Easing the perils of shopping with kids with Tesco Scan As You Shop

Shopping with kids has always been met with a battle face and back up box of Tesco’s finest wine in the fridge ready for the return of the wounded soldier and her troops… or maybe that’s just me and my people? Either way, shopping with the kids hasn’t ever been fun – from the time when they were tiny and would suddenly have the poonami to end all poonamis that would require 458 wipes, a peg for one’s nose and a strong gag reflex, to the current affairs that involves relentless pleading for various toys, endless dumping of “necessities” like sweets into the trolley and sudden bellows of “MUMMY I NEED A POO” down the frozen food isle, mid shop.

It’s not how I want to spend my Saturday, but guess what? Everyone has to eat and the harsh reality is that sometimes we have to leave the confines of the house and bring home the literal bacon.

Going back to the aforementioned issue of trolley dumping from the boys, I have friends who had warned me that this would happen on a regular basis and would often cause them either a.) a trauma at the till because of a meltdown or b.) a trauma at the till because (if you’re like me) you will fall into the trap of saying “Oh just throw it in the trolley!” to keep the peace and over spending by wayyyy more than you budgeted. The truth is that you can’t know exactly how much your shopping will come to when you’re adding up £3.79 this and £4.45 that for 50+ items. Unless you are a crafty shopper and use your calculator as you walk around – which FYI I would do but it is virtually impossible when Toby hollers “Can I have your phone mummy” every time he sees it – or a total mathematical genius, it’s insanely hard to keep a tally as you go, with added items in particular.

We were challenged by Tesco to use their Scan As You Shop system in store to see if it made our experience faster and easier and guess what? It did. There are so many times when you can’t have stuff delivered because of after school clubs, school runs, end of work days and even your location, that you literally have no choice but to go and do it yourself, but with scan as you shop I went in with the budget of £20 to grab some essentials and I knew, from the first item to the last, exactly what I could say yes and no to the kids over. Could they have that £2.50 toy if I wanted to buy X, Y and Z for the meals that week? Maybe not, but they could have the £1.20 Frubes that we bought. I could monitor exactly how much we had left over for little treats and the kids thought that “zapping” their items was the most fun thing in the world.

On top of that, anything that was scanned could be removed if I went slightly over the budget for that shop, without having that embarrassing “oh gawddddd I am going to have to remove items, I don’t have enough on me!” at the till. I could do it as everyone else passed on by in the fruit and veg isle without feeling embarrassed or stressed that I needed to get a move on. I also really fancy the shop and pack bags that you can buy next to the scan and shop stand – they are colour coded and allow you to easily pack your shopping, are easy to carry and totally functional in every way. We didn’t get any this time but I 100% will in the future, not just for ease, but also because I think it’s a great way to explain to the kids how to pack shopping so they aren’t mixing raw meats with veggies and kitchen cleaning products with yoghurt – if you start young and all the jazz.

All in all, the scan as you shop made life A LOT easier, it meant that I was able to speed around the shops before taking the kids to the cinema and if I had any demands for a toilet trip, it didn’t mean I was stood in the queue holding up a bunch of people or dealing with a potential puddle.

Tesco Scan As You Shop, we salute you!

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