To ask for your thrifty tips on keeping the food shop down

[savingsavvy]

Absolutely everything in the food shop has gone up and not just by 10% in some cases a lot more. The 20p here and 50p there is adding up and I'm keen to be as thrifty as I can to retain our current shopping budget without having to increase it too much.

I already intend to to the following but there must be more that you can share and we can all help each other:

Buying bigger/bulk packs such as pasta, toilet roll, where it's cheaper it buy a bigger pack

Stock up on non perishable items when I see them on special offer

Convert a bit of the fresh items to frozen and stock up on the freezer - tends to be cheaper and don't need to worry about things going out of date

Downgrade where possible, I've done this with bread so far and will try some of the cheaper butter/spreads

Over to you!

Shop around if you have time.

I was shocked when I nipped into M&S recently and found items cheaper than I'd purchased in Tesco.

I buy cleaning stuff and some foood stuffs such as biscuits and crisps in Poundland but it is really worthwhile making mental notes of the prices of things in different stores.

Make sure you measure out your washing liquid and fabric softener rather than free pouring. What you think you need vs what you actually do can vary.

This goes for pasta etc too. Now I measure out there is no waste and less over eating!

If you eat meat and fish, stop, or restrict to once or twice a week. Base your meals of veg, pulses and a carb. Our food bill has cut by two thirds, without needing to cut back in any other way, or do any special prep. I've also lost 2 stone and we've never felt healthier.

We buy a weekly organic veg box. This is £16 . I use that as basis of all our meals each week.
We top up what we need from aldi.
This is what we eat.

B fast. Overnight oats with cheap frozen fruit.

Lunch a budda bowl. Protein.. cous cous mixed with cheap tin green lentils. Home made hummus( chickpeas 40 a tin)
Sometimes salmom in tin .cubed cheese.
Advo.
Mixed veg such a potatoes , salad.. all covered in homemade sauce of garlic, oil, lemon and mustard.
Slice bread.

Eve.. dhal, home made veg, burgers, stew, bols, .. pasta , .. no meat, no ready made.. saves loads . It can be boring but this choice means we can still afford to go to pub !

We've stopped buying butter, we just use spread for everything now. Value bread, loo roll. Value toothpaste, soap is 15p and huge and lasts for ages.

Wondering if getting a Costco card would be advantageous?

Wherever possible stock up on non-perishable goods in advance, you always want to have a least a month's supply in. Prices are going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future so anything you can buy today will cost you less than if you bought it in a few months time. Also as the beginning of the pandemic showed, the "just in time" model that supermarkets operate on is very fragile and rare (but foreseeable) events like war, a pandemic, infrastructure failure or civil unrest bring it crashing down very quickly.

All of the "buy cheap" tips others have suggested apply for your personal resilience planning too. Buy as much as you can afford (and can store), be the squirrel who hides lots of nuts away ahead of winter.

Actually using things up before buying more/alternatives. For example making sure I’ve used up a whole bag of oats for overnight oats/porridge before I buy weetabix/cereal. It can make eating boring having less variety but I’ve definitely saved money using up what I already have. It kind of works out that I eat in cycles, so there is variety over time just not daily.

We have cut out meat hugely from our diet (more for ethical and environmental reasons) and our food shop had dropped by around £25 a week.
I use a lot of split peas, lentils, chick peas, beans, and fish. A potato and mixed bean curry instead of chicken curry. Split pea chana dal is lovely and a huge pack of split peas is just £4 which makes 20 servings. We eat meat once a week at most. It really has made a big difference.

Sign up to the loyalty schemes if you haven't. There are usually good offers to be had.

You can get away with using less washing powder than you think.
Same with dishwasher tabs - Buy supermarket own and use half a tab.
Buy the fruit and veg that are on offer. There's always a different selection. I bought 2 packs of cherries for 79p each (club card) and the kids thought it was such a treat.
Stock up when your favourite things are on offer.
Stop buying junk food.

I only buy what we need each week and no longer stock up unless a favourite item is on offer. Bills have reduced as a result.

I find Guosto/hello fresh cheaper than supermarket and saves wood waste.

3 of us £50 a week 16 -20 meals then when that’s gone, everyone gets their own

Buy seasonally.
Cook once eat twice (or three times) eg have a plan for leftovers
I have gone back to buying tinned fruit as I find a lot of fresh fruit goes to waste so I limit that
Grow your own in containers: radishes, small haricot beans, courgettes, all easy!
Eat small portion of meat twice a week and fish once, the rest veggie
Make your own cleaning products from w up liq, vinegar and bicarb, and save a fortune!

I know lots of people blame top up shops for high bills but what I did was drop the big shop. I tend to focus much more on what's needed and there's less waste.

I was just about to say get a big weekly shop, and use online money off codes!

I do this and am saving around £20 a week. The ones I use are from Waitrose (£20 off £100) and Ocado is also doing a 'third off' code atm.

Try and eek out the days in between shopping.

I stick to cheaper meats; chicken thighs, pork shoulder steaks and I use Quorn mince. Top up stews/ curries/ bolognese with lentils.

Cutting down on alcohol is a big money and health saver.

Jacket potatoes/ soup/ sandwiches/ wraps are perfectly fine for dinner.

We have a deep fat fryer and although it is unhealthy, it has reduced our takeaways to virtually nil. A bag of frozen french fries for 75p do the job of curbing the chippy/ McDonald's Friday night craving and they take 4 minutes to cook. The kids prefer them to takeaways.

We have a Costco card, it's not always cheap but great for stocking up on loo roll, kitchen roll, tea bags, coffee beans. Means not having to buy in the weekly shop.

Do a rough plan of upcoming meals and write your shopping list accordingly. Keep a bit of flexibility in your opening in case you spot items on offer.

Get into the habit of eating leftovers so they don't go to waste and you may get an extra meal or two out of it. We've had some fantastically odd mish mash leftover lunch combinations in the past 😋

look for 3/4 recipes that use store cupboard foods - stock up on these meals so you have enough for 4 meals of each.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/tuna-sundried-tomato-pasta-bake
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/storecupboard-spaghetti-puttanesca
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/super-fast-pad-thai

this means that at least two of your weekly meals can be drawn from the store cupboard

buy milk and freeze, buy bread and freeze, buy part baked loaves of bread and long life sandwich fillers - tuna and mayo, type foods

all the above will reduce top up shops and if you can reduce your footfall in the supermarket you'll reduce your weekly and monthly bill.

If you can meal plan for 2 weeks and on the second week only do a top up shop of fresh ingredients you need for the rest of the fortnight

chicken thighs. if you can get skin and an bone in chicken thighs they are around £2 for 6/8 thighs and have the most meat on ratio of any cut of chicken

I get them home and then take them out of the packaging and use my fingers to put the skin off and a knife to de bone - then place in bags ready to use, or in the freezer if not using till the end of the week

We have always had a few cheap meals a week - soup, pasta and tomato sauce, baked potatoes. Going into the summer I find this is easier.
Over the years I’ve become better at stretching meals out, using leftovers, using yellow sticker things in meals.
There seems to be lots of social media accounts with cheap meal ideas at the moment.

We have a deep fat fryer and although it is unhealthy, it has reduced our takeaways to virtually nil. A bag of frozen french fries for 75p do the job of curbing the chippy/ McDonald's Friday night craving and they take 4 minutes to cook. The kids prefer them to takeaways

this was how we got a treat in the 1970s - it was homemade chips with a fried egg to dip the eggs into or ham - it was a staple tea for us once a week

Ooh now I want egg and chips.

LaWench such a great meal and as cheap as

@makeminealargeplease Costco is great quality but I'm uncertain that it's cheaper as such. Good for batch cooking but every time I go it needs a big initial outlay - then budgeting for the next big buy. IYSWIM

Buy things that are in season.

Measure everything. A cup of rice is enough for 4 people; 1 cup of pasta per person.

I've limited the top up shops - they're lethal for me.

I've found I spend less when doing click and collect. Much less tempted to put chocolate, biscuits, crisps extras in my basket than when walking around the store.