Revealing the secrets of the supermarkets

There's a good reason why you spend more than you mean to every time you pop to the supermarket - going in for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread and somehow spending £15 on biscuits and cheese. It's because everything about your local supermarket is designed to get you to spend more money. So before you set foot inside one, it's worth being wise to the most common tricks of the trade.

See also: 10 tricks to cut your grocery bill in half - without coupons

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We reveal ten sneaky tricks all supermarkets will use to make you spend more.

1. Bulky items by the door
There's a reason why those enormous boxes of cereals, and cases of beer are on special offer by the front door. It's designed to persuade you to put your basket down and get a trolley - which will automatically get you ready to spend more money.

2. Bigger shopping trolleys
We tend to fill whatever we have, and as a result trolleys have been getting bigger. Make sure you get the smaller trolley or you'll find yourself throwing things in a huge trolley, and vastly underestimating what you spend.

3. Fruit and vegetables at the front
The vegetable and fruit aisles are usually the first ones you reach for two reasons. First, the bright colours and fresh fruit and vegetables are designed to lift your mood and get you ready to shop. The second is to hit you with the healthy stuff before your resolve has been weakened by the chocolate biscuit aisle - so you shop for the diet you wish you had as well as the one you actually do.

4. Special offers on the ends of aisles
Manufacturers will pay extra to have their items there, because we spend longer at the ends of the aisles while we try to turn the trolley. You may find 'special offers' here, but it's always worth checking the price against the full price of the own-brand alternative.

5. Milk and bread at the back of the shop
Milk and bread will be right at the back of the store - and separate. It means that even if you only want to pick up a couple of essentials, you'll have to walk round up to half the store - passing plenty of temptations.

6. Moveable feasts
It's no coincidence that the essentials will be moved on a regular basis - including things like eggs, pasta and rice. The idea is to stop you from learning where everything is, and being able to target those items and leave without browsing.

7. Sweets in the checkout aisle
These are designed for when your resolve has weakened and you give into pester power in the dying seconds of your shop. If you're going to buy sweets, it's vital to get it from the confectionary aisle - where it's much cheaper.

8. Lovely deli displays
The produce may be laid out to look far more tempting than the blocks of cheese stacked in the fridge, but the pre-cut blocks are often around half the price

9. Tempting fishmongers
The traditional-looking fishmonger displays shouldn't tempt you to forget that the fish here has been stored on ice, so is no fresher than the frozen fish for a fraction of the price in the freezer section.

10. Pricey items at eye level
If you're in a hurry, you tend to swipe the items at eye-level. It's why the supermarkets stock the priciest items at this level. Only the canny bargain hunters who are willing to take the time hunting high and low will find the cheaper alternatives.