“Poor France”, “And the gasoline?”, “She’s right!” : this customer goes to four supermarkets to do her shopping and divides Internet users

This Sunday, September 29, “Capital” makes its big return on M6 at 9:10 p.m. The emblematic show presented by Julien Courbet delves behind the scenes of mass distribution with three burning themes that touch the heart of the daily lives of the French: the hegemony of MDD (Distributor Brands), XXL formats and the injustice of price differences. price. This last subject, the first to be discussed this evening, lifts the veil on staggering price disparities depending on the region. An in-depth investigation reveals that these discrepancies can create a dizzying hole of 1,300 euros per year in household budgets… for the same shopping basket. Faced with these glaring inequalities, the show highlights the ingenious strategies developed by millions of French people to optimize their purchases and preserve their purchasing power. Among these astute consumers, the story of Anne, a single mother from Pau, particularly attracts attention. The latter has developed a very particular method for shopping at a lower cost, defying the statistics and algorithms of supermarkets.

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“It’s not a life to do that…”

Driving school instructor with a monthly salary of 1900 euros, Anne lives in an area known to be expensive. To control her budget, she developed an ingenious technique: a notebook where she meticulously lists the prices of products in several supermarkets, to the nearest cent. “I don’t want to go over my budget. I have a budget of 50 euros for the week so I have to have everything on the table for the whole week for 50 euros,” she explains to the “Capital” journalist. After an hour of comparing prices with her son, Anne begins her shopping marathon and does not hesitate to visit four different stores to find the best deals. His method would allow him to save 10 to 15% each month, including gasoline. Drawing on her experience, Anne even created a participatory application with her son allowing users to share the prices charged in French supermarkets. This approach sparked more than mixed reactions on X (formerly Twitter). Some Internet users welcome her initiative: “Well, the lady even calculated based on the price of gasoline and SHE’S RIGHT! Good for their faces! I’m doing 3 brands but not on the same day!” Others wonder about the viability of this method: “Like the customer is going to make 50 stores for 50 products, what about gasoline?” Finally, some see it as a reflection of a worrying economic situation: “It’s not a life to do this, I hope I never be in this situation, it’s too terrible.”