FRIDAY 10 NOVEMBER – LITTLE INTEREST IN SAVING

Well, I managed to last for 8 days and I am now back into my Friday lunchtime routine. So, what happened today? I’ll guess I’ll start with my old friends the ‘Basics’! I bought some Basics toilet rolls and whilst I surmise that basic means simply cheap, frankly with toilet rolls I’m not that bothered. They look as though they have less sheets (or whatever the technical term is, shits perhaps?) and are less wide than Andrex and the like but they look OK to me and I’m sure will do the job (actually I will do the job and then them….). I did do a bit more investigating of the Basics range and there are quite a few canned vegetables that are in the Basics range – tomatoes, peas, baked beans (yes, I now know these are pulses but they’re near enough a vegetable as to make no difference). As I presume these are simply other brands with utility labels, I tried to compare the style of the tin that Basics tomatoes are in with the other brands of tomatoes to see if I could see any similarities. Well there were some, same size, same number of concentric rings etc but nothing conclusive. Maybe I’ll buy some Basics and their equivalent ‘real’ brands and compare the products? Then again, perhaps not. One thing I did notice was that there are tinned potatoes in the Basics range. Tinned potatoes! Whatever next? Whilst in the (real) vegetable area I had to pick up a wodge of those small plastic bags that you put your vegetables in as they had tumbled onto the floor. And they are quite heavy! So, each individual bag has some weight, albeit small, and this has got me thinking as to how the weighing and pricing all works. For example, my chicken (small, still 1.3kg and £2.79…. scary) is priced at £2.15 per kilogram so it should cost me £2.795 to buy it but I am only charged £2.79. So Sainsbury’s have lost 0.5p. Hurrah! I wonder if this ‘rounding down’ is normal? Anyway, my carrots weighed 0.455kg and are priced at £0.69 per kilogram, so this works out to 31.39p and I was charged 31p. Fair enough. But doing the same sum with my potatoes (are you still with me?), this worked out at £1.2753 and I was charged £1.28. Also fair enough, I think. Anyway, what it means is that 0.5p and below is rounded down and above 0.5p is rounded up. I wonder if there is any law or practice (correct spelling, note) on this sort of thing? I don’t think there is a regulator for the retail industry (Offshop perhaps) but Sainsbury’s could always round the exact 0.5p up rather than down, now there’s a thought, I bet it all those pennies would net them a tidy sum and nobody really could complain (or even notice). Hey John (King, CEO, big cheese etc), there’s an idea – but remember who thought of it first. I asked to have my Nectar points deducted at the checkout and the cashier said I didn’t have any. Untrue, I think what she meant was that I had less than 500 and therefore had not reached a cashing-in point. Which is what I thought would happen. So, I think that wraps up Nectar points, although I did notice I can get them on my electricity bill, but it’s such a palaver (there’s a good old word you don’t hear very often these days) I’m not going to bother. I parked on the hugely high Level 4 today (I have given up my aim of parking in as many spaces on level 1 as possible as I just can’t seem to find one most weeks, disappointing but there you go). No oxygen supplied but I did notice that the décor in the corridor is like new – clearly few people get up this far! OK, not particularly interesting, I know, but 'interest' leads me neatly on to the Sainsbury’s Savings offer which I have checked out. It says ‘Think Big. Up to 4.60%* AER’ but on delving into the small print on the bottom of the last page I find that the * means an investment of £100,000 and above is needed! I have to say what I have put by is a bit short of this HUGE amount. And AER is defined but again not until the small print on the last page and anyway is virtually impossible to understand. I think it basically means you get less than you think you will! Maybe it should be LTYT instead? But the real killer is that the blurb explains that the Sainsbury’s rate is higher than than the average of several hundred other similar accounts. So, the slogan on the front of the leaflet shouldn’t be ‘Think Big’, but ‘Think Just Above Average – That’s Us!’. Not a vote winner, I admit, but nearer the mark. So, three Sainsbury’s offers down (car insurance, pet insurance and savings) and not many left to go. Next week, I’ll be checking out their loan offer, I think I know what my conclusion will be. Finally, I had another Lorraine Quiche on my bill today (French tart, you’ll remember) and a Roll Poppy (lucky Poppy and something for me to look forward to). Sad person that I am, I bought a country granary loaf hoping for an inappropriate abbreviation on my bill but it wasn’t to be …

Items bought 28

Cost £44.22

Cost per item £1.57

Checkout number 16

Nectar points balance 280