25 Ways to Save Money on Food Shopping and Grocery Bills
One of our most significant weekly expenses is food shopping and with the continued cost of living crisis and inflation food prices are on the up. So how can you save money on food shopping and grocery bills? No matter your household size, these tips will help you save money on your grocery shopping.
If you are anything like me you will have a monthly grocery budget and want to make it go as far as you can at the grocery store. I am not going to suggest you join a warehouse/big box store like Costco here as often once you add the membership price and annual fee in the reductions are not covered for an average family. Mostly the savings you make will be small but once you add them up you can make significant savings over the cost of a years especially as according to Netmums the average family of four in the UK spends £409 a month on groceries and food shopping.
How can I save Money on Food Shopping?
1. Choose your Supermarket Wisely
Change where you shop to a budget supermarket such as Lidl or Aldi. This is the simplest and quickest way to make immediate savings on your grocery bill. According to Which? shoppers at Waitrose can pay as much as 24% more for their food shop compared to Aldi in their supermarket comparison.
2. Meal Plan
Meal plan and have an inventory of your refrigerator, freezer and pantry. WRAP shows that the average family with children throw away on average £60 worth of food a month. Planning your meals and using what you have will ensure that you don’t throw away food.
3. Always use a Shopping List
Write a shopping list and stick to it, this will help stop impulse buying. Once you have an inventory of what you have and have a meal plan you will know what ingredients you need to add to your shopping list.
4. Shop online
If you really struggle with not impulse buying shopping online makes it easier to stick to a shopping list, as it eliminates the temptations presented when walking around the supermarket. You can also check out any special offers. However, you need to take into account the delivery fees when adding up the total costs. It might work out cheaper to click and collect if that is offered,
5. Don’t shop whilst hungry.
Shopping for food on an empty stomach means you impulse purchases you make poor nutritional choices if you shop when you are hungry and this is backed by research (just look it up)!
6. Shop Own Brand
Buy own store brand products and budget ranges. By downscaling on some items you could save up to £1000 according to Money Supermarket.
You often pay more for convenience food, so stop buying microwave bags of rice or pre-grated cheese. Also, this applies to snacks which are often nutritionally poor and can be made at home.
7. Use your Freezer
Did you know that you can freeze leftover grated cheese? In fact, you can freeze most dairy products including sour cream, yoghurt, cream fresh, milk and butter. It is also often cheaper to buy frozen vegetables and they will be just as good as fresh and often more nutritious. Your freezer is your friend when it comes to gluts of food – buy it cheap and balance and freeze seasonal fruit and vegetables.
8. Sign up for the Loyalty Schemes
Loyalty programs can offer substantial savings over time. When a loyalty card is free there is no reason not to have one.
- The Sainsbury’s Nectar card
- My Waitrose
- Tesco Clubcard
- Co-op membership
- Morrisons More
- Marks & Spencer Sparks
- Iceland’s Bonus Card
- Asda Rewards
- Lidl Plus
9. Know the difference between a ‘best-before’ and ‘use-by’ date
You can eat after the best before. Use smell, taste and sight to check it’s OK. If so, the only downside is that the food may lose some flavour and texture. Love Food Hate Waste is great for more advice on this.
10. Consider a cashback or Store Credit Card
Now I am going to preface this by saying credit cards are only good for saving money if you pay them off in full each month or you will end up paying more than you save. Tesco and Sainsbury’s credit cards offer reward points and other cards are cashback.
11. Regularly compare prices
For any branded produce make sure you compare prices with a site such as Trolly or SupermarketCompare where you can set alerts for when the price of your favourite purchases drops. They look at the supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, Ocado, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Iceland and The Co-op.
Also, check the Which? monthly supermarket price comparison report.
12. Know your Unit Price
Now this can take a little working out, but we have calculators on our phones now so that makes it easier even though supermarkets try to make it harder by mixing up their unit price (often by mixing grammes (g) for one product and kilogrammes (kg) for another. Or there will be one item shown as a whole unit price and another by weight).
You can usually find the unit price on-shelf item label (or underneath the product description in the case of online supermarkets).
Which! has started an Affordable Food campaign to bring about more supermarket price transparency through clearer pricing, amongst other things. You can sign the Affordable Food petition here.
13. To Bulk Buy or Not?
Buying in bulk usually will save you money but it isn’t always the best option. You need to know that you will use it by the “use by” date. Check the unit price and have somewhere to store it. I always bulk buy pasta.
14. Buy when Marked Down
Learn when your local supermarket reduces its fresh produce. My Dad used to call himself a “whoops Warrior”! Just make sure to freeze it straight away to beat the use-by dates if you are not going to eat it immediately.
15. Use Coupons
While it is still possible to clip coupons out of a magazine or newspaper, there are now fewer of these coupons available. Like many things, couponing has largely gone digital so it is worth having the supermarket apps on your phone or doing a quick Google search before shopping.
16. Store your Food Correctly
By storing your foods correctly you will increase their shelf life and therefore, save on waste. Potatoes need to be stored in a cool dark place as do onions and butternut squash. This is a great post all about how to store your groceries.
17. Reduce your Meat Intake
Meat is often the most expensive item on your grocery list, so look at meals that use less meat or no meat at all. I have learned to bulk out mince and red meat with red lentils or by adding grated carrots to ground beef. Add mixed beans when making tacos and make that chicken go further by making stock with the carcass.
18. Buy Cheaper Cuts of Meat
When I was growing up a pork fillet was an expensive cut of meat. Now it is one of the cheapest cuts of port and it has hardly any fat on it. It makes a brilliant roast dinner.
You will also find meat that it unprepared with the skin and bones still in will be cheaper too. So you might have to do a little more work, but it will be less expensive.
19. Try Low Aisle Shopping or a different aisle
Supermarkets put the cheaper staples on the lowest shelf as people tend to shop more at eye level. Also, cotton buds are often cheaper in the baby aisle and you can get much better deals on spices, rice and sauces in the world food aisle.
20. Ditch the Ready Meals and TakeAways
This really is a no-brainer. Takeaways are expensive and stopping them will save you money straight away. You are paying for convenience when it comes to ready meals, but not only are they more expensive than making your own they are often heavily processed which we are learning is really bad for our health.
21. Use Cashback or Purchase a Voucher
Apps like Jam Doughnut are great for using to get immediate cash back on your supermarket shop. You buy gift cards for the big supermarkets through the app and then use them at the checkout on your phone. It can be as little as 1% but it all adds up and is easy to use.
22. Grow Your Own
We grow our own herbs and lettuce as they are simple to grow even on a windowsill and much less expensive than in the supermarket. You can propagate herbs from shop-bought herb plants too.
23. Remember your shopping bags
How many Bag For Life bags do you have nestling at home where they will never again see the light of day? Instead of stashing them at home put them in your car. Saving the pennies on buying new bags every time you go to the supermarket soon adds up.
24. Look for local suppliers
Supermarkets are not always the cheapest place to buy all your shopping. Do you have a local farm near? We find it much cheaper to buy our eggs directly and the local weekly market and greengrocer are much cheaper for seasonal produce.
25. Cost over Convenience?
I have said it before in the article but we often pay more for the convenience of something being part prepared, so we need to work out if we have the time to add extra preparation into our routine in order to save money. For example, my family love mushy peas and you can buy dried peas at a fraction of the cost of a tin of pre-prepared ones. For me, it makes sense to buy the dried and make a batch, package them into smaller amounts and freeze them. The same with other dried legumes and beans.
