How To Save Money On Groceries
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When getting started with saving money on anything, all the tips and advice out there can be a little bit overwhelming.
I’ve broken down my top money-saving tips for the weekly food shop into bitesize chunks, so you can start saving by picking and choosing a couple of easy ways to save and then once those become habit, it’s time to try something new again.
Here are my top tips for how to save money on groceries.
How To Save Money On Groceries
Groceries are most families biggest expense and a cost that seems to keep on rising year on year.
Many people will have already taken action – swapping to budget supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi or dropping from their favourite brands to the supermarket’s own version.
But there is always more we can do – a little bit of planning when it comes to the weekly shop can go a long way and save a lot of money too.
1. Buy Wonky Or Imperfect Fruit & Veg
Wonky fruit and vegetables seem to be very on-trend right now, with most of the major supermarkets stocking a good selection of them.
This is a great way to stock up of fresh fruit and vegetables for a fraction of the cost and of course, it’s great for the environment too, as far less food ends up getting wasted.
Combine this with a few bits from the reduced section and fresh produce could end up costing pence rather than pounds.
Lidl’s wonky vegetable boxes for just £1.50. have been a huge hit as they have around 5kg of fruit and vegetables which is a cracking price.
Morrison does wonky avocados, as these can be really expensive to buy ordinarily. Even my local co-op has started offering Wonky Potatoes and Carrots which is fab!
2. Change Your Shopping Time And Day
The majority of us are creatures of habit and will shop at roughly the same time and place each week. Changing the time you shop could make a difference in how much you spend.
Shopping on a busy afternoon with kids in tow is always going to be crazy busy and this can lead to us stress buying the first thing we see as we want to get in and out as quickly as possible.
Going very early in the morning or the early evening can mean a much quieter shopping experience and less stress means more time to browse and look at offers and deals.
3. Always Make A List
Planning ahead is the key to savvy shopping – having a clear idea of what you already have in the fridge, freezer and pantry will always give you a head start on saving money as you’ll be less inclined to buy things that you don’t need.
Create a meal plan using the ingredients you already have in and make a note of any extras you’ll need to buy to complete each meal.
Using up everything you have rather than continually buying new for every meal should help with stock rotation and prevent things from going off.
4. Check The Reducded Section For Yellow Sticker Bargains
Reduced food easily makes up around half of the food I buy. I love grabbing bits and pieces that have been reduced to pennies and it saves me an absolute fortune pretty much every week.
I rarely buy bread that hasn’t been reduced and a big chunk of our meat and vegetables come from the reduced section too.
Recent Reduced Bargains include:
- 2 x Venison steaks reduced from £4.00 to £1.20
- Crusty bread from £1.35 to 35p
- Speciality Fruit Loaf £1.90 to 25p
- Hummus £1.60 to 25p
- Sweet Potato & Carrot Mash £1 to 50p
Total £9.85 down to £2.55 which is a huge saving. I’m really passionate about buying reduced food and preventing food waste – below are some of my most popular reduced food posts.
- The Best Time of Day for Yellow Sticker Bargains
- 10 Misconceptions about buying Yellow Sticker Food
- The Difference Between Best Before and Use By
- 10 Things To Do With A Reduced Food Haul
Many reduced items can be frozen to help them last longer.
5. Check Out Special Offers Before Shopping
Planning ahead it one of the best ways to save money when comes to the weekly shop.
Meal planning can be a big part of this, but I like to go one step further and do my meal plan around the special offers coming up each week.
We do our main shop at Lidl and they actually make it really easy to find the following weeks offers – next weeks weekend offers are always on a board at the front of the store, they can be found on the Lidl Plus App and there are leaflets instore as you leave with upcoming offers on.
Knowing what food will be cheap enables me to save as much money as possible and stock up on things we use a lot of as I know they’ll be on offer.
It’s worth finding out which day of the week your chosen supermarket updates their weekly offers and whether they have special offers specific to the weekend too.
These tips should help you get started with saving money on groceries!
