Simple Food Shopping Tips to Save the Pennies!

'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.'

Everybody appears to do their food shopping differently. Some choose to shop daily, some weekly. Many stick to the same supermarket and others shop around. 

Whether we do this simply out of habit, or because we feel it is the best choice, doesn't really matter. We will all never really agree. But one thing we will all agree on is, we all want to save money but still eat what we like. 

Recently there have been many articles on budget food shopping. Two I can think of from the top of my head are related to the supermarket chain Waitrose. Both articles were families keeping to a budget of £30 for the week. Both shopped at Waitrose, but both families did it differently. 

One family lived from the reduced section and the other lived from the stores 'value' range.

Both seem a tad extreme to me and if we are being honest with ourselves, food is such a huge part of our lives, none of us want to feel we are missing out because we are being frugal. 

So I have put together a few simple tips that will save you some pennies but you won't feel you have been deprived of your weekly 'goodies'. 

1. Price per kg/ml

As you can see in the above picture, below the main price of the product is a price per kg. This is a tip my lovely Nan taught me. If it is a product you will use a lot off sometimes it is cheaper to buy the bigger one, or sometimes cheaper to buy the smaller. So simply check the price per kg or price per 100ml on both the larger and smaller versions of the product and of the different brands. 

Also remember VALUE ISN'T ALWAYS CHEAPER!

E.g. Recently I needed butter for baking cakes, I wasn't fussy so went straight for the value brand of the product. Once I picked it up I paused for a moment and thought I best check the prices. It turned out that the Stork brand was cheaper than the Value Brand when comparing weight prices. 

2. Best Before Dates

Best before dates! Sounds like basic common sense doesn't it. We presume the store will only be selling products with a best before date that isn't either today or days ago but unfortunately this isn't always the case. Two reasons I am mentioning this one. 

First reason, are you eating this product today? Or in 3 days time? The best before date could be today's date, they don't have to put a reduced sticker on it straight away, they could wait until the afternoon. So you could buy this product without looking, planning on keeping it in your fridge for the next 3 days and then BAM, you pull this out of the fridge 3 days later and notice it has gone off and cannot be eaten. You've just wasted money and have nothing for your dinner!

Second reason. Now I am going to name and shame Morrisons I'm afraid. I slipped up one day and didn't check best before dates like I usually do. I picked up a packet of milkshakes for my son's packed lunches. I trusted they were in date as surely the store aren't allowed to sell out of date products! So I buy the milkshakes, go home and then realize the milkshakes went out of date over a month ago!! So yet again I have just wasted money and if I hadn't of checked the dates I could of made my children ill.

Moral of the story, ALWAYS check the best before date!! Nobody wants to get ill from food or throw their money down the drain! 

3. Shop around!

If you can, shopping around will take up a bit more time but will save you a lot of money in the long run. There is a supermarket comparison site you can use that can come in handy when comparing the main supermarkets, but sometimes simply having a wander around other shops can help. Some of my favourites are Quality Save, Home Bargains, Farmfoods, Iceland and B&M.

Now I know a lot of people will stick there noses up at shopping in 'bargain' stores but trust me, you will be glad of the savings when you do, as a lot of these stores stock branded products at much cheaper prices. 

One example is crisp. Almost everybody buys packets of crisp for either snacking or packed lunches. We all have our favourite ones too, whether it's Walkers or McCoys. It is super rare that I have found these crisps 'cheap' in the main supermarkets. I tend to always buy them from one of the 'bargain' stores. But please remember that on occasion one of the main supermarkets may have the best price. So shop around! 

4. Decent offer?

This one is a tricky one so bare with me. We all get excited when we see signs like in the above picture. This can be a good and a bad thing, be careful with this. We presume that if it has a huge 'offer' sign on it then it must be a bargain. In some cases it can be, and if it is a decent offer then maybe consider buying more than one.

If it is an item you use often then check the best before date (remember how important this one is) and double check it is a decent price, if these two add up then buy more than one! Recently my favourite cereal was on offer in the supermarket. It's usual retail price was around £3.80 for the large box and at the offer price (still for the large box) it was £1.70! I was a very happy girl and bought 3 boxes! 

Now the bad side of all these 'offer' signs we get so excited about. Is it really a good price on offer in this store or have you seen it cheaper in other stores? Also do you really want or need it? Or are you just getting excited because it's on offer and you think you will be saving money.

Just remember these tips when you next see the ever so pretty 'half price', 'buy one get one free' signs. 

5. Coupons! Nobody cares! 

I will hold my hands up and say I used to be one of them people that was scared to use coupons. I always thought the check out staff would think I was poor or just a cheapskate but oh how wrong and foolish was I. 

Coupons can be great and honestly that check out woman/man you are handing them over to, they really could not care less that you have a coupon, they aren't thinking you are poor or you are cheap. They just get used to it. Millions of people use coupons and if you don't use them, more fool you! 

A few things though to remember about coupons. 

Check the dates on them! They can be handy little money savers but you need to check the dates otherwise they are no use to you. Check them regularly. 

Read the small print! You need to read the small print as sometimes they can only be used in certain stores and also on certain sizes of the particular product the coupon is for. Does it say, '£1 off any size washing liquid' or does it say, '£1 off 200ml washing liquid' ?

Keep them in your purse/wallet! They are no use to you when you are in the supermarket and they are at home on your kitchen table.

Last but definitely not least, just because you have a coupon for something doesn't always mean you need to use it. Only use coupons for products you will actually use. I mean what use is buying dog food with your half price coupon if you don't actually have a dog!

So I hope these 5 little tips help you with your food shopping. I do have more tips to come but for now we will keep it to the 5. Don't want to overwhelm you with great money saving tips so soon! ;)  

Please feel free to leave comments, whether it is feedback or your own penny saving tips.

Thanks for reading. 

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