Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Which are the cheapest supermarkets to buy from this year?
Many Brits – over a quarter, to be precise – are concerned about sliding into debt over Christmas, money.co.uk’s credit card statistics have revealed. Despite this, people are still faced with the traditional festive shop to stock up their shelves and provide for their families, so which supermarkets are offering the most tempting deals?
Asda managed to top Morrisons for the cheapest Christmas basket but actually, Tesco’s loyalty-based pricing provided the biggest overall savings. An Asda shop worked out nearly £3 cheaper than Morrisons when it came to a basket of twenty items and was exclusively the cheapest for eight: that includes some fancy items like Baileys, mulled wine, pigs in blankets and Bacofoil for your roast. Furthermore, the Asda basket worked out over 10% cheaper throughout the year.
Morrisons managed to put their prices down by 7.7%, with a 10.3% cheaper price month on month – again with the fancy Christmas items, they offered Christmas pudding, panettone, Shloer juice drink and turkey crown cheaper than rivals.
Sainsbury’s was pricier than Asda but worked out cheapest for five items – let’s go to those festive items again – parsnips and maris piper potatoes. Sainsbury’s gave its Nectar loyalty scheme members £10.82 discount on fourteen festive items.
Tesco sailed high again in terms of their Clubcard deals; so though technically £20.68 more expensive than Asda for a larger shop, 11 Clubcard Prices added up to a saving of £23.95, which is £3.27 cheaper than Asda. And even without a Clubcard, Tesco offered the cheapest deals on Christmas crackers and brussels sprouts.
Waitrose was the most expensive option, with only Innocent orange juice cheaper than elsewhere but with a full shop going over £200 where other supermarkets could offer prices more like £170.
There was a lot of festive deals activity between all five retailers, with 40% money off across a wide Christmas range. As for inflation, the year-on-year figure was 5.6% and prices were down 6.2% compared to November. Both Asda and Morrisons’ month-on-month savings were more than 10%. On the other hand, year on year inflation at both Sainsbury’s and Waitrose was 14.2% and 11.1%.
Beautiful