It’s usually not very difficult to find supermarkets but here are a few tips on where to shop and how to save money in Winchester.
By Graham Read
Where to shop:
- If you live in Erasmus park that’s great. You have a huge 24-hour Tesco justdown the road and a petrol station for Sunday afternoon milk emergencies. If you aren’t living in halls the Sainsbury store on Winchester high street that may be closer to you.
- The best place to find good value exotic ingredients is the Chinese food store on Parchment Street.
- Iceland has a bad rep for being a purveyor of heart disease but it has an excellent range of cheap frozen vegetables.
- Poundland also doesn’t seem like a great choice for quality food but there are some useful items to be foraged for in there (though mostly materials for fine art sculptors).
Where not to shop:
Try to avoid buying lots of your food in petrol station shops, the prices are on average a few pennies more than in normal stores. They also do not stock many bottom or mid range products or many essential items, probably because tired drivers are likely to pick up £12 cheese, aged in an old man’s beard because they just like the look of it.
Savvy saving:
- Foreign brands are more often than not cheaper than the mainstream ones. There are so many products that are grossly overpriced in supermarkets that you can find cheaper in the foreign food section of the same store. This is also where you can find some scrumptious cheap snacks that are on the healthy side.
- We all want to get some good fats in our diet but the price of nuts can drive you well, um nuts, but don’t let the superstores cheat you. It’s true, nuts, seeds and dried fruit are quite expensive but they are usually a little cheaper if you pick them up in the baking section rather than in other areas of the shop.
- Another place you can find cheap food is in the reduced sections but you probably already knew this.
Now it’s your turn to explore Winchester -there’s still lots to be found beyond the high street.
Written by Tess Gray
