How to save money on food shop?

PipneyJane

Hi @Vickyh. How are you doing, now that you're a few weeks into changing your grocery shopping ways?

Someone mentioned the Old Style Thrift board here on MSE.  Every month, we have a Grocery Challenge where we challenge ourselves to stick to within our budgets.  The link will take you to August's GC.  Do have a read of the first few posts.  As well as a recipe index, there are links to multiple posts about saving money on groceries.    Please come and play with us - we don't bite.

There's also the Sneaky Ways to Save the Pennies thread and it's successor, Lots More Sneaky Ways To Save The Pennies thread, which you may find useful.  (Warning:  they are both very long.)

Often, just paying attention to when and how you shop is enough to cut your grocery bill down.  Sometimes, it's watching what other people are doing that will trigger your own "lightbulb moment".  Here's a link to a post I wrote in the May 2020 Grocery Challenge, which may give you an insight into how we do it.  There's two adults in my household and our monthly grocery budget is split down as follows:-

£140 - general groceries and supermarket spend (tracked in the Grocery Challenge)
£ 40 - Meat Fund, for buying meat at the butcher every few months
£ 40 - Bulk Fund, for booze, C0stc0 shopping, buying 2 trays of tinned tomatoes when they're on 4 for £1 (24 cans)
£ 20 - Christmas Fund (usually gets spent on a goose)
£ 10 - Garden Fund (for seeds, tools and compost)

The Meat Fund and the Grocery Challenge Fund have their own purses; everything else goes into separate savings accounts.  

Hope this helps,

- Pip

arnoldy

Eat less. Most people eat far too much hence UK most obese nation in Europe
What you do eat,  try and avoid:
1. Expensive cereals - branded choco pops or specials raspberry flakes type stuff - buy porridge instead
2. Crisps, cakes, biscuits, choccies are generally expensive. If you have a decent diet you should not need them
3. Puds, pots and yoghurts massively expensive and usually full of sugar/artificial stuff - especially the 0% fat ones

pumpkin89

arnoldy said:

Eat less. Most people eat far too much hence UK most obese nation in Europe

A lot of obese people are not eating too much, they are eating the wrong balance of foods.  If you look at diet plans, they often involve quite a lot of food because you have to eat quite a bit of fruit/veg/salad, wholegrains, lean meat etc. to get the right balance of nutrients.  Obesity is often the result of eating relatively small portions of over-processed food.

mikb

arnoldy said:

Crisps, cakes, biscuits, choccies ... yoghurts .... If you have a decent diet you should not need them

Wait, that's my five-a-day, right there You're no fun!

MrsStepford

At the moment, in an effort to empty the freezers more, I'm not buying any meat. So my weekly budget is £25 or less each for Abel & Cole and Riverford plus £25 each or less for two from ASDA, Iceland, Morrisons, Sainsbury's. Mostly organic fresh veg and fruit, tinned tomatoes, pickles, cheese and other dairy, olives, Parma ham, growing herbs.

The demise of MySupermarket is a pain. My tips would be to compare prices on your staple items, don't be afraid to buy Eastern European food (EU standards), do some batch cooking for the freezer, buy herbs and spices from ethnic shops where much cheaper. Pick up yellow-stickered veg for soup or fruit for crumble/pies/smoothies. 

t14cy_t

since march, ive strictly shopped once a week. luckily we have a large morrisons close and i do my shop after 6pm. thats when i find the yellow stickers!! its abit of a faff but i spend up to 2 hours waiting for my goodies. but, oh my its worth it!! my average bill is £119 of shopping for £11!! ive saved so much this way. also, im lucky that other yellow stickers shoppers are such a friendly bunch and we help each other to find the gems instore too!! well worth putting in the effort. btw we are a couple who love food and also have 3 large dogs, 26 chicken and 2 ducks!! 

balabooberlies

t14cy_t said:

since march, ive strictly shopped once a week. luckily we have a large morrisons close and i do my shop after 6pm. thats when i find the yellow stickers!! its abit of a faff but i spend up to 2 hours waiting for my goodies. but, oh my its worth it!! my average bill is £119 of shopping for £11!! ive saved so much this way. also, im lucky that other yellow stickers shoppers are such a friendly bunch and we help each other to find the gems instore too!! well worth putting in the effort. btw we are a couple who love food and also have 3 large dogs, 26 chicken and 2 ducks!! 

WOW !

That IS impressive.............

bala

Toonie

Since I moved in with my partner I've brought him round to my way of shopping which is to do a stock up shop roughly every 4-6 weeks (when I was on my own I got it delivered but my partner drives so we now go to our local Aldi). This normally costs around £100 and consists of tinned things, meat to get portioned for the freezer, frozen fish, and staples like flour, butter, oil, tea and coffee beans. I'd love to be able to get more frozen but we have a tiny freezer and can't afford to get a new one right now.

Then the weeks in between we do a small shop (at Sainsbos as it's walking distance) for the week ahead which includes things like milk, bread, cheese, fruit, veg, and anything we couldn't get at Aldi. These shops are normally around the £20 mark. Most months we spend around £180. When we were single I used to spend around £100 per month and my partner would spend around £150 per fortnight on food (plus takeaways). So a monthly shop with top ups can be a very effective way of reducing spends.

Apintplease

t14cy_t said:

since march, ive strictly shopped once a week. luckily we have a large morrisons close and i do my shop after 6pm. thats when i find the yellow stickers!! its abit of a faff but i spend up to 2 hours waiting for my goodies. but, oh my its worth it!! my average bill is £119 of shopping for £11!! ive saved so much this way. also, im lucky that other yellow stickers shoppers are such a friendly bunch and we help each other to find the gems instore too!! well worth putting in the effort. btw we are a couple who love food and also have 3 large dogs, 26 chicken and 2 ducks!! 

That is impressive - well done xx

We don't have the range of shops here. Tescos have changed their reduction policy as they now give to the food banks so pickings are slim now and as I have to drive a good few miles to the shops, I have to shop the lot in one hit to save on journeys and diesel

I do tend to get lucky with M&S. Its not my regular place to shop but if Im in that town, I can use the shop as a cut through to the car park so have a browse at the YS on the way through. Was so lucky about 2 months ago - 3 whole chickens for 25p each, would have had the lot only I couldn't carry any more

I shop when Im just fed. I can not be bothered to shop on a full belly so its surprising how little ends up in the trolly - certainly no treats go in. I also prefer to shop alone as then we aren't encouraging each other by saying if you want it get it

I do my weekly shop in Lidl, usually Sundays at opening time ( 1pm here ) as I find thats when they usually have the 30p 70p 90p items in the meat and fish section. Whatever it is Ill buy it and plan around. two weeks ago I got lots of chicken thighs for 70p Kg and turkey mince for 30p 500gr and best of all duck legs at 90p for two. I buy and chuck in the freezer. Im quite nifty with a knife and can bone out the thighs, turkey mince I use in place of beef mince, different texture but tastes lovely and takes on  flavours pretty well. Mr G prefers it now to beef mince

We are also not afraid to eat the same meal twice a week if need be. I often pick up pork loin very cheap. Its not the most exciting of meat, but add a nice seasoning before roasting and its lovely and it cuts so easily I can cut beautiful slices so a piece that was only about £4 will easily serve 3 of us two roast dinners and maybe even a sandwich 

If Im thinking roast dinner, then I buy the biggest cauliflower on display, its going to be the same price as a small one so I may as well get a couple of meals from it. Same with cabbage, turnip ( swede ) and broccoli , all sold per item, not per Kg. Even the smallest amount of left over veg can end up in a bubble and squeak to go with eggs for a cheap and filling meal

I go to Tesco once a fortnight to pick up my soft drinks that I take for work, unless the local spar has them cheaper, and the bread that mum prefers, I buy two loaves and she freezes in packs of two slices for when she needs bread

I don't have set amounts of money for food/cleaning etc. I have what I need but if I keep those spends down it means I have more money to play around with elsewhere. So say if after Ive paid all my bills I have £100, I can blow that on food or try to keep the bill to around £30 or £40 keeping some money for leisure 

As for toiletries and cleaning, we are not smelly dirty people but I spend very little. two boxes of Persil a year - I never pay full price, last box was £4 for 45 washes, last bag of dish washer tablets was 125 for £10, couple of bottles of fairy washing up liquid a year, flash and bleach as and when. Head and Shoulders - 3 for £10 maybe twice a year, Oven pride 4 times a year, 4bars of soap every 4 to six weeks, loo rolls every couple of months and the odd purchase of say oxyclean, air freshener, carpet cleaner, box of tissues. Tin foil, cling film, I buy the huge rolls that fit in dispensers, catering size. Was a big initial outlay, but now its just pennies a week ( Ive had them over ten years so sure they are paid for by now ) Never enough that Im having to find £10/£20 a week

Keeping the shopping to just a few shops also makes it easier for me to keep a mental note of prices, I know straight away if I am seeing a "TRUE' bargain or not. Its ok to seeing that flash bathroom spray is on offer at a £1, but is it really any better then lidl/aldi own brand at 69p?  And theres not a branded cheddar in any supermarket that can beat Lidls extra mature lol

balabooberlies

Hello Pint

some really great tips.  Never thought of buying the largest veg as it's all the same price.

I have a substantial voucher (£8.00 of £80.00 spend) that runs out at the end of this week.  2 days ago i took a pen and paper and looked for all the special offers on things we use.  I don't really need anything at the moment but am trying to buy tinned goods, cleaning products, all the heavy stuff.  In lockdown we couldn't get a delivery for love nor money.  It's not just that.........I think it would be really stupid not to use the voucher especially as quite a few of the things we use regularly are on special offer.

However, you are absolutely right in that I looked at a well known brand of bleach and was pleased to see it was on offer only to look at the shelf below to see that the store's own brand was much cheaper again.  I know what I will be buying..............

As to cheese at Lidly, my Dad swears by them all.  He is a massive cheese lover !

I get really upset with myself when I waste money, which I do regularly due to impulse.  I have decided to live with this trait in the hope that if I work hard at saving money where I can it goes a little way to covering my impulsiveness.  I live in hope.

bala