Social connector and relationship and body language expert Katia Loisel appeared on Flow FM’s Country Viewpoint program this week to inform listeners that there are, in her opinion, practical ways to navigate soaring cost-of-living prices in the supermarket aisles.
Loisel began her segment by relating the current cost-of-living crisis in Australia to her personal circumstances.
“We are feeling the pinch at the moment, myself included…I have two kids at home and when you're trying to feed a family of four, it's getting tough because prices are going up, it's doubling for some things and speaking to Australians, it's become really difficult for Australians to keep to budget,” Loisel said.
“A lot of people are going without fresh vegetables, they're going without the things, a lot of Australians are really feeling that and so I guess what we've been talking about is the relationships that we have with our supermarket.
Loisel went on to make the connection between the marketing tactic supermarkets use to trick customers into believing they will benefit from buying items they don’t necessarily need and the cognitive effect the ploy has which can be directly associated to gambling.
“The prices are hiked up and then you have obviously have those yellow sales tickets…I like to call them yellow flags because actually what happens is when you go into a supermarket and you've got this blowing hot and cold, you've got the prices going up but at the same time, you've got these yellow sales stickers and that actually triggers the dopamine central in our brain,” Loisel explained.
“It releases that feel-good dopamine, so we see 20 packets of something and we put them into our trolley even though we only went there for some milk and that actually releases the feel-good dopamine associated with pleasure-addiction reward and that keeps us buying and buying and then we end up with a trolley full of $300 and we've completely blown our budget.”
Loisel provided listeners with tips as to how to better manage their grocery budgets during this ‘cuffing season’.
“My advice is if you find that you're stuck in a rut with your supermarket, familiarity breeds attraction, so we can stay in an unhealthy partnership whether it's at work, whether it's relationships, whether it's with our supermarket, for a long time - whole Pasta is used by date simply because it's familiar and that's comfortable and even if it's not good for us…so sometimes what we need to do is jump out of our comfort zone,’ Loisel said.
“So, that might just mean creating a list, sticking to what you absolutely need, never going to the supermarket on an empty stomach and or actually just having your meals delivered with a meal delivery kit service like EveryPlate with everything you need, nothing you don't. It's delivered to your door, you know exactly what you're spending each week and you're not going to go in and buy a million things that you don't need because I think that's what many of us are doing.
Also, when times are tough, some people might just also be buying things that they don't need just for the emotional aspects of it because of what we talked about, the dopamine aspects of it - it's very difficult to avoid that cycle, unless you have a lot of willpower, I certainly don't.”
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