Now we're at the end I can say what an interesting challenge this has been for me. It has taught me a lot about what is important to me and what isn't, and compared to the secondhand year challenge I did, it was much more mentally difficult. I thought it was going to be mildly irritating, I didn't realise it would create so many brain changes!
For a week-by-week rundown of my highs and lows check out my previous blogs.
Highlights of the month
The food, oh my god the food! Not just the baked goods that I have delighted in indulging in, but also the fruit and veg. It's more than just been tasty too, it's reignited excitement I feel around food, particularly fruit and veg.
The travel and surroundings. I've been trying to see as many shops near me as possible, which has taken me through some lovely countryside. The shops I've been to have varied from crowded feeling “corner shops” to beautifully presented 'lifestyle' stores. I'm neutral on how I feel about the crowded shops but spending time in the beautiful stores does feel good for me. Also, there are sometimes dogs to pet and and and and sometimes there is a mini horse in our local pet shop! I haven't met it yet but I will...
The folk. Everyone has been lovely and we've chatted about all sorts of things without rushing or it feeling forced. For a long time in my community, the only people I had contact with were the women who worked in the shop and I think we often underestimate how much those small positive interactions can help your mental health.
Feeling fancy. I'm just gonna say it, going to some of these shops feels very fancy, and it's a nice feeling!
Lows of the month
In hindsight, I don't feel any particular lows. The first week was really difficult, which you can read about in more detail here, but once my mental discomfort improved I can look back without it affecting the whole month. If I were to give anyone advice on trying this I would say to check out all the shops you think you might shop at before you start so you can make proper decisions without too much work.
Neutrals
Finding out my physical tolerances in my new (very well used, the previous owner was definitely not careful) fibromyalgia body.
Challenging my own 'programming' and how that has created shifts in me that will hopefully carry on for the future. I've put this in neutrals as it ends up a positive but feels very negative going through it!
The stuff you really want to know
I asked a few people what they wanted to know about this challenge and all the questions were pretty much the same so here are the answers from my month, yours of course may be different.
The big one. Cost
I want to caveat this with I don't think a month is long enough to do a cost comparison however, I have done my figures.
This is of course based on what I buy which could be vastly different from you, but I don't think our shopping patterns are in any way extreme, we buy items at a selection of price points, but I rarely choose the famous brand version of a product preferring to save money and get the own brand instead. Also for those who are new here, we are a family of 2 adults, 2 dogs and 1 cat. We aren't very wealthy and need to stick to our budget.
It did, as everyone thought, cost more but only by 11% which is easily EASILY accounted for by my impulse buys! Normally when I shop I think about my budget and I didn't do that at all this month. With only an 11% margin I absolutely could do it for the same or under, and that's with us having the same much higher quality food.
A knock-on effect of having more expensive, higher-quality food, is that we've been much more mindful of it too. I don't think we usually waste more than average, in fact, I think we probably waste less than most, but we've thrown away less and we've found ways to stretch things to an additional meal as one, it's been super tasty, and two, we've considered it more valuable.
Something else that happens with more expensive food is that a little goes a long way. There are plenty of meals you can make with fewer ingredients, such as our fried egg sandwiches with local eggs because the single ingredient itself is so good. Those made a great tea for under 40p a head.
As I said in my previous blog, if you look at it as taking your shopping list and replicating it product for product it will likely work out more expensive due to the supermarket tactic of loss leading and the wider choice of products, however, if you look at it as a list of 'problems to solve' such as 'dinner for tonight and breakfast for the week' you are likely to be able to come in at or under budget, and without the extras we all buy at the supermarket (but replaced by local baked goods!).
And there have been items I've found were cheaper or were the same price, including petrol, and I generally feel that if you're going to the supermarket and buying all name brands then you can shop in smaller shops for the same money.
Fuel efficiency
Again I think this is something that would need longer to figure out properly however, over the month I've used around the same amount of petrol as in February. If I take out the hospital visit I had then it would've been less. The other thing is I did drive more than I would if I keep shopping this way, as I wanted to check out all the wee shops in the area, and sometimes if I needed a particular thing instead of going to the closest shop where I could get it, I would go further to stick to the challenge.
During the challenge, I discovered that Google maps now tells you which route uses the least fuel. I was delighted to find that the slightly longer but gorgeous back road route to Edzell I wanted to take uses 8% less fuel! That's pretty cool to me. This information seems to only be available on the app just now and isn't available through the website.
Selection
There was nothing in the month I couldn't have gotten had I gone to the right shop. I maybe wouldn't have got the brand I wanted, but I would've got something to fix whatever problem I had.
Dog food was something I found tricky and that I had to go to an actual pet shop for. I could always get something in the 'everything' shops but it might just be enough to feed them for a day or 2 whereas generally I buy big bags. I wrote about how going to my closest pet shop seemed out of my price range but I went to another pet shop and got a 4kg bag of dog food for only 20p a kilo more expensive than Tesco's own brand, and cheaper than any of the other brands of dog food Tesco stock. Now that I've had to sit here and type this up, I realise both of the pet shops sold dog food cheaper than the Co-op where I usually buy top-up bags. (Just a note, of course, price isn't my only interest in my dogs' food but all these foods mentioned are absolutely fine for their needs).
Something I noticed near the end of the challenge is that most of these stores don't stock things in big packages. I tend to buy certain things like laundry stuff and loo roll, in bulk – depending on price and storage and if I can lift heavy things that day! - and in all of the wee shops I was in there were lots of products you could only buy in a small pack. On top of that, very large companies often make special smaller lines just for these types of shops so they seem cheaper. This isn't anything clandestine on the part of the shopkeeper but rather just what the large companies, then wholesalers, make available to them. I noticed this with a couple of things I bought this month – Fairy liquid and Cadbury's instant hot chocolate – but they were still very affordable.
Something we did find we miss was having things to nibble on in the fridge. Something easy to grab that's more than a biscuit but less than a sandwich if you get what I mean! Usually, we'll have onion bhaji's or pakoras or mini pies that we can grab. I didn't see anything like this anywhere.
Access and Convenience
For me, access was pretty easy. I have a car and without driving more than 15 miles could access lots and lots of shops. This will of course vary depending on where you live. There are 5 shops within 4 miles of me.
Very few shops were wheelchair accessible or would be suitable if you need extra room to bend down, and some would not be possible if visually impaired.
None of the shops were busy or loud.
Most shops don't have trolleys, and some don't have space to really cater to baskets either, so they're just not set up for doing a 'big shop', however, if you need something heavy lifted or you need additional help, all the staff I encountered were more than happy to do that.
With my lifestyle, it was fairly convenient to shop like this, certainly no more inconvenient than having to do a supermarket big shop. I think I only queued once or twice in the whole month and even then it was less than a minute. Now I know what I can get in which shop, it will be even more convenient.
What, if anything, will I change after the challenge
I was surprised by how many alternatives I had that were closer to me than a Co-op, which are absolutely everywhere in rural areas. Not just that, but I perceived the Co-op as being cheaper which it isn't.
The challenge showed me how led we are by supermarkets not just into buying products on the spur of the moment, but also how their practice of loss leading has shaped our diet, as well as their very low prices on perishable items in bags leads to additional food waste. Not just that, but their fresh foods are pretty poor quality.
I also have a better idea of which items are important to us such as getting the milk we like and having those savoury snacks in the fridge. The fridge snacks are generally not even on my shopping list but apparently they're a household essential!
I feel like I've gained time and I don't need to pencil in a day in the week to go to the supermarket and discount store shop. Going to a supermarket does not add anything to my life except the temptation to buy things I don't need or are shit for the planet, or both.
I've been thinking hard about whether this is something I'll always continue or if I feel relieved that the month is over! And honestly, I feel both things. I don't think I've done it quite long enough for it to become ingrained habit yet, and the branding and marketing of the supermarkets is still a pull, especially at the moment when everyone is feeling the pinch. There are also items I just can't get, like our preferred milk, and other items such as loo roll, cleaning, and laundry items, that, I think, are a better choice to get elsewhere not just because I can get them cheaper but also because I can get them with more eco-friendly packaging from more eco-friendly companies.
I decided to test my feelings and went to the Co-op. My first feeling was disinterest. I usually love the fruit and veg aisle, but I found it disappointing and plasticky. I was relieved to not need bread. I checked the discount section and got something I didn't need, but we will eat at some point, and finished off by forgetting the damn milk I went in for. I certainly didn't feel any relief or sense of abundance, and this is going to sound pretentious af probably, but if I could live my best life it definitely wouldn't include shopping somewhere like that with bread I can't eat and fresh produce designed to be thrown out.
I still have a lot of feelings to wrestle with. I feel dread at the idea of going into a supermarket with less good food and the queue, but I also feel guilty because I've been raised with not wasting money being a virtue and I should always have the most meager existence. But money is just a tool to give you the life you want, and the life I want includes local shops in villages that do favours for community groups and give school raffles prizes, eating good food, having a nice time, and doing what I can to minimise my impact on the planet. Check in with me in 6 months and I'll let you know how I go!