The best Christmas gift in my stocking was a
Palmolive shaving stick. Well, he’s easily pleased,
you might say. What I really enjoyed about this gift
was how thoughtful it was. It came with a brush in
a stylish toilet bag along with my favourite
shampoo; all packed ready for a trip.
The shaving stick replaces the can of aerosol foam
that I’d never really liked. The foam was messy and
not particularly smooth; it was expensive and I
hated throwing away the empty tins that carry
ominous warnings like DO NOT PUNCTURE OR
INCINERATE. So I discovered the pleasure of shaving
the old fashioned way. What’s more, it was another
useful yet inexpensive thing that I could buy locally.
This humble shaving stick got me thinking about
how realistic it is to shop locally.
If you judge local stores on price alone, the
superstores win hands down. If you’re shopping for
a large family or on a budget where every penny
counts, then it may not be practical to buy that
much locally. But is price everything? Where does
the shaving stick come in to this?
I haven’t done any scientific comparisons of the
contents of shopping trolleys, but I do wonder
whether the trip to the giant out-of-town
supermarket isn’t a giant con. Do we really need all
this stuff? The 10 different olive oils or 100 varieties
of frozen pizza? And all these aerosol thingies?
It’s amusing to see the Co-op in Highworth opens a
half hour early on Sunday for ‘browsing’. 30
minutes to browse the Co-op? They must be having
a laugh; you can look over the entire contents in 10
minutes! But that’s one of the reasons I love our
Co-op: it doesn’t take long to do the weekly
shopping. And because there’s not as much choice
as the superstores, there are fewer distracting things
to blow the shopping budget on.
Let’s park the price question for a minute and think
about the other factors at play here. Do we have
time for shopping in big stores? What about the
cost and time taken in travelling to the superstore?
It’s at least a 10 mile round trip – 500 miles a year –
not to mention the time wasted in the car, cost of
driving and CO2 emissions. Can the hard working,
stressed out resident honestly say they enjoy it? I
never have, and I reckon there are a lot like me
(including women) who think this way too.
Back to the question of price, maybe the solution is
not to spend more, but rather to buy less – only
what we actually need.
To help you shop for only what you need,
Highworth Link has secured exclusive distribution
rights for the Anorak’s Local Shopping List. You can
download it from www.highworthlink.co.uk.
There’s a section to plan your weekly menu (so you
only buy what you need and cut down emergency
shopping), an aisle-by-aisle checklist of the Co-op (so
you can make your list and whiz around quickly), a
list of local stores (so you can see what’s on offer)
and a place to note the few items you need on your
occasional foray to the superstore. With practice,
you might even spend less!
Editor |