and weights/quantity/volumes to just buy.
Really sped up the process of ordering
 
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413x said:
The packaging was horrendous. The foam and freeze packs in particular. Gf was not keen on that. Filled up too much of thr black bin.

I found that if I stripped the recipe and bought the ingredients from the supermarket it was much cheaper. Especially as can drop some off the non essential things.

I liked the principle. But the cost was just too high for us.
It was much more expensive over a month we found than our regular shop.


I built and excel vba powered tool for helping our 2 weekly shop though using the recipes.
So if I want 4*beef stew + 4*curry (let's say) . I select that, and I get an auto generated list of ingredients and weights/quantity/volumes to just buy.
Really sped up the process of ordering
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Hmm, must have changed since you used it, no foam or anything. Just cardboard and a single freeze block. Packaging for the rest is no worse than supermarket.

I can see if you're bulk cooking and/or happy eating the same stuff every week you can sure eat cheaper, but I really value the variety, particularly all the Asian dishes. Would spend a fortune buying all the smaller fresh ingredients in a supermarket.
 
Beans on toast

Its the way forward

In all honesty,

I can walk to my local asda

So, i find myself impulse buying a lot although i do a good job of saving money tbh

When your single you find yourself not really taking care of yourself in the eating department, sometimes skipping meals

I probably eat more better meals in work, as i dont have to cook it, and its generally cheaper here

i snack mainly at home
 
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