I have nothing to report, particularly, on the progress of my challenge, because frankly, it’s all going fine and far from ‘suffering’ from a loss of supermarkets, I’ve benefited in more ways than I could have imagined. It has made me particularly impatient with a certain breed of shopper, though.
Two months ago, almost to the day, This is Money published a story about how the middle classes were flocking to Poundland to buy, amongst other things, DVDs of Hamlet. The Daily Mail seem to be a bit slow in the uptake, publishing almost the same story on Friday two days ago, albeit with revised figures. Nobody could accuse them of hacking a phone for that story.
Take a look at these people – most of whom have no need to shop in Poundland. These will be the same people who will lament the loss of local community, probably voted for the ‘big society’, and will lament the way the high street has suffered at the hands of the supermarket. Yet they will do nothing to support local shopkeepers. It’s true you can get great ‘bargains’, you have to ask yourself whether you actually wanted any of them before you went in. As the author of the This is Money article says, you save money, but you also buy a ton of stuff you never needed. More to the point, Mr Kiplings Bakewells might be cheaper in Poundland, but imagine if you just didn’t buy them at all? How cheap would that be!
Oh and the birds in my garden can’t stand the fat balls from Poundland. They leave them completely untouched, whereas the ones from the pet shop in Tooting Market disappear in days. Just saying.
