How to Avoid (Overly) Expensive Christmas Groceries at the Supermarket
You will have noticed over the past year that grocery shopping is getting more and more expensive. And all the Christmas shopping is still to come: Christmas breakfast, Christmas brunch, Christmas lunch, Christmas dinner, Christmas drinks… Still, there are ways to keep your Christmas grocery spending within bounds as much as possible, if you know how to shop smart.
The smartest way is not to celebrate Christmas at all, according to FavorFlav’s Sharon, but then again, no one in the editorial office is as gloomy as our own editor-in-chief.
Avoid overly expensive Christmas groceries (such as butter)
This is for everyone who has had Mariah Carey playing for days and has been busy for weeks choosing the tastiest Christmas recipes… I’m talking to you. Because I can see how cozy it looks in the supermarket at Christmas too, but many products, such as butter shaped like a little Santa Claus, are even more expensive than usual. In the end, it’s still just butter, and RTL Nieuws calculated that such a little Santa costs 25 euros per kilo, while regular butter costs €8.60 per kilo. Cha-ching!
You can do it more cheaply; for example, spread your butter nicely on a board (a so-called ‘butter board‘) and decorate it with some Christmas trinkets if you like. That will save you a lot of money.
So don’t let all the cute shapes and Christmas madness drive you crazy, but keep looking at the price and the ingredients. Albert Heijn now has an Excellence range. The products look much more luxurious than their own-brand products — but read carefully what ingredients they contain and whether buying products from this range really adds value. According to RTL Nieuws, for example, an AH Excellence steak consists of 88 percent beef and 8.3 percent water, while the own-brand version is simply 100 percent beef. Once again: luxury packaging does not mean a better product.
Make choices
But that doesn’t mean everything from AH Excellence is bad or attractively priced. Take their Champagne sorbet, for example; it costs €2.99 and tastes really good. You couldn’t make it yourself for that money, and for that price you get half a liter. But they also now have a Speculoos ice cream log on the shelves, costing €9.99. Honestly: tastier than a good old Viennetta, but with a classic ice cream cake you will be much cheaper off — and you can still tweak it with some caramel sauce, for example.
I also recommend the Beet Wellington (€4.99). Two people can eat from it, which is handy if you have vegetarian guests at your Christmas table. And if you’re going to stock up on vegetables, go for frozen. Cheaper, and chefs swear by them.
Shop attentively
So affordable Christmas shopping is certainly possible, but it requires preparation and attentive shopping. Look past all the Christmas madness for a moment, and you should be fine. We recommend shopping attentively anyway when you buy groceries; this is the best time to do your grocery shopping, and you should also stop making these expensive mistakes when you go grocery shopping…
