General tips on Food Shopping and Groceries: where and what to buy?

Cashwitch

Hi everyone
As a debt-free wannabee, I'd like to start a thread asking you for your bargain-hunting tips.It would be great to discuss:

* The best all-round value supermarkets
* Bulk-buying - tips and how to plan this
* Your best 'general' tips

Thanks!

freebiequennie

Well today we will go shopping and will go to ALDI for their 6 fruit and veg offers of the month at 49p each we will stock up on peppers and slice and freeze this half of each colour into a bag, also stock up on the new potatoes.

then we will go to marks and spencers to see what offers they have and pick up the wise buy free range eggs at £1.59 for box of 10

then we will finish off at asda to get remaining store cupboard items and meat we dont manage to get on offer in other 2.

you have to shop around last weekend we went to sainsburys and brought the deals and reguarly walk to co-op to see what bargains can be found.

Cashwitch

Thanks for that.Well, we went to Lidls today and had a look around...not impressed on the whole by price comparison with Tesco's amazingly...Great offer with the fruit and veg though, and look out for a whole free range chicken for under £4!Smallish but you could easily get 2 meals out of it.
We went to Tesco's and bought enough for a week of meals and household stuff for the 2 of us for £43!
We planned a week of meals before we went (including lasagne, italian sauce and pasta, jacket potatoes, curry) and bought only what was on the list.
We bought Tesco 'Value' range items including:
Hairspray for 37p
8 low fat Value yogurts for 58p
Salad cream 54p
Tomato ketchup 40p
Thin Bleach (2 litres) 28p

There's also a special offer on new potatoes (£1!) and Tesco Classic coffee is 70p.

It can be done cheaply

freebiequennie

well we spent £5 in aldi, £12 in marks and spencer and £70 in asda. By going to three shops was able to pick and choose the deals.

Marks and spencers have chickens half price and we got a 1.1kg one for just over £2, cooks in own tray as well so less washing up!! This will do us for a roast dinner and then a chicken and mushroom homemade pie and some for sandwiches.

good deals in asda were 4 packs of extra special beef and sundried tomato burgers - (454gm) for £1, brocolli quiche - £1, tex mex side dish of wedges and onion rings - £1, fairtrade choc cookies - 50p, ritz cheese sandwich biscuits - 50p - these were things we dont normally buy but did on offer wont bore you with my whole months shopping

angchris

have a look on t`internet and find out where your local fruit and veg wholesaler is, then go and buy sacks of spuds/carrots etc etc of whatever you will definately use. then take said sack home and for the rest of the day stand in your kitchen peeling carrots and blanching them etc till you have bright orange stained hands :rotfl:then i bag up into mealsized portions and sling in my freezer till needed. sacks of spuds i chip then blanche then freeze (bagged chips;) much cheaper than buying them predone!) i sling all of the decent sized pots in the oven in one go and cook jacket pots half of which get frozen when cooked the other half i scoop out the potato and do cheesy bacon n pot thingamys in the skins which are delish
anyway what im trying to say is...the bigger the quantity you buy the cheaper it is so things you will deffo use aim to buy as cheap as you can.
also dont forget to ask fruit/veg wholesaler if he has anything going cheap that isnt up to the standard to sell to restaurants etc i have very often had biggggg trays of mushrooms for pence or apples that are very slightly bruised etc.

shop-to-drop

freebiequennie wrote: »

....then we will go to marks and spencers to see what offers they have and pick up the wise buy free range eggs at £1.59 for box of 10

Great tip thanks. I would never have thought of looking for eggs at Marks will take a look for these next time I'm in town.

jenniewb

angchris wrote: »

have a look on t`internet and find out where your local fruit and veg wholesaler is, then go and buy sacks of spuds/carrots etc etc of whatever you will definately use. then take said sack home and for the rest of the day stand in your kitchen peeling carrots and blanching them etc till you have bright orange stained hands :rotfl:then i bag up into mealsized portions and sling in my freezer till needed. sacks of spuds i chip then blanche then freeze (bagged chips;) much cheaper than buying them predone!) i sling all of the decent sized pots in the oven in one go and cook jacket pots half of which get frozen when cooked the other half i scoop out the potato and do cheesy bacon n pot thingamys in the skins which are delish
anyway what im trying to say is...the bigger the quantity you buy the cheaper it is so things you will deffo use aim to buy as cheap as you can.
also dont forget to ask fruit/veg wholesaler if he has anything going cheap that isnt up to the standard to sell to restaurants etc i have very often had biggggg trays of mushrooms for pence or apples that are very slightly bruised etc.

Now thats well thought out money saving! Wish I could manage to do all that- hats off to you!

I tend to buy vegetables frozen, as it seems to be the cheapest way to buy veg and apparently the highest in vitamins.

Fruit at the end of the day (reduced) or from the market or from the supermarket but only when its on offer or hand selected (cheaper). Tescos tends to be the cheapest when they have offers on and at the same time not reducing the quality. (Asda have a fair price but the security guards really don't like me for some reason so I avoid the store now, I also think the quality is not there. Obviously M&S have the best quality!) Sainsburys are too pricey, fruit is marginly better then Tescos but staff are nice- depends what you value from your shop- the food or the customer service. (For me it depends what day of the week it is to answer that!).

I don't buy carbohydrates (looong story) but if I did, getting them in bulk would seem like the best idea for price- places like cash and carrys, Chinese Supermarkets (cheap rice) and etc seem like a good plan as I think carbs tend to have a long shelf life. I have seen people on buses with 20kg of rice in bags! (aside from bread which I would say buy at the end of the day, fresh from a Supermarket bakery and freeze in portions.)

Cashwitch

Really like the freezing idea for jacket and chipped potatoes as well as carrots!Could this be done with all root veg?And you're absolutely right, sacks are definitely better.Someone pointed out on another thread that you can cook then freeze rice, too.

PS also well worth having a trawl on www.hotukdeals.com now and again...posts are numerous and many are current on special offers etc; you can also search by supermarket.The food selection isn't vast and comprehensive but there's all sorts of interesting stuff going on there.There was a HP deskjet all-in-one printer on there for about £30 yesterday!

Bitsy_Beans

I like Sainsburys - their value range is huge and very good quality and still comes with some ethics ie fair trade value tea bags.
With 2 kids in tow I don't have the time (or the patience) to visit the 5 different supermarkets near me, I like Mr S and I can fast track (self scan) and jump the queue. I don't get the fuss about Aldi and Lidl, their stock is very processed, contains more salt and sugar than Mr S Basics and is very limited. the super 6 I grant you is a bargain but I don't always like the stuff that's included each week.