SHOP SAVVY
I save hundreds on my shopping bills each month thanks to a six-rule method – you should be picking up bread for 20p
Kirsty Holden is particularly strict with how much she'll spend on butter - but it's for good reason...
MILLIONS of Brits feeling the cost of living pinch on our food shops at the moment.
But you don’t have to roll over and take it - you can be savvy to save pennies, says Money Saving Mum Kirsty Holden.
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The mum-of-two has an entire blog dedicated to helping families save money and live life to the full on a budget.
In one post, she detailed six easy-to-follow tips for slashing the price of your weekly food shop.
Here, Fabulous takes a look at Kirsty’s tips and how they might save you hundreds of pounds each month…
1. Order Online
We’ve all been there: popped in the shop for one thing and left with five more things that we don’t need.
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Kirsty avoids this by doing the bulk of her food shopping online.
“Ordering online allows me to see what we’ve bought before and what’s on our ‘usual list’,” she penned on her blog.
“If I need something specific that’s not on that list then I search for it and it takes me straight to it; I don’t go walking past the Nutella aisle to get bread!”
2. Avoid Branded Foods
It’s a tip as old as time but not always easy to execute: buy supermarket versions of food, or at the very least, reach for less “posh” labels.
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“In my opinion milk, eggs and butter taste no different whether they have a ‘made for you’, deluxe or whatever label the supermarkets want to put on them to suggest they are the ‘better’ option,” Kirsty said.
“I always make sure I go for the cheapest butter when baking because it’s all exactly the same… so why should I pay 50p more in Asda than it is in Aldi?
"That 50p I’ve saved on my butter will buy my flour."
She urged shoppers to compare the ingredients between the cheapest option and their preferred option on their next food shop - as you might find they’re no different.
3. Get Your Dupe On
Dupes have taken the UK by storm amid the cost of living crisis, and Kirsty believes food dupes are not to be sniffed at.
You can get versions of your favourite branded products for pounds cheaper with dupes.
“Herons own chocolate fingers that taste so much like Cadbury’s it’s uncanny,” she said.
“And for a big bag at just 85p, they’re such a bargain too.”
4. Meal Plan
Planning what you’re going to eat on each day of the week is a great way to stop you from overspending.
“We have a list of all our favourite foods and we try to look down it before every shop and plan our meals for the following week,” Kirsty said.
“By meal planning, we find we again only buy what we need for that week.”
You can get a chalk board for your kitchen to draft up the meal plan or use an app on your phone to hold you accountable.
5. Too Good To Be True
Kirsty warned that “not every offer is as good as it looks”, so it’s worth actually reading the small print before splurging.
“Always check the price per unit against the singles before you commit to popping a pack of six in there because it’s reduced by 50p,” she said.
“Look out for £1.10/kg or similar and compare with other pack sizes around the same area.”
6. Bulk Buy
It may seem like something Americans are more inclined to do, but bulk buying and stockpiling can work for Brits too.
“We regularly buy in bulk the foods that go into packed lunches, especially savouries,” Kirsty said.
“The next time you go shopping, in addition to the savoury items you get for dinner, pick yourself up some freezer bags and immediately freeze everything you’ve just bought the minute you return home.
“Whether that’s sausage rolls, chicken fingers, scotch eggs or the mini sausages…. freeze them all!”
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Kirsty also loves yellow sticker bargains and finds going in later helps her pick up better deals - which includes picking up bread for 20p in her local Tesco garage.
Reduced items like bread are safe to freeze on the day you buy them - but you’ll need to be more careful freezing meat and dairy products close to their use by date.
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