How to save money when food shopping

We could all do with saving money when food shopping. Here are a few examples of ways to save money and ways to not waste money, when out doing the daily, weekly or monthly shopping:

Look for heavily discounted goods
All fresh food such as bread etc have a limited shelf life and most supermarkets have a point in the day when the prices need to be discounted in order for the stock to be sold. Try to find out what time this is and make the most of it. Luckily for the consumer, bread and other such items can be bought at a discount price and frozen for later use.

Take a shopping list
Take a shopping list and stick to it. Don’t buy anything that is not on the list. This requires a little discipline, but will save you money over a period of time.

Take enough cash and no plastic
You don’t want to get to the check out and find you haven’t brought enough cash with you to cover the cost of your shopping. If you take plastic you can always fall back on that, but cash is hard currency and you can only spend what you have with you. This is a great way to stop yourself from spending money you don’t want to spend when shopping.

Use vouchers and coupons
Most supermarkets have a loyalty card. If you don’t have one, it is worth asking for one next you are at the checkout as periodically you will be sent money off vouchers. Because the store knows what kind of products you buy (through the purchases attached to your loyalty card) the vouchers will often be very well targeted.

Do not go food shopping when you are hungry
If you go food shopping when you are hungry you are likely to buy faddy food or more food than you actually need. Impulse buys can often be a waste of money; shopping soon after breakfast, lunch or dinner will take away a lot of the impulse to buy food or snacks you don’t really need.

Don’t get dragged into useless ‘buy one get second half price’ offers
Many of these offers are actually very good, but there are also a few from which you may not benefit. Sure, the likelihood of using everything you buy eventually is quite high, but don’t blindly grab the second item just because you think you will be saving money. Ask yourself if you actually want or need the second item and base your decision on that, not the cost. If your budget is tight you would actually be spending more money that you wish to.

Look for ‘buy one get one free’ offers
This type of offer is known as a BOGOF and offers great value to the consumer – as long as the price of the item has not been increased to accommodate the discount.

Buy loose fruit and veg rather the pre-packaged
If you buy pre-packaged fruit or veg the cost of the sorting and packing process is likely to have been added to the overall cost of the item. Most supermarkets have a “cost per kg” (or equivalent) price on the price tag, checking this will give you an idea if it will cost more to buy pre-packaged or loose fruit and veg.

Watch out for special offers
Always watch out for special offers but don’t waste money on items you don’t need. At the moment our favourite special offer is chicken. Our local supermarket is offering, on an ad hoc basis, 5 pieces of frozen chicken at 50% off the RRP. This offer is hard to find as the stock is always located in a freezer cabinet at the end of an aisle and not with the rest of the chicken items. What’s more, the offer seems to be switched off and on like a tap – one day it’s there, the next day it’s not.

Go wholesale
If you can open an account with a wholesaler such as Costco and you have the storage space, you can save a lot of money by buying non perishable goods in bulk. Toilet roll, kitchen roll, washing up liquid and other essentials fall neatly into this category. However, you do need to discipline yourself when shopping at the wholesalers as you could end up buying a huge box of something you fancy because you are hungry, you have brought your plastic and it is on special offer!

Do you have any suggestions for saving money when out shopping? We would love to hear what they are – why not leave a comment below and share your idea with others?