A Free Meal?

I know I could be accused of being cynical but I fully believe there is no such thing as a ‘free meal’. This is doubly so when venturing to the supermarket. I have loyalty cards for each of the supermarkets I use as they all offer money back. This money is of course not due to the supermarkets generosity; I pay for it with every purchase I make. So if I don’t collect and use this money I am just adding to the supermarket’s profits, and Tesco alone made £2.5 (4.9$) billion profit in 2007 all from it’s producers and customers.

Here in France the money you accumulate over the year is wiped out at the end of the year so now is the time to use it up. So when the supermarket had an offer of grain-fed, free-range, non growth hormone pork I cashed in my total. Well for Leclerc Villeneuve at least. The credits you accrue are shop specific so I will go to Leclerc Bergerac over the next month and us up my monies from there.

It turned out that I had 58.96€ to use at Villeneuve and I bought 2 entire bellies at 17.44€ and 11.52€, and a leg of ham for 22.61€, making a total of 51.57€ so I even had a little left to use against the rest of my shop.

I try not to go to the supermarket too often as I always spend far more than I expect to but when I do go it’s because I’ve gone through the publicity material we get each week listing the various offers. Sometimes the offer is just a straight forward reduced price item they don’t usually sell but other times it is a cash-back offer onto your card so I stock up on items when they are on offer. Of course it only makes sense if you would buy the item anyway but even little amounts add up over the year and I’m sorry but I really don’t see why the supermarkets should get even more from me than they already do.

Anyway, enough waffle I have pork to deal with and more posts to follow showing what I’m doing with the meat.

PS Thanks to everyone’s kind thoughts on Snowy; I just want to get her back and cuddle her – only another 4 hours to wait!