Help with the Morrisons shop, counter included.

For the week ahead,

You know the person who treats the counter as part of the shop, not a shortcut. They talk to the butcher or pick the fish themselves. You would choose a cut they do not cook, or a bunch of flowers that was your idea of a gesture rather than their idea of Tuesday. A Morrisons card is for the store they already use. Morrisons’ own note on its gift cards says they can be used in any Morrisons store in the UK except Daily stores, and that they are not redeemable online.

This is a good purchase when you want to help a loved one do their shopping at Morrisons. It is not only a gift for a birthday, a thank-you, or another event. It can help with ordinary living costs: the food they were going to buy anyway, the household things that run out, and the week as they actually live it. Market Street is still a food shop. Helping with it is help with living costs, even when the counter looks like a treat.

Fruit, vegetables and flowers, meat and fish, and the bakery are the ranges that will still be on the groceries site next month. They suit someone who cooks, someone who buys the same loaf, and someone who would rather choose the flowers than receive the ones you picked. Food to order is there when they want the counter to prepare something. You still do not write the order.

Morrisons says the cards expire after 12 months, and that the funds stay until the balance is gone or that expiry arrives. They do not have to spend the whole card in one visit. That matters for living costs. A weekly shop rarely matches a round sum, and the next shop is part of the help.

Daily stores are out, and so is the website. If they do the little shop at a Morrisons Daily on the way home, this card will not follow them in. If they do the main store, it will. Say that in the note so they are not standing at the wrong till. Petrol is not what this card is for. If the car is the bill you want to help with, use a fuel card, not this one.

It suits a household that already does the Morrisons shop, a new kitchen, or a stretch of weeks when contributing to the food bill is more useful than an object. An occasion can be the moment you think of them. The card can still be about Tuesday.

Send the Morrisons card through Post & Present with a note, or a short video, and choose the morning it arrives. A day before the usual shop is often more use than a birthday morning. The words you might write are for them, about the week, and they should sound like you.

A short video can be as simple as you saying the counter is theirs and you do not need a photograph of a celebration. Time it for the day they usually go to the big store, not the day a Daily shop would have been easier.

With the counter left to you