Save Money On Your Food Costs

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My Top Tips On Ways To Save Money On Your Food Costs

 

With the rising cost of living still very much a problem, with rising energy bills and distribution costs affecting grocery prices, leading to our food budgets not stretching as far as they might have done a few years ago when doing our weekly food shop, it makes sense that UK households are actively looking for ways to reduce their food expenses.

 

My guide aims to provide practical tips, money-saving apps, and budgeting techniques to help you cut your grocery bills without sacrificing nutrition and taste or losing out on food quality. 

 

Plan Your Meals

 

Meal planning is the foundation of smart food budgeting. By planning your meals, and batch cooking for the week, you can:

 

- Reduce food waste - The more of the food you use, the less you have to throw away. It is thought that every person in the UK, throws away around 140 meals every year, which is a massive amount of waste, and money being chucked in the bin! By looking at what you already have in the fridge and freezer and looking for recipe ideas on what you can do with them, you can make much better use of what you already have, rather than spending more money on buying more food.

 

- Avoid impulse purchases by shopping with a list of what you actually need, having checked your fridge, freezer and cupboards first to make sure you aren't doubling up on things you already have!

 

This is why meal planning is such a useful tool, as shopping for food when you know what you are going to be cooking or the week is such a valuable tool; not only does it make shopping faster, but it is also far less stressful than walking around trying to decide what to buy! Creating a detailed shopping list based on your meal plan can save you up to 25% on your grocery bill!

 

If you aren't sure what you want to cook for the week or are looking for inspiration, you'll find millions of recipes on social media, Google, etc, which will help give you some ideas. You can even use AI software and tell the programme what food you have to use up and ask it to come up with some recipe ideas to match the ingredients you have. The Ai will scour millions of recipes to find you some meal ideas; it is a great way to come up with recipes that you haven't tried before, and Ai programs, such as Chat GPT, are free to use; you don't need to buy or subscribe to meal planning apps or services! 

 

Set a Food Budget

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Overspending on your food can be an easy way to run out of cash! Work out what you spend on your groceries every month, reduce that amount by 10% and try and use that figure as your budget. Making lists and planning what you need to buy is the best way to actually stick to your food budget! Use budgeting apps like Monzo to set and stick to a monthly food budget.

 

This helps you track your spending and identify areas for improvement. Use can use a cashback gift card to budget by purchasing a gift card for the amount you want to spend on food, at say Tesco, and then use that gift card to pay. You'll only have the value of the gift card to use, and you make sure that's your only payment method and then you'll have to make sure you come in on budget, as you won't have any other way to pay for your overspend! More on cashback in a minute..

 

Use The Scan & Shop Supermarket Services

 

You'll have seen the scan-as-you-go supermarket shopping device in supermarkets, where you pick up a scanning device at the front of the store and then use that to scan everything you put into your trolley, and then pay at the end without having to go through a conventional till point. These are time-saving, but most importantly, they'll save you money! 

 

How do they save you money? The answer is that the devices show you a running total of exactly how much you're spending as you shop. The device shows your total, including any loyalty card discounts and therefore, you can easily see exactly how much you've spent so far.

 

This to me is like adding things to an online shopping cart and seeing at any point what you're going to need to pay; and if you're spending too much you'll remove something from your cart right? These supermarket scanners are the same, as you can see your total, and you'll know, before you go to pay, if you are within your budget, need to put something back or change that product for a cheaper alternative. 

 

I find this to be a brilliant way to save overspending and is absolutely brilliant for reducing those impulse buys, as you can see what it's adding to your bill and can re-think that shopping cart addition! 

 

It's also a great tool if you want to buy a supermarket cashback gift card for your purchase from a cashback app like JamDoughnut as you can see how much your bill is and buy your gift card before you get to the till, which saves you time when paying. More on cashback in a minute!

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 Explore Bulk Buying

 

Purchasing non-perishable items in bulk can lead to significant savings. For example:

 

- 5kg of basmati rice costs around £2.20 per kilo

- 500g of basmati rice costs about £5.80 per kilo

 

That's a 62% saving when buying in bulk.

 

You don't have to stick with traditional supermarkets when buying food in bulk, for things such as rice and pulses etc, I purchase from a local international supermarket, and it is often cheaper than my local supermarket, but I do suggest using a price comparison service for food, such as Trolley, to check the price of something you intend to buy. Trolley will show you the price of that (branded products), product in all the major supermarkets and you can then quickly see which supermarket is cheapest, and you can than compare that price against the price in other retail outlets.

 

Stores such as Costco can be a great place to purchase items in bulk, but again, check the price in supermarkets first, as Costco isn't always necessarily the cheapest when you factor in supermarket loyalty card prices or other promotions, plus you have to pay a subscription fee every year to be a Costco member and so once you take that into account, it may not be cheaper to buy from them, plus not everyone can become a Costco member, they do have specific requirements about who can or can't be a member. 

 

If you run your own business, then consider getting a Booker trade card as this allows you to shop in Booker cash and carry stores, and these stores have a vast number of 'caterer' products that can (not always double check your pricing), work out as a better option for buying in larger quantities, both with branded and own brand product ranges. 

 

Supermarket Shopping

 

Cashback, Cashback, Cashback...

 

The money-saving tip I talk about ALL the time is cashback; if you follow me on my social media,. you'll know I post about cashback constantly. It's always top of my money-saving tips because it's the simplest way to save money on so many of your purchases and especially on food!

 

If you aren't sure what cashback is, the idea is that whenever you buy something via a cashback app from a partnered retailer, you'll earn a percentage of that purchase back as cashback.

 

There are varying ways you can earn cashback, and several companies you can earn cashback from, and I cover this in great detail in my cashback post. Let's look at my favourite cashback method and cashback service in the example below.

 

My favourite cashback service/app is JamDoughnut, and it's a gift card cashback app. What that means is that to earn cashback, you purchase a gift card for the retailer you want to buy from, let's say, for example, Tesco.  So you're in Tesco and you have £100 of products to pay for. Normally, you'd use your debit or credit card to pay right, and that's fine, but instead of using your card, you buy a £100 gift card from Tesco from JamDoughnut to pay. JamDoughnut will give you a percentage of that £100 gift card purchase back as cashback.

 

So, for example, let's say JamDoughnut is offering 3% cashback (Cashback rates change all the time) for Tesco gift cards; that means that you'll earn £3 cashback on that purchase for buying that gift card. So by spending 2 minutes of your time buying that gift card, you've essentially saved £3 on the food you were going to buy anyway, just because you changed your payment method! 

 

Now that's a £3 saving on one purchase, noew think about how many supermarket shops (and non-supermarket shop, JamDoughbnut have over 140 partnered retailers!), you make over the course of a year, and how much money you would save over those 12 months; I'm willing to bet it's a decent amount of money! 

 

I did a case study with a chap the other day who spends £350 a week at Tesco, because he buys a lot of dog food. At the time, the JamDoughbnut cashback rate was 'pumped up' to 4.3% for Tesco, and that meant, based on that cashback figure (which could go up or down), that he's spending £1400 a month at Tesco. If he used a gift card to pay every time he shopped and earned cashback over a year, he'd have saved/earned £722.40 in cashback! That's a huge amount of money, and that's just money he's earned from one store, Imagine what that total could be over a year, factoring in using gift cards to pay at other retailers, too! 

 

Of course, not everyone would spend £1400 a month in one shop, but if you spent even half of that, you'd be looking at over £360 of savings! You can find out more about JamDoughnut on the blog, or if you want to go ahead and sign up, use this referral link, and you'll get a £3 bonus when you've earned your first £10 of cashback.

 

Embrace Seasonal Produce

 

Buying fruits and vegetables in season ensures better taste and lower prices. Use resources like BBC Good Food's seasonal calendar to guide your shopping. Fresh vegetables and fresh fruit are usually much less expensive when in season, especially products grown in the UK, and the price in the supermarkets will reflect that these items are in plentiful supply, and as the supermarket doesn't have to fly or transport the food from overseas, the so the food production/transport costs are much lower, and that means the cost to you drops accordingly. 

 

As an example think about strawberries; in July, you'll be able to grab a punnet for around £1 as UK growers have lots of yummy fruit available for the supermarkets, and they can go from farm to supermarket shelf in as little as a day as the stock is already in the UK and ready to go, but fast forward to December when any strawberries will have to be flown over from other countries and all those transport costs will be passed over to the supermarket customers, and that's why you may be paying £3, nearly £4 for the same sized punnet! 

 

Buy Frozen Food When Fresh Is Expensive

 

Frozen food is likely cheaper than fresh food, so it can make sense to head to the freezer department of the supermarket if you want to save some money on your food. Products such as frozen meat and vegetables can be much cheaper than buying fresh products, and this is because retailers take a risk when offering you fresh vegetables and meat, as the shelf life on fresh products is dramatically shorter than frozen foods, plus the storage and distribution costs are higher as well, and so the retailer will be charging an excess on the fresh produce as way of compensating themselves for any products that have to be sold of cheap, or thrown away as the expiry date has been reached, and the supermarket doesn't want to be hot with that monetary loss, and so incorporates that expected loss into the price of your fresh food.

 

Frozen food is cheaper and has a long shelf life, likely a year, if not longer, when compared to maybe a week with fresh food, so it's far less likely that the product will have to be reduced or thrown away. Therefore, the risk is reduced, and therefore so is the price. A good example would be frozen fish over fresh fish; as I write this, you can buy fresh haddock in Tesco for £19.29 a kilo or frozen haddock for £11.11 a kilo, so it is much cheaper plus, as it is frozen, you don't have to worry about it expiring before you use it! 

 

That said, sometimes the price is similar between fresh and frozen, minced beef, for example, was the same price fresh as frozen, so there are no financial savings, but again, it's frozen, so you don't need to worry about the expiry date as much, plus the frozen is easier to use a small amount as if flows easily out of the bag, but the fresh mince is in a non-re-sealable pack and so once opened, needs to be used quickly, or frozen.

 

Hunt for Yellow Sticker Discounts

 

 

Over the years, I've extensively written about yellow sticker deals on my blog and social media pages, plus I've been in the national press and on TV talking about how yellow sticker shopping can be a good way to save money on groceries! Looking for reduced items, often marked with yellow stickers, especially at the end of the day when supermarkets make their final reductions, can save you up to 90% off food prices, which can be a significant discount on the cost of your food bill! 

 

Supermarkets don't want to throw away unsold stock, so they reduce the food that's expiring that day to clear, but is still safe to eat, and that means you can save a decent amount of money. The thing with yellow sticker deals is that when you buy it, have a plan of what you're going to do with it! Just buying loads of things from the reduced section, because they are cheap can be a false economy because if you don't actually use it up before it expires, then you might end up throwing it away, so plan what you will do with it and make good use of it! 

 

Utilise any spare freezer space you have to freeze your bargain buys, perhaps by using that food to batch-cook some meals for the coming week, or freezing it for a later date; it may well come in handy for your meal planning as you can then plan from your freezer what you'll be eating over the next week, and that will reduce food waste and also save you having to buy more food which is great for your wallet. 

 

Check out my yellow sticker guide for hints and tips on when and where to look for yellow sticker items. 

 

Know the difference between "use-by" and "best-before" dates to avoid unnecessary food waste - The best-before date, sometimes shown as BBE (best before end), is about quality and not safety. After this date, the food will be safe to eat but may not be at its best. Its flavour and texture might not be as good. Best-before dates appear on a wide range of foods, including frozen foods, dried foods & tinned foods. The best-before date will only be accurate if the food is stored according to the instructions on the packaging.

A use-by date on food is about safety. This is the most important date to remember. Foods can be eaten until the use-by date but not after. You will see use-by dates on food that goes off quickly, such as meat products or ready-to-eat salads.

 

Look For Food Referral Deals

 

Keep your eye out for food service referral deals that you can utilise to save money on your food. The ones I speak most about are the Gousto referral deal, where you can save between 60 and 70% off a box of food as a first-time user of the service, and this can be a great way to grab some low-cost food for a week or so, (remember to cancel the subscription once the first box has arrived). Other popular options are services such as Simply Cook and Earth & Wheat, and there are other deals that pop up, (follow me on my socials if you want to keep up to date with the latest food deals; links on the homepage for all my socials!)

 

Switch to Own Brand Products

 

Opting for supermarket own brands instead of big-name brands can cut your grocery bill by up to a third. Start with basics like pasta, rice, and canned goods. Often, the quality is very similar to branded products, or at least barely recognisable, so why pay more for a big brand product when you'll likely not notice any difference between that and a own brand product. 

 

Often, this method is called the "Downshift Challenge" and involves moving to own brand products, from expensive big brand products to see if that cheaper price can make a noticeable impact to your food budget. For example, if you usually buy branded cereal, try the supermarket's own brand. This simple switch could save you 30% on your shop, and this works on both food and non-food items.

 

Even products such as their own brand and the store's budget variety of the brand can be very similar, if not identical. I bought a bag of Morrisons Savers pasta tubes and Morrisons own brand pasta tubes, and although they didn't look the same, I discovered that they both had exactly the same batch number on the bag of the pack, and that meant that both the pasta products were made on the same machine on the same day. I used to work in a restaurant that produced its own pasta, and made tonnes of pasta in the pasta machine of the years. Therefore I can confidently say that all the manufacturer had done was change the attachment on the machine, which controls the shape of the pasta produced, when switching between producing the Morrisons own brand and its Savers brand pasta, hence the different shape and look. Still, the actual pasta ingredients were exactly the same, so needless to say I just buy the cheaper pasta now! 

 

Look Down & Go International!

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Supermarkets are clever at what they do! They know all the ways to get you to buy the products they want you to buy! A great example is the shelves the products are placed on. You may not realise it, but every shelf and every bay of shelves has plans on what should go where.

 

For example, you'll typically find that a high-margin product the manufacturer has paid the supermarket to promote will be on the shelf at eye level. This way, it's far more likely that you'll notice the product they want you to and hopefully buy it. The lower-margin products are generally on the bottom shelves, further away from your eyes! By making those lower-margin products less obvious, you'll likely not purchase them and instead will spend more; it is all a cunning ruse, so the moral of this story is to look down, and you'll find save money!

 

Equally, look at the international section of the supermarket if you want to save money. These aisles of imported food products can often be a gold mine of savings! As an example, I could buy Tesco own brand of ground cinnamon for £1 for a 36g jar, which worked out at 27.8p per 10g, or I could buy a 100g bag of Rajah cinnamon for £1.10, which worked out at 11p per 10g! I could get over 3 times the amount of cinnamon for 10p more than Tesco's own brand cinnamon, and it was actually on a Tesco Clubcard promotion price of 85p, meaning that if I used my Tesco Clubcard, I could have bought a 100g bag, for 85p, which was 9p per 10g, and so 15p less than the 36g jar of Tesco own brand cinnamon, and that's just one example of the many products that can work out to be much cheaper by purchasing from the international aisle of the supermarket! 

 

Check The Kilo Price, Not The Pack Price, And Look For Cheaper Alternatives!

 

When comparing the price of products, don't look at the pack price (unless you are desperately sticking to a budget); instead, look at the price per kilo of a product. This is super useful when comparing products that look the same, especially when one is on promotion, and the other one isn't. Rather than looking at the pack price, see how much that product is per kilo instead. 

 

The kilo price of cheese is something that I look at a lot, as it's something we use quite a lot of, and it's so expensive these days! At Tesco, on the day I write this, I could buy a 350g pack of Pilgrims Choice Cheddar for £3 as a Tesco Clubcard offer price, which sounds like a good price as a reasonably comparable pack of Tesco's own brand cheddar is £3.20 for a 400g pack, and so would cost me 20p more if I bought that pack instead of the Pilgrims Choice, however, the Tesco version is 400g, not 350g, so would give me 50g more cheese, and when you look at the cost per kilo, which is printed on the shelf label, the Pilgrims Choice, works out at £8.57 per kilo, the Tesco cheese works out at £8.00 per kilo, and so its cheaper per kilo than the Pilgrims Choice, (which is on a promotion remember, its normally £12.00 per kilo, and will cost me just 20p more to buy a bigger pack than the Pilgrims Choice.

 

If I wanted to really save cash, I could buy a 400g block of Creamfields mature cheddar for £2.69, which is the equivalent of £6.72 per kilo, so much cheaper again! The quality of the Creamfields cheese may not be as good as the Pilgrim's Choice, but I buy cheese to go in sandwiches or to be added to other dishes, and I assure you my 8-year-old wouldn't notice the difference (and doesn't!), when I buy Creamfield's cheese over Pilgrims Choice, and my bill at the till will be less than smaller pack of Pilgrims Choice, so it's a win-win! 

 

On a similar subject line, before you buy grated or sliced cheese, look at the price per kilo - Let's use Creamfeilds cheddar as an example; I can buy a block of Creamfileds mature cheddar for the equivalent of £6.72 per kilo, if I wanted to buy the same cheese, only grates, I'm paying £8.60 per kilo, so £1.88 per kilo more to buy the cheese pre-grated! I prefer to save that money by buying the block and grating it myself! 

 

Don't look at the price per kilo on a one-off buying process; look at it over the course of a year; say you bought 50kg of grated cheese in a year instead of ther block cheese; that means you've paid an extra £94 in the year for buying your cheese grated, and that's a lot of money!

 

For £94 you'd be better off buying a cheap food processor with a grating function and grating your own cheese, reducing the manual grating process and investing in a cheap way to grate your cheese year on year... and that just ONE product from the dozens you buy every time you do a food shop, imagine how much your food shopping bills would decrease by going by the price per kilo, rather than the pack price! 

 

 Use Cashback and Loyalty Apps

 

Take advantage of apps that offer cashback on your grocery shopping! There are three main supermarket cashback apps that will offer you cashback on selected products you might buy in the supermarket (and other stores). Ensuring that you have all three on your smartphone means you could make considerable savings on your favourite food brands and discover some new brands and products to try!

 

The way these apps work is that they regularly publish specific products that you can earn cashback on, via the apps. You purchase the products and then upload a photo of your receipt to the app, showing the product you bought, and then the app will check the receipt and issue your app wallet with the advertised cashback amount. The cashback amount can vary from between a few pence to as much as 100% cashback! 

 

I'd recommend getting someone else in your family to download the apps as well, and then when the really good deals go live, you can buy twice as much, and each claim the cashback (just make sure you buy the products on separate receipts, you can't submit the same receipt number more than once!)

 

The three apps you should be using are below. You'll find links to each of the apps, and this will take you to reviews and how-to guides from each one on this blog. 

 

- Shopmium

- CheckoutSmart

- GreenJinn

 

Store Loyalty Cards

 

Don't forget to sign up for supermarket loyalty schemes like Tesco Clubcard, Lidl Plus, Morrisons More Card, Asda Rewards or the Nectar Card, as these days it can be the only way to get a good deal when you go food shopping. These loyalty card offers offer you the best possible prices on products, with the price between loyalty card prices and non-loyalty card pricing sometimes being huge! In my opinion, you shouldn't need a loyalty card to be able to get the best prices, and in my opinion, the cards can be confusing for people who aren't tech-savvy, or don't understand how these loyalty cards work, and can result in people paying more for their groceries than they should/could do.

 

These loyalty cards give the supermarkets lots of information about your shopping habits as well as a way for the supermarkets to advertise products to potential customers, these loyalty schemes aren't going anywhere, so if you want to save as much money as possible, then you really need to make sure you have a card! 

 

Food Money-Saving Tips

 

Utilise Leftovers

 

Reduce waste and save money by creatively using leftovers. Find ways to use up those leftovers for another meal, such as sandwich fillings, making soup, and If you can't use those leftovers, freeze them for use on another day.

 

Make the most of your freezer by:

 

- Buying frozen fruits and vegetables (often cheaper and just as nutritious)

- Freezing leftovers in portions

- Batch cooking and freezing meals for later use

 

Opt for Cheaper Cuts of Meat

 

Choose less expensive cuts of meat and learn to cook them well. For instance:

 

- Chicken thighs (£2.50/kg) instead of chicken breasts (£7.22/kg)

- Lamb neck instead of lamb chops

 

Utilise a slow cooker to cook lower-quality cuts of meat; by cooking low and slow, you can turn even the cheapest meat cuts into a decent, tender meal! Don't be afraid to ask your butcher if they can recommend any lower-cost meats that are budget-friendly and easy to cook; many butchers will even give you a recipe to use! 

 

Incorporate More Plant-Based Meals

 

Reducing meat consumption and incorporating more plant-based proteins like lentils and beans can significantly lower your food costs. Don't be afraid to use half meat and half barley or lentils in your cooking; it'll add extra protein and stretch that meal further.

 

Shop at Budget Supermarkets

 

Consider switching to budget-friendly supermarkets like Aldi or Lidl for substantial savings over the more premium supermarkets, and switch to own brands, even the more luxurious brands have essentials ranges that offer shoppers reduced price food products at discounter style options; we always see the 'matched with Aldi' pricing dotted around premium supermarkets these days, so try and buy these instead of your regular food choices.

 

Cook from Scratch

 

Preparing meals from basic ingredients is often cheaper than buying ready-made meals or takeaways. Learn simple, cost-effective recipes from recipe websites. There will always be a place for ready meals, especially if you're looking for a cheap meal option or if you're cooking for just yourself, but if you are cooking for multiple people, then it is unlikely that buying these pre-prepared meals will be cheaper than rolling your sleeves up and cooking from scratch. TikTok and other social media channels are full of accounts of people who will content such a "feed a family of four for £5 from Aldi" type videos.

 

Time and lack of preparedness will often be a factor in the need for ready meals and takeaways, and this is why trying to spend time to plan your meals, perhaps on a Sunday for the upcoming week, can be so useful! That said, I don't always practice what I preach, and there are times when you need to use ready meals, and if so, look for deals on these types of foods. The Co-op offers a cheap freezer deal that can be super useful, and I update the deal every month on the blog, so check that out for bargains; also, Iceland always has some great deals for people looking for quick and easy meals and they are usually very competitively priced, (the 10 items for £10 offer is a particularly good price when available), and they offer fast and pretty cheap delivery.

 

Grow Your Own

 

Even with limited space, you can grow herbs or small vegetables at home, saving money and ensuring fresh produce. You can't rely on that to feed your family, especially with limited space or the UK's limited growing season, but even a little bit can help! 

 

Use Food Waste Apps

 

When you're really struggling to afford food, there are apps like Too Good To Go, and Olio that can help you find discounted food from local restaurants and shops, reducing waste and saving money. I've written about these apps and also how to access food bank help in this "Five ways to keep the family fed" blog post.

 

 

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly reduce your food expenses without compromising on quality or nutrition. Remember, small changes can add up to big savings over time. Start with a few of these tips and gradually incorporate more as you become comfortable with your new money-saving habits.