- Discover how easy it is to get started with supermarket money saving
- Learn how to save money with tried and tested expert advice
- Find out how to get cheap food shopping and how to save money on groceries
Source: Pexels No matter who we are, where we go, or what we do, food is something we’ll always need. Luckily, spending an arm and a leg to fill our stomachs is something we don’t. Read on to see how these expert money saving tips could help you avoid spending so much at the supermarket.
Let’s admit it, supermarket shopping often ends with us buying a lot more than we first expected to - I know that I’m guilty of being lured by Aldi’s special aisle more than once.
With a little bit of planning, you'll find that you’ll be able to stretch your hard-earned pounds further and eat like royalty (almost) without having to compromise much.
How much money could I save at supermarkets?
According to
NimbleFins, the average family of 4 spends around £431 every month on groceries. That’s a whopping £5172 a year.
By following expert advice, including how to get cheap food shopping, you’ll be able to slash this and save as much as £775.80 a year – what would you do with an extra £775 a year?
Thought about it? Great. Let’s get into how to save money on food shopping and save money at the supermarket:
1) Buy supermarket own branded products
Source: Fold7 Sticking to the brands we love is usually the obvious choice - they’re what we buy every day and these brands have won our hard-earned trust. With that being said, if you’re willing to switch to own brand products, you could be in for a real money saving treat.
For a lot of the branded foods we buy, flavours, textures, quality, and quantity are remarkably similar to supermarket own brand alternatives. According to some, some own brand alternatives are actually better (ever watched the Aldi adverts?)
In a lot of instances, the only real differences are the packaging and the difference in price (with branded goods sometimes being as much as double the price).
We ran an experiment and found out that by switching to own brands to start saving money, you could save up to as much as £550 a year.
Check out our guide on how much you could save by switching to own brand.
2) Start shopping around
When grocery shopping, we tend to shop at whichever supermarket’s closest, thinking that there’ll only be a difference of a few quid over a quick trip.
Being honest with ourselves, what starts as a small shop rarely ever finishes as one - it’s something we’re all guilty of!
ITV This Morning’s money saving expert, Alice Beer, recommended to compare prices in advance to save as much as 30% on your grocery shop. She also recommended shopping around and using grocery comparison apps like Trolley.co.uk.
You’ll be able to compare prices at UK’s largest supermarkets including Aldi, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Iceland, B&M, and more with
Trolley.co.uk.
3) Always check the reduced section
Source: Caters News Ever saw those products with big, bright yellow labels?
Reduced groceries are goods that are soon to expire. Once expired, they’re no longer sellable for supermarkets which is why there’s a massive reduction in cost.
To catch these bargains, try leaving shopping for later in the day. This can be from around an hour before closing time, or 7pm onwards in 24-hour stores. Truthfully, this can change from store to store, so I’d recommend checking with your preferred stores when you’re next in.
Once you've bagged yourself a bargain (pardon the pun), you can make the most of reduced food items by freezing as much as you can to eat them at a later date which means you don’t have to worry about food going bad.
It’s also important to remember:
- Best before dates aren't an absolute guideline and are general advise
- The reduced section of supermarkets isn't only expiring food, there’s also goods with damaged packaging, or other faults.
In short: whatever the issue, if you see a yellow sticker, there's a real bargain waiting for you.
On the topic of reduced grub, it might be worth checking out
Too Good To Go – it’s an app that stocks yellow labelled food from some of UK’s largest supermarkets. If you’re lucky, you could be looking at getting £30 or £40 worth of food for no more than a few £.
4) Give the world food aisle a visit
For everyday essentials like rice, spices, and sauces, you could be looking at saving up to 75% by visiting the world food aisle.
It's not that the quality is any worse when compared to domestic equivalents, the biggest reason for the price difference is often down to the brands not being as known and so they’re not able to charge as much due to generally lower demand.
5) Make a weekly plan of your meals before going to the supermarket
Source: Pexels By writing out a meal plan before going grocery shopping and writing out the ingredients you need from the supermarket, you’re looking to largely cut the costs of your shopping since there’s no room for the “Maybes", “What ifs", or the “Oooo how abouts" - they really do add up!
Using the
Trolley.co.uk Shopping List feature, you’ll be able to create a basket of items and find out which stores are the cheapest to buy your list from.
With a supermarket shopping list, you'll be able to keep laser focused on the things you actually need at the supermarket which also makes it much easier to save money in the long run since you’re always keeping on top of what you're spending every week.
Bonus: it also makes shopping trips much quicker!
6) Don’t miss out on free, fresh food
Okay, that’s supermarket money saving sorted, but how do you get food for free? One word: OLIO.
OLIO is an app where people give away excess food, expiring or never used groceries, and belongings like Children's Toys, Books, DVDs, and more. If you've nothing ready for dinner or need a spare ingredient or two, OLIO is definitely worth a check before heading to the supermarket or opening up Deliveroo/UberEats.
Check out OLIO’s website here7) Never shop for food when hungry
Source: Pexels You've probably heard this over and over before, but: never, ever, shop for food when hungry.
Have you ever looked at food while on a very full stomach? Squeamish, right? That’s how you want to look at groceries when shopping. Squeamish.
Snacks are truly where we spend an incredible amount of money without realising. A single pack of crisps, a single bar of chocolate, and a single can of fizzy will easily put you back £2-3 at a time. Let’s say you pick some up once a week, every week, for a year, that’s £104-£156 a year on a 2-minute snack.
if you haven't had anything to eat for a few hours and then decide to pop to the supermarket, it’s human nature to then end up throwing everything that looks remotely edible into your trolley - you’re hungry after all!
Put simply, avoid impulse buys by grabbing a quick bite before you leave the house.
8) Use supermarket cashback apps
With supermarket cashback apps like Shopmium, Quidco, and CheckoutSmart, you could be looking at a reimbursement of up to 100% of your money on some supermarket groceries.
When joining, Shopmium has a great bonus of 100% cashback on a nice treat (imagine a free Nutella or Ben & Jerry's ice cream just for signing up). Plus, you get £3 credit for referring a friend.
Before going out to do your food and drink shop, simply skim through your cashback apps to see if there are any products on there that you’re looking to buy and you could be looking to save with cashback reimbursements.
By using multiple supermarket cashback apps, there’ll be even more exclusive bonuses that you’ll be able to benefit from so sign up to many as you can! Here are some other cashback apps:
TopCashback
https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ QuidCo
https://www.quidco.com/ CheckoutSmart
https://www.checkoutsmart.com/9) Do your food shop online
Online food shopping is arguably one of the best ways to cut your spending with the least amount of work required (think about it, you’re able to do it off of your phone with your bottom firmly planted on your sofa).
It's easier to shop around and compare product prices online with websites/apps like
Trolley.co.uk since you’re able to access the prices at almost every supermarket and save up to 30% per grocery shop.
For more details on how shopping online can save you cash, as well as which supermarkets to go for,
check out our guide to online delivery availability and costs.
10) Squeeze the most out of loyalty cards
Supermarkets offer a loyalty scheme or card where you can earn points while shopping that you can use to get discounts in future. Popular examples of this are Tesco’s Clubcard and Sainsbury’s Nectar Card.
By getting a loyalty card from all the applicable supermarkets in your area, you’ll always be prepared to rack up some points.
The best thing is that when you sign up for a loyalty card, supermarkets send you vouchers on the products you typically buy since they’re hoping to bring you back to the store more.
A key thing to remember is to only use the voucher/offer if the products are actually needed. Vouchers typically have a long shelf life so the best thing to do is collect them over time and then use them as and when they’re actually needed.
