10 Easy Tips to Reduce Your Weekly Food Bill

Have you noticed that your grocery shopping bill has shot up recently? Well, you are not alone, as you can see from the chart above a lot of the basic food stuffs have increased massively.  I went shopping yesterday and even dog food has increased by 20% in less than 3 weeks. I was not happy!

There is very little you can do about these prices by simply shopping around becuase it is the raw materials which have increased in price. So you need to think about changing you shopping habits. Below are some easy tips to save money next time you go shopping:

1. Never shop when you are hungry. You will always buy more than what you need.
2. Try and shop alone. If your mate is a compulsive buyer, leave the mate at home or in the car. Most people buy much less when shopping alone.
3. Make a list of what you need and follow the list. If you do not have a list, you will end of walking up all the aisles and buy everything that you see.
4. Check what you already have in the cupboard. Before you go to the grocery store, walk around the house and see whether you need it anything. The majority of us all have bought stuff that we already have in bulk at home. Do not assume you do not have the food, look first.
5. If you plan to buy fresh vegetable and fruits, avoid the large chain stores; they usually have more expensive fresh groceries. If there is a farm shop or a market you should always stop there first. In North America, most oriental stores have the cheapest and probably the best variety of vegetables. This holds true for the large Chinese Grocery stores.
6. Buy bulk if you have a large family. There are so many bulk stores around today which stock everything that you can possibly need. The great thing about bulk stores is that you can buy as much as you want at a much cheaper price than any food store. Bulk stores are usually less expensive as the foods do not come in any fancy packing.
7. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it. In a recent Cabinet Office study, they found that British consumers spend an average of £420 (528 euros, 826 dollars) per household each year on food that goes into the bin - the equivalent to 4.1 million tonnes or £10 billion pounds in the UK.
8. Do your grocery shopping online. If shopping online you are much less tempted by luxury items in sexy packaging. So your impluse purchases should be at a minimum. Yes there is an additional delivery charge but you can usually find a promotional discount code online which should give you free delivery, for example we list Tesco promotional codes and Asda promotional codes.
9. Check the special offers. I like beer but i’m not fussy on which brand it is, so i always check for special offers and get which ever beer is on offer.
10. Consider the value range. Some value items are horrible, e.g. value beer! But others are pretty good, e.g. value baked beans which are 20p while the Heinz ones are 47p.

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