Topic: short measures

[ACE]

I don't look at the common things we buy, but Douwe Egberts 100g jar of coffee is now 95g. Same size jar and same price, but we got caught out today.

Lets all list these short measure merchants and perhaps once we've had the heads up we can avoid being ripped off. Who else wants to add to the list.

[betula]

You have to be alert whan shopping these days

Iceland are at it again,Pedigree dog food,buy three for £1.50 buy six in a pack for £3.25

[SMP1704]

Four bottles of sparkling water in Tescos for £3.50 or two bottles for 70p ???  :o. Cunningly placed on opposite shelves.

[Chrispy]

My all time favorate is from a while back when kellogs put New Bigger Box on some of their cereals.
Some people took offense to them making such a big deal of 'giving the contents more room to move around'.

[antipodes]

It happens with loads of products and no one ever notices. The standard size of family crisp packets has sneakily gone from 200 g to 150g - never see the price changing though, except to go up. Happens a lot when packaging is changed to look more attractive - prettier, maybe but also smaller!!!

[SPUDLY]

Condoms for me. Still pay the same, yet now i'm older i need a smaller size. :P ;D

[cornykev]

Looks like its the missus who's being Short changed, Spudly.     :-[ :-[ :-[    ;) :P

[saddad]

I don't look at the common things we buy, but Douwe Egberts 100g jar of coffee is now 95g. Same size jar and same price, but we got caught out today.

Lets all list these short measure merchants and perhaps once we've had the heads up we can avoid being ripped off. Who else wants to add to the list.

Pubs that serve froth instead of beer...  >:(

[Poppy Mole]

Actually heard a father instructing his young children how  to check out the multi-buy prices against the ordinary price yesterday in Sainsburys  & then decide if it was worth buying.

[Melbourne12]

There's another way of sneaking in short measure, which is simply to water the product down.

For example, Marmite is much thinner than it used to be.  I suspect that they did it originally so that it would work in those sqeeze packs.  When nobody minded, it became standard.

I'm quite fond of Branston pickle (vulgar, I know, but too bad  ;D ).  Some years ago the formulation changed several times until it was a disgusting slop, and rather regretfully we gave up on it.  But some people obviouly liked it, because it then was reborn as "original" and the watered down version called "small chunk" or "sandwich" pickle.  

The classic example, years ago now, was the brilliant invention of "low fat spreads".  Since margarine must, by law, contain 80% fat, simply changing the name allowed the manufacturers to reduce the fat content to 70%, then 60%, and nowadays down to below 40%.

[lincsyokel2]

What you have to realise is that the big supermarkets, ASDA, Tesco's, Morrisons, etc pull a very smart con on us. A couple of years ago, we started to seriously look at exactly what we bought and how much we were paying.

The fact is that if you solely shop at one supermarket for everything, you will pay through the nose.  All supermarkets run a set of lines that are cheap, and the rest of there stuff is expensive. This means you have to work out which products are cheapest in which supermarkets, and ONLY buy those products. For a while we rotated round four supermarkets, one a month, buying a months supply.

Then we started to compare little known brands in cheaper places like Aldi  and Lidl. Some of the stuff they sell is better than the known makes, and usually  alot cheaper. So we then started to switch in lidl and Aldi into the rota. Two years ago our weekly shops was about £60. Its still £60, but if we bought all from one place it would now  be nearer to £80.

The trick is to realise they are all expensive for something, and you need to spot it.

[Crystalmoon]

I agree lincsyokel2, Im on a very tight budget so now I check online first what items are on offer at which supermarkets & plan several shopping trips so I get the best value products from each of them. I dont drive so it doesnt cost me any extra in petrol etc to shop around, just takes abit of extra walking  ;)
I also tend to shop every 2 weeks as offers often change in a month x jane

[antipodes]

In the continuing saga - I buy Domestos but  not often as I find a little goes a long way. I bought a new bottle this week, and when I went to put the old bottle in the plastics bin, I thought, he ho it's a different shape. Had a look - sure enough before it was 1 litre and now it is 750 ml!!!!! But I couldn't say if there was a price difference as it was so long ago. However I would not be surprised if the price hadn't budged. That is a 25% difference in volume...

[lavenderlux]

At this time of the year (and in the run up to Christmas) all the big supermarkets seem to have offers on tins of Roses, Quality Street etc, every year the weight is a little bit down on the previous year.

[claybasket]

I read somewhere  that packaging was going to get smaller big company's didn't want to put up the prices ,even though there was a world shortage of wheat ,coffee the usual stuff :-\and we were are going though a recession ,I did think is this another con ???

[lincsyokel2]

food companies need to be forced to cut the useless packaging - look at chocolate easter egss, the packaging on them must cost more than the contents costs to make.

Especially if the councils are planning to charge us for removing rubbish by weight. (have you had a new wheelie bin recently? - then odds are you'll notice its smaller, and a lot of councils are supplying bins with a hidden RF microchip in so if the get the go ahead  they will wiegh your bin as the tip it in the lorry and send you a bill for the weight you chuck out -  and if thats the case, all my packaging will stay at the supermarket till as its scanned)