Give me something cheaper

Recently, while shopping in Lidl, I noticed the following thing, and there was no other way, for quite some time, for several years, since the beginning of the recent crises, the increase in prices and my unemployment, I constantly observe the people around me, especially when we shop for food in the store.

A young man had entered the shop, perhaps on his lunch break, he looked like a construction worker because his work clothes were splattered with white paint. He had gone to the corner with the discounted products, looking at them in detail. This place is quite awkward because you have to crouch down to look at them. But there he was, crouching and rummaging through packages of hams and German sausages and pate and yogurt and all sorts of things.
Later he ended up at the same register as us, he was right behind us, so I saw what he had bought. He had taken only one tin of beer. Also one of the cheapest.
My partner said this is very typical of our latitude - to decide to spend your money on beer instead of buying something to eat.
I felt sad.

While the man was rummaging through the discounted products, I went there too, either to support him or something. I know a lot of people wouldn't bother doing this, but I was. For a while. Then I saw how many other people were doing it - looking for things on sale. But not discounted because of an organized weekly promotion. I have told you before that we mainly buy such things, but they often turn out to be of low quality, wrong batches and so on, the sellers know very well which products to discount. And every discount has a price, nothing is free in this country. However, here I am talking about the discounted products due to recent expiration.
There are products I can only afford when they are discounted like this.

I saw a ham in the man's hands and wanted to see its reduced price. That's actually why I went to him. Its price, even reduced, was still quite high. In fact, quite a few of the products in this section were priced very high, even on sale, no wonder no one bought them. And no wonder the young man couldn't find anything affordable even there.

As I said, I don't shy away from looking at these sections in the store anymore, they are spread out in several places and I go around and look at them properly each time.

I overcame this concern perhaps last year, when for the first time in the pharmacy my mouth uttered the words: "Give me something cheaper."
I was really amazed at these words, amazed to hear them from my mouth and felt quite strange.
However, the pharmacist then took out a product, very cheap, of whose existence I had no way of knowing. Perhaps it is almost no different from the expensive, let alone branded products.

I think that sentence had an effect. And I already say it quite often. Because we all know how artificially inflated our prices are and how traders speculate illegally. Every single one of them. Bulgarians have this bad habit of wanting to get rich quickly and easily, that's why they use every illegal or inhuman inflationary opportunity that opens up to them, the same disease infects foreigners who come to the country to do business.

But I'm stubborn.
Since the beginning of the crisis, we have changed a lot our way of eating, more precisely shopping. We just stopped eating some things. For example, we don't eat milk and dairy products. The original reason was the skyrocketing price, then we decided, we have stopped eating them for health reasons. I'm happy with that.

For Bulgaria, milk and milk products are a traditional and integral part of every kitchen and household, Bulgarian yogurt is patented and protected, I think everyone has heard of it, if they haven't tried it. I say this because Bulgarians grew up with yogurt and cheese, and most people would find it very difficult, even unthinkable, to exclude it from their menu. That is why I am particularly sad when I see poor pensioners buying the expensive cheese, at a price higher than that of the same product in the same stores in Germany. Or even worse, to buy from an imitation cheese product because they cannot afford to buy real cheese, as the prices of real cheese are higher than in Germany, as is the price of fresh milk.
But once we decided that the price of milk in the country is not fair, we no longer buy such products, and as I said, I am happy about it for health reasons.

It's the same with fruit too. I love watermelons and melons, for example, and only a few summers ago, watermelons were bought several times a week, and melons too, although more expensive. But this year, because of the high prices, I just decided that I will not eat these fruits anymore. I have an idea of ​​how much the rest of the fruits should be and I almost never take any of them either, because it's not fair to me.

Oh yes, I can imagine what that looks like - that I am depriving myself of the most useful and healthy things. But in fact this is not so. Fruit and vegetables in Lidl are usually poor quality and imported. Good Bulgarian fruits and vegetables are exported, of course. I'm not sure about the quality either in terms of poisons, pesticides, etc. And I don't want to go to the local market because I'm tired, I've told you before, of the bad and rude attitude of the sellers there, or of the price, quality and weight scams of random street sellers of local produce. There just isn't much choice.

That's why I prefer to take cheaper things, they will be just as low quality as the expensive ones. 😃 That's the logic here, and it's very conducive to doing business (but not being a consumer).

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|