BOGOF Heaven! (Safeway)

Member Name: queenofsheba

Product:	Safeway
Date:	10/10/01 (402 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: grat bargains, cheap petrol

Disadvantages: Its not just down the road from my house!

I've always like shopping at Safeway ever since I first stepped through their doors about six years ago. In the beginning it was the lovely large clean and bright store that I fell in love with, together with the fact that I was so impressed with the range of food that they sell, there was so much choice in there. I also liked the ABC loyalty card but they've done away with it now so no point in going into to that.


Before they popped up in my hometown the largest supermarket had been Somerfield and their only competition was a small Kwiksave and a small Iceland. But now they had real competitors in Safeway because it was so big and the offers were and still are brilliant.


I used a few of Safeway's stores, Hawick, Kelso, Llandudno and currently use one of the Inverness branches, occasionally popping over to the Ullapool store if we happen to be there.


I must admit that I've thought about trying out Tesco again, I haven't been there for a long time, but they don't have the offer of 5p off per litre (up to 100 litres) of petrol provided you have spent £40 in store like Safeway do. We fill the car up when we go, as the difference in buying the petrol here and getting it locally is about 15p per litre, so the money we've saved has more or less paid for the journey there anyway! Some times the offer is 10p off per litre, which makes it even more worthwhile for us, as we live quite a long way away, and only shop once every month to six weeks.



We always try and get there early round about 9.am, Hamish hates crowded shops and will spend very little time in them, whereas I don't really care about the crowds as long as I'm getting my bargains.



We always do well every time we go ending up with lots of reduced to clear items and BOGOF (buy one get one free) ones too. I find that when an item is reduced in Safeway the price is usually slashed to next
to nothing, almost giving the things away. Bread for instance is often reduced to 10p a loaf and although I make my own now, I've bought a couple of loaves at this price and either used them to make toasties or fed them to the birds! I got some cheese at only 9p per block too and it was still inside the use by code, I took some home, made cauliflower cheese for tea and the rest was used up in toasties too.


We've had some really good offers on meat as well, every time we go across there is something on offer. This time it was chicken fillets at half price, last time it was lamb, the time before that it was sirloin steaks. Needless to say we grab loads of it to fill the freezer - you just have to,local shops in my area just can't compete.


In the reduced to clear we got some nice lamb chops and some more chicken, there was quite a bit of fish (salmon and trout) there but I tend to give it a miss I like mine really fresh but I suppose as long as you used it as soon as you got it home it would be alright.


I buy a few items from their own brand range of goods which are called Safeway Savers. Some of the stuff is very good indeed, like the rich tea biscuits, custard creams, plain flour and self-raising flour, tin foil, all for a fraction of the price of similar, more familiar branded goods. The plain flour is particularly good value at 9p for 1.5kg bag, compared with my local shop where the cheapest is 69p. It works absolutely fine in my bread maker and cuts the cost of making bread by about 20p per loaf. The self raising flour is good in cakes too, its worth 18p to try them out wouldn't you say?Tinned tomatoes are always useful and I can get mine for 15p and sometimes they areas low as 11p per tin, not bad I think you'll agree.I don't use the washing powder in this range but I have bought the fabric softener. It's only 36p for a 2 litre bottle and I just use it when I wash the the dog bedding.

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The thing I like about Safeway the most, is that I can buy everything I need under one roof, in fact it's very rare that I've come out of the shop with an item missing because they've sold out, it's more likely I've just plain forgot to put it on the list. The choice of brands available throughout the store is outstanding.





The fruit and vegetables are pretty good too, although we grow a lot of our own vegetables now, we just can't grow everything we need and Safeway has a lot to offer in terms of selection and price. There's always loads to be found at a reduced price and lots of BOGOF deals and you can find things that the local shop doesn't stock. Most of the things I get from this section are at least half the price of local shops in and around the area I live.



We've never really had to wait in a long queue to pay for our goods, probably because we tend to get there quite early in the morning, we usually get some help with packing the shopping too even though there are two of us to do it for ourselves, but the trolley is pretty much groaning under the strain of a months shopping or four people and would probably shout for help itself if it could! This help speeds things up no end and usually goes back into the trolley much better, saving more perishable items from getting squashed or split open.

All the staff in general are happy to help and point you in the right direction if you can?t find the item you are looking for. A pleasant change from the usual, "Huh? I dunno" school of shop assistants.




I love shopping at Safeway. I get to shop in a nice clean warm and airy store that has a great selection of quality goods at bargain prices, helpful staff and a free Safeway magazine too!



Now then, I think it's your turn to pay Hamish, darling!


Happy Shopping!

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