Milk is a poor example, as Colesworth sells Milk as a loss-leader to get you in the door.

Your local markets don’t sell processed grocery items (think cereal, biscuits, sauces etc). When I lived in Melbourne, I made use of the Preston Markets. My sequence was Fruit/Vegies > Eggs > Cheese & Smallgoods > Nuts & seeds > Meat & poultry > Asian Supermarket. That took care of about 75% of my shop. I then went over the road to Woolies for the remainder. Yes, I bought milk at Woolies.

In all the above examples, the markets were cheaper than Woolies. Doing this took extra time, but I saved on average about 20% (nah, it can’t have been that much. It’s been too long to remember. But it was a significant amount) on the items I bought at the markets.

I no longer have access to markets like this. I am very sad about that.