A mum has abandoned popular discount supermarkets, claiming that her family “save so much money” by shopping at Marks and Spencer.

Despite M&S’ reputation as a more luxurious place to shop for food, Charlotte, a mother-of-one, insists it offers better value for money and superior quality.

The Glasgow-based content creator, who shares her life hacks and parenting tips on her Instagram page @mamatoflow, managed to purchase five days’ worth of meals for her family of three for just £52.

Charlotte’s shopping list included chocolate, crisps, fruit, vegetables, pasta, cereal, spices, sauces, beans, eggs, and more. “We decided to ditch Aldi and start shopping at M&S and not only are we saving so much money, but the quality of the food is so much better,” she stated.

The mum recently posted a video of her food shop on her page, admitting: “Being totally transparent, I do understand why people get a little bit of a bad reputation for themselves when they exclusively shop at M&S. We’re a family-of-three, we’re a relatively young couple to have had children anyway and there is also a cost of living going on at the moment. We’re a single income household.”

Discussing the quality comparison, she added: “One thing that really does wind me up, especially as a household which consumes so many fruits and vegetables, is just how poor the quality of [budget supermarket] produce is – more often than not.

“To be totally honest when I did that food shop last week [at M&S], I was kind of expecting it to be a little bit of novelty but as it turns out it was kind of on par with Aldi for a lot of things, but that is definitely excluding things like meat – but personally I am willing to sacrifice on those things.”

The mum does not want to “ever be that person” who says you should shop at M&S instead of budget supermarkets, because she recently also shopped at Asda and Aldi, but she prefers M&S. “I’m not above shopping at those stores,” she insisted.

People rushed to agree with the mum, with many pointing out the good quality at M&S. “I’m with you on this one, M&S is good quality and Sainsbury’s,” said one individual. Another commented: “M&S, rice, pasta, tea bags, condiments, breads and frozen sections are fantastic value. Also their Good Move clothes for exercise are quality value too.”

A third said: “Absolutely agree with what you’ve said about the quality. We started shopping at M&S a couple of years back and on the occasion I’ve gone into other supermarkets their fruit and veg has been terrible in comparison. The taste, the longevity and I don’t see a huge difference in price either.”

But some people pointed out that the mum didn’t get all the items they would include in a typical weekly food shop. “I didn’t see any actual dinners in that trolley, just fruit and veg,” said one.

Another remarked: “There isn’t enough items here to cook a proper family meal for a week – no meat, no fish, nothing to put on a sandwich, no yogurt, no treats hardly. This is just a trolley of items not meals.”

Meanwhile, an Aldi regular pointed out: “I shop at Aldi and I just can’t afford to do the same shop at M&S but if that’s your weekly shop mine is twice that size. I buy the fruit and allow it to ripen as I’ve found in anything the fruit needs more time.”

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