With the cost of the weekly shopping bill steadily increasing, now would be a good time to review your domestic shopping habits.

Theo Paphitis, star of Dragon’s Den, claims that he would rather stick razor-sharp pins through his eyes than shop at Lidl. Lid,l for those of you who don’t know, is a discount supermarket chain of German origin with 7000 stores in 17 countries. When I read that article recently, in the Times, it made me laugh out loud. Not so long ago, I would have said something similar. For years, I have been a shop and label brand snob when it came to shopping for food.

I was convinced that only the larger supermarket chains, and the well-known brands could meet my refined needs and delight my culinary tastes. However, the need to watch my spending and the consequent discovery of low priced supermarkets, opened my eyes to a completely new world of shopping.

Look at the following scenarios and discover if you are a food snob;

• When you shop for groceries, you only ever buy well-known brands.
• There are buy one get one free offers, but you slavishly stick to what you know.
• Friends have told you a cheap lesser-known brand of food is really, but you can’t bring yourself to buy it.
• Food items have foreign labels so you refuse to try them.
• You are convinced that high price equals high quality.
• In a taste test, one of your favourite products does poorly but you’d still rather buy your known brand.
• You’ll travel to several shops to buy the brand you love.
• You’d rather go without, than risk trying an unknown brand.

If any of these sound familiar, it’s possible that you are a bit of a snob when it comes to food shopping.

When I decided that I wanted to become debt free, I had to look at every area of my life where I spend money. I discovered that my regular trips to the large well-known supermarkets, guaranteed that I would end up with a huge sum added to my credit card debt.

The first time I ventured into a low priced store, I found myself quite reluctant to buy anything. I just browsed, convinced there was nothing I wanted. Gradually I let down my guard and started to take a good look at what was being sold. Yes, they had name brand products - sometimes they were cheaper, sometimes they weren’t. I also discovered many new and different things, at prices that were significantly less than I would usually pay.

I strongly suggest swallowing that pride and venturing into the cheap shops. What harm can it do? Your grocery bills can be reduced by as much as 50%.