A comparison of supermarket prices.️
The independently poor lifestyle is one full of choices. I’ve often said it’s better to optimise your life for happiness than for money effectiveness. What I mean by that is that if my life’s happiness is greatly improved by spending a little bit more, well, then so be it. I’ll spend a little bit more.
On a related note: I dislike the word “cheap”. I hereby coin the word “✨money-efficient✨”. Other usages of this word include “money-useful”, “money-capable” and “money-effective” to mean similar-ish things.
Of course, living on a small budget means that plenty of choices are pre-made. As independently poor persons, we simply don’t have a lot of money to “burn” on certain luxuries. I don’t need to choose between a new Fiat or a new VW, for example because it is much cheaper to simply buy a second-hand Toyota. I don’t need to spend time and resources comparing these new cars because I already know any old Japanese-made car will be much more ✨money-efficient✨.
Anyway, back to today’s topic: weekly food groceries. I’ve bought at the local Picnic supermarket for years now because I like the convenience of selecting my required items inside an app and having everything delivered to my doorstep. I like to think this also saves a lot of time. After all, the alternative is that I walk to a supermarket, peruse the shelves manually, stand in a queue to pay and walk back home. Compare this to clicking “order again” and paying inside an app for let’s be generous and say a whole whopping 2 minutes.
But what if we have more time (but not more money) to spend? How much difference would there be between shopping at Picnic or shopping at Lidl? (Full disclosure here: I’m based in the Netherlands and this experiment was conducted locally. Your mileage may vary in other countries since we are expensive, food-wise, as this recent news item highlights).
So today I took the time to conduct a quick experiment. I walked to my local Lidl and bought some foodstuffs. Then, I opened the Picnic app and selected comparable items (as far as one-to-one comparisons were possible).
The results? The bill at Picnic comes to €59,62. Lidl to €41,42. So, Picnic is more convenient, but it’s ± 40% more expensive. I knew it wasn’t the cheapest option, but this is mind-blowing. From now on, I’ll once again do my groceries at Lidl.