Anything else I can do to reduce supermarket spending?

Lilith1980

Hi all

Right, well I have spent the last hour trawling the Tesco website, getting prices for the products I buy. I have to go in either daily or every other day because I dont have a car to do one big shop so I buy each day for the evening meal. I've never really looked at how much I spend on food shopping which is why I wanted to do this spreadsheet.

I listed them all down in a spreadsheet and then came up with daily meal plans (including breakfast and lunch) and calculated how much the monthly spend would roughly come to.

I also added on "extras" like washing powder, shampoo etc. I assumed I would be buying these once a month although I will have to keep track on how many times a month they are replenished.

Anyway, the total shop for the month comes out at £135 in total for myself and my DH - this is if I stick to the meal plans which I definitely will because I need to start keeping tabs on what my money goes on.

I've got a right headache now as well from trying to figure it all out but it was worth it:rotfl:

Does anyone have any suggestions of ways I can reduce my costs further?? Or am I being a stinge?!

Thanks guys :beer:

Antispam

I tend to buy a lot of BOGOF but I noticed that they are getting fewer particularly at Morrisons

PasturesNew

One way to do it is to spot the priciest ingredient/s from your meal plan and see if you can replace that cheaper or go without.

e.g. a chilli - do you need the peppers in it if they're £1.35 for a pack of 3? Or do you need the wine in it (that might just get drunk anyway)?

Also, shop by £/100g.

e.g. spuds. If you go along and look at the £/100g you'll find it quite surprising how much difference there is in the cost.

Some things can be stocked up on only when they're on a special or a bogof (loo rolls, coffee, tinned foods, toothpaste, shampoo). If I have completely run out of my favourite shampoo and it's not on a BOGOF, I find another brand that seems to do the same job that's cheaper per 100ml than the one I prefer.

For cheese, there are some surprises if you shop by £/100g. I recently bought some lovely mature cheddar because it was on a special at "buy 2, get 3rd one free" and £/100g was cheaper than Tesco value.

The other thing to evaluate carefully is whether a special really is a good deal, or if it's just a bit of money off an expensive proudct and you're being suckered in.

narabanekeater

Maybe shop onlie and get in delivered
Theres always bonus poits and free delivery codes floating about
That was you can bulk buy larger boxes of things and save and not have to worry about carrying it

Euphemia_2

Have you tried following Martin's advice on the main site of seeing if you can get the same thing cheaper in different parts of the store? He gives the example of nuts and dried fruit being more expensive in snack sections than baking sections. I have found this too; I eat a lot of Quorn and, for example, Quorn pieces are £1.99 in the frozen foods section and £3.09 in the chilled/ready meals section. A 300g bag of half-sized Quorn "bangers" is £1.35 in the frozen foods section AND contains more than the pack of 5 normal sized ones, which is £1.88 in the other section.

Lilith1980

Thanks for your replies

I do look at the BOGOFs in Tesco but most of the time its cheaper for me to buy two of the cheaper brand product.

Pastures - I do buy the 3 bag of peppers but I have planned to use all three of them in three of my meals. I tend to bulk out my meals with veg as there's not a lot to them otherwise :rolleyes:

Narabanekeater - I would shop online, although I live in a flat above a shop and when I have typed in my postcode it says they won't deliver I will try again though.

Euphemia - I buy dried fruit from the baking section - I get a bag of value dried fruit for 40p! That's my "snacking thing" and one bag tends to last me the month. I will have a look and see if they do frozen drumsticks and how much they are as opposed to the fresh ones

Thanks again guys & gals :cool:

piglet_moo

I find with hubby and I, we tend to get frozen veggies as I tend to chop most stuff up into smaller chunks anyway when I cook. They last for ages in the bottom of the freezer and I will only use the amount that I need (so if I don't want to use an entire pepper, or not have to include peppers in every meal for a few days just to use them up) and you're not paying for stalks/other bits you can't eat.

I also alternate between Tesco and Aldi (with the limited stock in Aldi I don't seem to come out with as much stuff that I didn't intend to come out with). Wilkos or Savers is also great for washing products and getting branded shampoos etc a bit cheaper.

The other thing is also to look at the time/day you go to the supermarket as sometimes there are lots of reduced items. For example my local Tescos seems to have a lot of meat reduced on a Monday morning (I guess stuff they couldn't shift before they shut on Sunday).

edit: oh yeah, I also find that leaving hubby at home when I do the shopping is better too as he always sneaks extraneous items into the trolley.

HTH

Lilith1980

piglet_moo wrote: »

edit: oh yeah, I also find that leaving hubby at home when I do the shopping is better too as he always sneaks extraneous items into the trolley.

HTH

Luckily, my hubby doesn't have much of an interest in food shopping so I go on my own! I know what you mean though, whenever he has come with me I find random items in the trolley as we are loading the stuff onto the conveyer belt :rolleyes:

Ali_Hale

I find that having two - three "meat free" dinners a week really helps to cut costs.

When it comes to fruit & veg, Tesco's often has some good half-price deals -- so maybe make your plan flexible enough that you can take advantage of these? Also, try the Value range for basic stuff. Their Market Value potatoes are about 75p (can't remember exactly) for 2.5kg, and don't seem any different in quality from standard ones.

As others have said, take advantage of BOGOFs on long-life products that you'd have bought anyway. (We stock up on things like squash and stir-fry sauce, which are almost always half price at some point...)

Good luck!

Ali