The Battle of the Biggest Discounters

I'm refusing to talk about the ongoing doom and gloom sweeping across the UK (it rhymes with obsession, regression, and various others).

However I wanted to write quickly about my own experience of discount supermarkets, and the introduction of bargain brands into chains such as Tesco.

Tesco now position themselves as Britain’s biggest discounter. I purchased an advent calendar for my baby son at the end of November and proudly hung it in the hall way, each day moving along to the next exciting part of advent.

On reaching December 18th I was rudely shunted straight to the 19th of the month. 16th, 17th…19th, 20th. Maybe this superstores discounting had gone a little too far? Whether it was just me that was unlucky, or all the 18th days had been lost somewhere, never to be seen again, we will never know.

Shortly before this my husband admitted that he was a little miffed that our son and I had both been gifted with advent calendars, and based on his new chocolate addiction, he was quite put out.
So, while visiting Lidl to scout for tasty treats for the Christmas buffet trolley (another story in itself), I spied chocolate calendars at the bargain price of 39p! Being the 10th of December I should probably expect to get a knock down deal, but you get to eat 11 chocolates on the 11th day, can't be bad.

I checked my purse and it must have been a sign because I had the exact change, so I scuttled excitedly with buggy, albeit it a bit of a wiggly line, to the checkout.

'Just this' I beamed happily. 'Just this?' questioned the checkout assistant. I nodded to confirm, slightly embarrassed that I wasn't with a trolley piled high with bargain buckets of chicken, yard long tubes of biscuits and one size fits all gloves for the family.

'It's free' he said. 'Free?' I croaked, somewhat suspicious. 'Free' he repeated, and so it went on - 'free?' I exclaimed, again. After this ping pong exchange, almost too chuffed to speak, I said 'thank you....and, and, Merry Christmas to you!'.

I glided out of Lidl, pleased as you like - there are some really nice people out there still....although I have a feeling he saw me counting my coppers, took in the small baby and took pity on my very apparent glee at having enough to buy a 39p chocolate advent calendar.

Admittedly from the 11th to 24th December, my husband tried to trade his days chocolate allowance for the luxury version from my Dairy Milk calendar - I thought it was supposed to be the thought that counts?!

Anyway, I liked the Lidl chocolate., and they are now by far Britain’s biggest discounter in my eyes.

p.s. Unfortunately I decided to stock the Christmas buffet trolley in Tesco, and this time avoiding the bargain basement, plumped for the finest ranges - no advantage of spending a little extra it turned out - it appeared that something small and squirmy had snuck into my bag of pistachios, feasted until he passed out, curled up and was discovered by my mother on Boxing Day.