My bank holiday as a #MorrisonsMum

This bank holiday weekend I have been very lucky to be a Morrison's mum with thanks to Morrison's and Britmums. 

I was really excited to see how Morrison's would measure up compared to our normal shopping at Asda as I had not shopped in Morrison's for a good four years. I stopped visiting Morrison's as I found them to be more expensive then other supermarkets but I was told that Morrison's had recently launched a new campaign where they have cut the prices of thousands of products. 

This is the start of a new cheaper Morrisons. 

From today, we've cut the prices on over a thousand of your favourite products. Not temporary reductions or supermarket smoke and mirrors, these are new every day low prices on the things you buy every week. So you’ll notice the difference with every shop. (Morrison's team, May 2014)

So on Thursday hubby and myself went to our local Morrison's in Ipswich to do our food shopping. When we arrived, the first thing that we noticed was that there was a good amount of parent and child car park spaces although we couldn't use one ourselves as we went shopping while the children were at school! We went to get a trolley and discovered that you needed a pound coin in order to take a trolley which did catch us off guard as Asda and Tesco's do not do this. Once we had brought something in order to get some change we were ready to get shopping!

Upon entering the store you go straight into the 'market street' where they have all of their fruit and vegetables. This really impressed me as they had a brilliant range and it looked really nice how it was all set out. I wish that I had taken some photographs while I was in store but I was worried that I may look rather strange snapping away while shopping! I noticed the yellow stickers and signs which say 'I'm cheaper' straight away as the first product I picked up was a punnet of cherry tomatoes which were priced at just 95p! 

At the back off the store was the bakery department which I must say was my favourite part of the store. They have so many different types of cakes and breads and all the things that I love. They also had things that I have not seen in other stores such as chocolate brioche rolls that are actually baked in store and cost £1 for 6 but were on offer 'BOGOF' so we got 12 for a pound and they were still warm! 

One of the things that I really liked was that there were still offers like the buy one get one free even though they have cut the price on so many products. They also have a great range of clothing, home ware and toys, things that I didn't even realise Morrison's sold. 

At the end of the shop while piling up the shopping onto the conveyor belt we started to get very worried as we appeared to have brought half the shop. I honestly thought that we had spent way more then the money and vouchers in my purse and I had visions of very awkwardly having to put things back as we would not have enough to pay for it all. When the lady told us our total we were well and truly amazed. We had spent £120 which was way less then we would normally spend for that amount of food and drinks. I even went through the receipt when I got home to check and see if they had made a mistake somewhere and not put all the food through the tills but of course there was no mistake, they really do cost less now. 

We managed to buy main meals for two weeks as well as normal grocery's for a weeks breakfasts, lunches and snacks as well as drinks and picnic food for our trip out on bank holiday Monday. Now for a family of five, I think that you will agree that £120 for that lot was very good value.

Our bank holiday Monday.

On Monday we went to Felixstowe for a day at the beach and a picnic and we were lucky with the weather as it was a beautiful sunny day. 

I brought a slow cooked sweet BBQ pork shoulder for £5 which you can either cook in the oven for 50 minutes or the microwave for 10 minutes. I decided to go for the microwave option as we were going out and it would be quicker and it cooked lovely. Once cooked you pull it apart with a fork and I generously filled 12 rolls for the picnic with it. The rolls were 32p for a 6pk so I brought two packets. So for 12 pulled pork rolls it only cost us £5.64 which works out at about 47p a roll or £1.13 per person based on our family of five which is far cheaper then if we had brought ready made sandwiches and much tastier too. 

The rest of the picnic consisted of - a 400g punnet of strawberries £1.69, mini cheddars 7pk 90p, a packet of cheese twists £1.09 and Billionaires flapjack 5pk £1.55. Total cost of picnic = £10.87 which for a family of five works out at just £2.17 each. Much cheaper then buying food out!

We had our picnic on the more quiet side of Felixstowe beach away from the amusements as we planned on driving over to that side later in the day but wanted to enjoy our picnic away from all the noise. It was lovely and Faith really enjoyed building sand castles and dipping her toes into the water. The pulled pork rolls went down really well with everyone which makes a change as there are not many things in life that all five of us like, there is normally one child that would moan! I loved the pork and it is the tastiest one I have ever brought so I will definitely be buying it again.

After the fun on the beach we drove over to the amusements and let the children have some rides and money for the arcade. They had a market on which was a bit of a let down as there not many stalls and the ones that they did have were not very good so I wouldn't recommend going to Felixstowe if you only wanted to look at the market as it would be a wasted journey. 

On the way home we would normally end up buying a take-a -way but this time I thought ahead as when I was shopping in Morrison's I noticed that they had a 'meal deal' where you can buy a main, side and desert for just £6 for a family of four. I decided to get the minced beef and dumplings, mashed potatoes and chocolate truffle desert. I brought a bag of frozen cabbage for £1 and two bottles of fizzy drink for the children as they were doing an offer - any two for 90p. The meal was more then enough for the five of us with the extra vegetable and all I had to do was put the minced beef in the oven for 40 minutes and cook the mash in the microwave for 8 minutes and then I just boiled the cabbage. The quality of the food was excellent and we all enjoyed a lovely family meal to round off a great day at a fraction of the cost of a take-a-way.

Overall I am very happy with my Morrison's shopping, it was all very high quality and great value too. I will definitely be shopping at Morrison's again very soon.

* We were given £80 in Morrison's vouchers for the purpose of this blog post, however, all thoughts and opinions are my own. Prices were correct at the time of my shopping. *