About to be time rich and money poor

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Sounds like you are being really positive and pro-active which is great!

Being time rich/ money poor means you can explore all the different shops by you to ascertain exactly what each one is cheapest at and shop around instead of just doing one massive shop at one shop for convenience.

What do you do for transport can you switch to walking at all for any shopping? Good exercise and saves on petrol.

And yes can cook from scratch and see which meals you can make really cheap

The end of the day reductions can be good, as can the food waste prevention initiatives. Worth trying!

Good luck and enjoy your time off x

My shopping bill is tiny since becoming vegan. Not only has it cut out the costs of meat and fish, but so many expensive ready made and treat foods contain dairy and egg. I buy fresh, frozen and tinned fruit, veg, beans and pulses and use them in that order so no waste. Then rice, pasta, bread, nuts and tofu and I'm done. I have a good stock of herbs and spices and make everything from scratch. Curries, chilli, pasta dishes, stews and soups. It makes an excellent base diet, because whatever else, you'll know you've eaten healthily. Then if you want to supplrment with some meat/fish/eggs etc as budget allows, you can.

I expected to have a lot of free time on redundancy but job hunting really is a full time job. So don't prioritise tracking across town to save pennies on a shop if a job application needs a couple of hours of focus.

But do schedule time off the job hunt too, to relax and do some money saving. Work through your bills and get rid of subscriptions, look at sim only phone plans, change Internet providers etc.

Then theres selling bits too, I had a good clear out on vinted for clothes. And zap your books etc with music magpie or similar to see what you can sell. Do a car boot or sell on FB marketplace too. Less clutter makes you feel good when you're in the house more and makes some cash.

Appreciate this is less about food savings - Good luck with the job hunt

Find a wholesale butchers and buy their massive slabs of meat etc (I’m talking the ‘half a cow/pig’ variety). Then take a sharp knife to it and freeze portions. It works out cheaper than the supermarket for better meat.

Switch to mainly vegetarian meals. It takes a while to find good recipes, but there are out there.

See if there’s a group near you that ‘saves’ waste food. It’s perfectly good and you’re also helping the environment.

only shop once a month except milk. It’s amazing how much you find in the cupboards when you can’t just nip to the shop. It’s equally amazing how often you decide you’re actually not that hungry and a slice of toast will do….

Buying cheap things in bulk so there is always food when you don't feel like cooking

Pasta- several 3kg bags
Rice - a few 10kg bags
Tinned tomatoes (own brand cheap ones)
Beans
Cheese
Eggs
Potatoes
Massive tub of butter

Go to the independent ethnic shops to buy big bags of seasonings and boxes of something called Indomie - instant noodles that are super delicious

Fill up the freezer with things like meat, chicken nuggets and breaded chicken, chips and a couple of bags of mixed veg) also buy bagels and bread that can be frozen (bagels so easy to store in the freezer)

Then buy flour and yeast to make your own loaves, cheap cake ingredients for when a sugar craving is needed

Congratulations on being made redundant as it does sound like you needed some time off! Hope you get to try out new recipes and enjoy it xx

Making bread comes in useful if you don't use the bread maker just a big batch of dough, keeps in the fridge for a few days covered, tear off a piece for pizza bases or bread rolls fresh each day. Depends what bread you normally eat, if bakers sourdough at £3-4 then yes will save money, if 47p white savers sliced then it won't (yuck)!!

If you don't normally do online shopping then you can take advantage of any offers that come up, eg I got into ocado when they did 25% off first few shops. If you vary the supermarkets you go to (get to know your prices) you can save money and if you haven’t been to one for a while they often send you vouchers. I just got vouchers through the post for £9 off £60 shops at sainsburys for four weeks as I haven't used them for a while.

I try and save money by eating these items for dinner:

cheese on toast
liver and onions/mashed potato
chicken curry
tinned mackerel/tuna with jacket potatoes
pasta/bacon/peas/sweetcorn
cheap pizza
shepherd’s pie

Butchers seem more expensive to me
Think a cheap loaf will be cheaper than making from scratch