It was time for a top up shop tonight but those nice people at Tesco made it much more interesting by providing an opportunity for me to stretch my mental arithmetic and memory skills. Last time I went there, I got a couple of discount vouchers. One doesn’t kick in for another few days but the other offered £10 off for a shop of at least £70. You don’t have to go wild to reach that kind of spending; the challenge is to get the best possible deal by fulfilling the list of things you need, not buying a bunch of things you don’t need and not being too far over the mark. At £70, it is approaching a 15% discount but the more you spend, the less significant the discount becomes compared to the overall cost.

I imagine there is probably an app to assist with this task but I chose to exercise my brain cells instead, holding a running total in my head as I made the way round the store ticking things off my shopping list. In the end, I was a bit more over than I had originally planned but there was also the balance of making the most of the one trip compared to having to make another too soon. See, it is a finely nuanced game! It probably does achieve the store’s aim of making me more likely to return there; on the other hand, if I make sure I don’t get tricked into excessive spending, I can win too.