Guest Blog: How to Save Money on Your Food Bills
For today’s post we’re really pleased to introduce our very first guest writer – Becky Goddard Hill who writes for the popular blog, Baby Budgeting. Becky shares some of her money-saving tips for families on a budget. – Incahoot
According to the Love food: Hate waste campaign the average UK family throw away at least £50 a month worth of food! Food bills have also never been so high.
Here are some top tips to save you money on food bills and reduce your food waste
Meal plan
Creating a 7 day meal plan means only food that will be used needs to be bought and this should ensure food doesn’t go uneaten or spoil. Meal planning also stops last minute trips to more expensive local supermarkets or tempting takeaways. It will take you moments on a Sunday afternoon to draw up your menus but it will change your entire week.
Call your store
Supermarkets tend to have set times when they reduce their daily bread prices and mark down prices on other fresh items too. Simply give your local store a call and see. This can be really handy to know and the savings can be significant. Useful if you are planning to freeze bread because it doesn’t matter how short the remaining shelf life is.
Don’t take the kids
Taking the kids shopping is best avoided where possible. They may well pester you, get bored, distract you and make you rush. None of these antics will help you make smart, informed, shopping choices. Try and go when they are in bed or swap with a friend and mind each other’s kids whilst you take it in turns to shop.
Consider shopping online
Online you will only buy what you search for and not get tempted by cream cakes. toys, magazines and special offers. However you might not spot the useful special offers either and you may pay a delivery charge for online shopping. Why not experiment and find out what works best for you.
Markets
Local markets can be a cheaper way to buy fruit and veg and their shelf life may be longer. Going to a market just before it closes may mean you can get some real bargains. Don’t be afraid to haggle!
Portion control
If you are scraping food off plates into the bin every day either you are a rubbish cook or you are giving everyone too much! Experiment with your portions. You could save yourself money by making smaller meals!
Things you should know…
- You should never store bananas with other fruit as this will make them brown
- Keeping apples in the fridge keeps them crunchy
- Yogurt near its sell by date can be popped into lolly moulds and frozen for the kids
- Pegs or food clips are great for closing cereal, flour and pasta bags to stop items spilling or spoiling.
- It is advisable to keep milk out of the fridge door too as this is the least chilled part of a fridge.
- New food should be stored behind the old whether this be tins, cheese or even cake mix to avoid missing use by dates.
- Tupperware is worth every penny! It doesn’t need constant replacing like other storage materials and keeps lots of food fresher for longer. It also enables you to pop leftover portions in the freezer for lunch another day.
- Budget supermarkets and own brands are fine. Give them a try you will be hugely surprised by the price differences.
Good luck with savvy shopping and avoiding food waste, I’m sure you have better things to spend that spare £50 on!
Great tips Becky. Avoiding food waste is not only great for our pocket, it’s better for our environment too. Can you believe that the UK’s food waste (6.7 million tonne) could fill Wembley Stadium 8 times over!
Here’s are some more great tips to save money and waste:
Pop an apple in with your sack of potatoes to make them last longer.
Freeze milk – perfect for when you are on holiday – you’ll be sure of a cuppa when you get home.
Batch cook your favourites – if every week your family enjoys a spag bog, rather than cook it up fresh every week, cook a larger portion and then freeze. That way you’ll have a delicious home cooked meal at hand, plus a night off cooking.
Finally, to make sure you eat opened food in date order and before it goes off – date label it. That way everyone in the family knows which needs eating first, avoid unnecessary food waste.