Top Tips On Food Shopping

Hmm, food shopping. It can be the bane of my life at the best of times. I have times where I love it, but I honestly have times where I honestly absolutely hate and loathe it. Well, lets be honest. I think most of us hate doing the food shopping. I think with me, I loathe it as I worry about either getting food in that the kids wont eat or buying too much of the good things and it all goes in quick time. Here are my 10 tips on making food shopping that I found that just makes it little bit easier….

1. Set a Budget

This is probably one of the most important tips for food shopping out there. Once you’ve calculated all of your money for bills and have seen what money you have left over. Set your budget and make sure you stick to it. With my budget, some months I half it, use one half for a big monthly shop and the other half for our fresh weekly shop. I’ll explain most in tip 7.

2. Make a Meal Plan

Honestly, when I first started to do meal plans, I absolutely hated it and found them tiresome and boring. Having now said that, I look forward to planning meals and have now got into the habit of planning our main dinners once a month and then every Sunday, plan the breakfast and lunches for the week. If one day you don’t fancy what you had planned for that day, but something else that you had planned for another day, you can always swap it around. Also planning your meals out can help reduce missing items off, stop buying random items or anything that you don’t actually need. I also find writing your meal plan down helps. Download my customisable meal planner.

3. Check Your Cupboards/Fridge/Freezer

Before you plan your meals out and write a shopping list, have a look in kitchen cupboards and fridge/freezer and see what you got. This can help reduce down buying food that you already have and also help out with your meal planning.

4. Eat First!

I know this tip sounds the most silliest one of all of them, but it’s true. Don’t go food shopping when you are hungry as you will most likely end up with food in your trolley that you don’t need because you was feeling hungry whilst you were going round shopping. Believe me, we’ve all been there. Try and eat before you go.

5. Use Supermarket Brands

We tried this tip out a few years as we needed to try and make our food last longer. We swapped a few of our favourite food items from big brands to supermarket own brand. Honestly, some of them taste just as good as the more expensive brand. Sometimes, the supermarket brands taste better than the more expensive ones. Plus, you will save a bunch more money at the same time.

6. Split up food and freeze

Recently, I found buying the bigger packets of food (especially the fresh meat) and splitting it into separate freezer food bags has helped to keep food costs down as much as possible as we only use the amount we need for each meal. Also, with veg, I found blanch cooking some of it and freezing helps to keep cost down as well.

7. Shop Once

Doing a big food shop will help reduce the amount of shopping trips. If you can afford to do so, as mentioned in Tip 1, split your budget up, do one big monthly food shop of your cupboard essentials. These would consist of your tinned food (chopped tomatoes, baked beans, etc), cereal, long life milk etc. Whatever is left of your budget, split that into 4 and this will be for your fresh items such as bread, butter, fridge bits for a weekly shop.

8. Use Offers Wisely

Some of BOGOF offers are very tempting and can be very appealing. If the item that is on offer, steer away. It will take a lot of willpower, but trust me, you would be better off. Do use the offers if it’s going to save you money on items that you actually need.

9. Compare Supermarkets

When I first had my eldest, I saw a website advertise to compare all the current big supermarket that compared prices of food in all of the supermarket to help you find which one would be the cheapest for you to shop at for the week/month. Unfortunately, that website creased in 2020, but there are other website that can help.

If you’re shopping on a small budget, try a budget supermarket such as Aldi or Lidi. I found that these two supermarkets help to save you a packet and you get good value for your money. Aldi has also recently starting doing click and collect.

10. Leftovers

I know some of you may wonder why is leftovers a tip for food shopping. Leftovers are great at helping to keep food costs down as well as helping you to have less trips to the supermarket. If you have any leftovers at the end of your meal, freeze it or place it in your fridge to have the next day for lunch.

I hope these tips help you in any way as I know food shopping can be daunting and overwhelming for some people.