Trolleys at Dawn

These times, friends, are difficult times. We are, at this moment, caught up in a grisly war. But these armies fight not with bombs or guns, but with loyalty points and discount vouchers. The Great Supermarket Price War is upon us.

Tesco seems to be losing. Well, if you call owning a majority market share losing. First they were forced to back out of rivalling ASDA's lower price guarantee and now their Big Price Drop has been labelled a Big Price Hike. It seems that a lot of the products they pledged to reduce the cost of, they had increased the cost of in previous weeks. Cheers to the Times for spotting that one.

They have also announced their worst sales figures in 20 years. People are quite literally shopping elsewhere.

ASDA's Price Guarantee shows no sign of slowing, though I may grow tired of fishing through other people's receipts in order to claim a 15p money off voucher.

Sainsbury's is also assembling its troops, offering money off vouchers on branded items if their prices are not the same or lower than other supermarkets.

The practical upshot for us is not as brilliant as it might seem. Supermarkets are vying for our attention, but they still want our money more. So, no matter how much they offer to drop the price of one item, they're still going to raise the price of others.

My advice is, just ignore them. Tesco supposedly put half a billion pounds on the "Big Price Drop". That might sound like a lot, but we won't see an awful lot of it. Also, they wouldn't have put half a billion in if they didn't think they'd get it back.

They are after our money. Remember though- we are after their food.

Moneytastic is online!

Welcome to Moneytastic, an offshoot of the Sachtastic blog dedicated to the less boring side of financial matters. From handy saving tips with your home finances, to humorous discussion of the economy, it's all here, every Wednesday.

Just a quick tip on how to save on your food shopping- ASDA, as you will probably know, are advertising their Price Guarantee, whereby you enter the receipt details and, if your shopping is less than 10% cheaper than it would have been at their competitors, they give you a voucher for the difference.

I'm not saying shop at ASDA. I'm just saying, if you do, this is well worth it. I've done it five times, and out of those five, received a voucher twice. Not for life-changing amounts of money, but still, for money.

As with loyalty card schemes, the trick is not to get too swayed by the offer. The money back is a reward for shopping with the company, and not an incentive to do it again.