When faced with the dilemma of where to do your weekly shop, the major supermarkets are undoubtedly your first choice.
But Joshua Knapman, a colleague at our sister paper Wales Online ditched Asda, Tesco and the other usual retailers to see how budget store B&M fared on stocking up the cupboards. This is what happened...
First up, there's no frozen or fresh fruit and veg sections here, so while that's a slight hindrance, I was confident there'd still be enough of a range to buy a week's worth of shopping to live on. I could always pick up my fruit and veg at another store or nearby greengrocer.
There were also a few other food items that we didn't manage to secure from our shopping list at the B&M store in Cardiff Bay - this particular shop doesn't stock bread or alcohol and they were out of eggs on this occassion.
But there was milk, cereal, pasta, tinned food, pizza and biscuits - plus things like toilet paper and washing up liquid.
And there were some major savings on particular items, like a box of Twinings tea bags for £1.99, way cheaper than what I could find on the Tesco website.
The results
The shop came to £37.84 , which for 31 items (34 when you include three bags) seems reasonable. I was expecting to spend a little less, but the draw of big-name brands at a cheaper price than some competitors can add up.
Here's what I bought - and I've put prices of the equivalent items from Tesco in brackets for comparison.
Food and drink
Milk (two litres) - £1.09 (Tesco - £1.09)
Pasta (500g) - 45p (Tesco - 56p)
Uncle Ben's rice (8 pack) - £1.29 (Tesco - £2.85)
Tinned tomatoes (400g) - 29p (Tesco - 35p)
Heinz Baked beans (415g) - 65p (Tesco - 75p)
Vegetable soup (400g) - 39p (Tesco - 95p)
Kids yogurt (6 pack) - £1 (Tesco - £1)
Cheese (300g) - £2 (Tesco - £2.70 for 450g)
Mini rolls (15 pack) - £1.99 (Tesco - £2.49 for a 10 pack)
Biscuits (300g) - 49p (Tesco - 45p for 400g)
Twinings tea (80 bags) - £1.99 (Tesco - £3 for 50 bags)
Kenco Millicano coffee (100g) - £2.89 (Tesco - £ 2.35)
Richmond sausages (213g) - £1 (Tesco - £1.40)
Dolmio pasta sauce (320g) - 50p (Tesco - £ 1.49)
What we couldn't get
There's no fresh or frozen produce at B&M and there was no bread or eggs either.
This is what that additional stuff would cost at Tesco.
- Onions - 75p for a 1kg bag
- Cucumber - 50p
- Bread - 800g toastie loaf for 55p
- Pack of peppers - 95p
- Beef mince - 500g for £1.69
- Salad tomatoes six pack - 69p
- Six free range medium egg - 89p
- Frozen peas - £1.30 for a 1kg bag
- McCain home chips - £2 for a 1.5kg bag
- Mixed vegetables - £1.40 f0r a 1kg bag
Total: £10.72
