Breadgate

A common by-product of self-employment is a wallet full of receipts. These often greatly outweigh the money enclosed; from a distance you'd be fooled into thinking my wallet was stuffed full of cash.

If I ever get mugged, my assailant will be sorely disappointed - unless he has a fetish for filing other people’s tax returns.

Every couple of days my wallet is full to the brim. At that point, the receipts are transferred to a shoebox - and then promptly forgotten until late January, when my self-assessment deadline is imminent.

When it comes to receipts, I’m a bit of an expert. Not that it’s taken long to reach this level; when you’ve seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all.

Until you start shopping at Marks and Spencer, that is.

The other day I bought a loaf of bread from my local M&S garage – and despite only buying one item, I was startled by the sheer magnitude of the receipt.

50p for scale.

It just kept coming out of the till. I’m surprised they didn’t have to change the reel half way through.

I’ve seen smaller billboards.

It’s a good job I hadn’t just done my weekly shop; the resulting receipt would have probably been visible from space.

Bread for scale.

  

Actually, that’s not the only reason to be glad; any more items and the resulting cost would have left me needing to remortgage my flat.

In summary, ‘breadgate’ raises a couple of important questions:

1)    At a time when recycling is so important, is it necessary to have a receipt this long for just a loaf of bread?

2)    Is photographing your receipts a cry for help?

Only time will tell.