Ultimate Guide To Saving Money On Food
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
When it comes to family finances, your kitchen can cause a huge dent in your budget. Food and drink account for a large proportion of family spending and in the UK, we’re terrible at it. Research has shown that in the UK, we bin over 6 million tonnes of food each year.
Add a few kids into the mix and the household food bill can spiral out of control. Here are some tips that will help you plan your family menu, shop smartly and minimise waste.
Budget
Knowing how much you’re spending on shopping and ‘top-up shops’ is a good first start to getting a grip on the household budget. Build it into a wider family budget that lists all of your bills, credit commitments like Plenti or credit cards and other essential expenditure.
Meal Planning
This is the first step in successfully feeding your family for less. Plan your meals, drinks and snacks for the week (or however long you leave between shops. Try and pick meals that use common ingredients so that you can use up all ingredients.
For those meals that store well, you can batch cook them and keep some in the freezer and rotate these in on a regular basis.
Create your shopping list based on this meal plan.
Shop intelligently
You might think the best way to do everything is head to the nearest budget supermarket such as Lidl or Aldi. While you will save a great deal by shopping at these places, there are ways to save money at the more expensive supermarkets too. If you shop online, don’t get sucked in by offers if the food is not on your list. Find the best prices on the foods that you do need. Online shopping armed with a list is much cheaper than being let loose in a supermarket when you’re hungry and don’t know exactly what you want.
Learn when supermarkets put the special markdowns on their products. Usually, at towards the end of the day, you’ll find lots of fresh meat, meals and veg at heavily discounted prices. They usually have to be eaten that day, but most can be frozen, meaning you can grab a bargain for a fraction of the price.
Meal Prep
How many times have you been too tired or stressed to cook and ended up buying a takeaway? By prepping your food in advance, you can save money and also improve your diet too. Batch cooking meals at the weekend should only take a couple of hours and then you have saved much longer than that during the week, cooking every night. Simple throw in the oven or microwave. You’ll never run out of ideas, there are hundreds of YouTube and accounts devoted to the topic.
Check out a great list of meal ideas here.
Know the difference between best before and use by
Some foods need to be eaten before a certain date, or you risk serious food poisoning after this. The most common ones include meats, fish and dairy. Most people assume the date on the packaging is a hard limit and after that, you need to throw it away.
If your food says ‘best before’ then you don’t have to bin it. It simply means that the freshness and taste of the food can only be guaranteed (or expected) until that date. In most cases, it is still perfectly edible for a time after this.
Fruits and vegetables are still fresh for a number of days after this. Even if it is starting to wilt slightly, you can still use it in stews or smoothies, or chop them up and keep them in the freezer.
Learn how to store food
How we store fruit is also a factor in how much gets thrown out. Remove all vegetables from the plastic packaging and place in a cool, dry place, or in the fridge. It’s the same with fruit. It’s nice to have it all arranged in a fruit bowl, but it can last a lot longer in the fridge.
If you have herbs you always end up throwing away, treat them like flowers and keep them in water. They will last a lot longer. Worried that you aren’t going to eat something before it goes off? Freeze it as soon as possible.
Buy in bulk
Places like Costco are great for buying large quantities of items. So if there is a certain brand you buy week in, week out, and you have space, then bulk buying can save you money in the long run over buying weekly.
Don’t get carried away with buying heaps of everything though. You’re trying to manage your budget from week to week. Stock up on the things you use a lot of. Plus, you’ll soon run out of space if you’re doing this every week.
The freezer is your friend
A chest freezer is a fantastic investment if you have the space for it. You can pack it full of pre-cooked meals and another great money saver, frozen vegetables.
Other great items to freeze include bread, which can be defrosted and used for sandwiches or toast. If you have any leftover veg in the fridge you don’t think you’ll use before it goes bad, chop it up and store it in the freezer, ready to throw into a stew or slow-cooker.
Fill out meals
Make your meals go further by adding things like beans, potatoes, couscous or lentils. It’s cheaper and healthier than adding more mean.
Fakeaways
Takeaways are great, and we all have our favourites. Plus, with all of the app on the market that have your food delivered at the tap of a phone, it’s really difficult to resist. When you do have a takeaway, just enjoy it without the guilt. But when money is tight or you’re trying to cut down on unhealthy food, then learning to cook some of your favourites at home can be a great alternative.
There are so many recipes online to help you cook the perfect curry or Chinese dish. You could expand your culinary horizons too and try a dish you’ve never had before. Your waistline and bank balance will thank you.
Get Clever With Leftovers
The only time people seem to put thought into leftovers is at Christmas. But there are so many opportunities to make other meals with your leftover food. For example, if you’ve made spaghetti bolognese, use any leftover mince and sauce to make a shepherds pie. All you have to do it cover it with a layer of mashed potato and a sprinkle of cheese. Add some veg and you have another meal entirely.
If you cook a Sunday roast, leftover from that can be cut up and mixed together with some leeks, creme fraiche and veg, then covered with a pastry lid and voila, you have the most amazing pie.
Always think about what you can use your leftovers for. You’ll love how creative you can be.
Don’t buy physical cookbooks
Cookbooks are expensive and in today’s world, completely unnecessary. Find all the recipes you’ll ever need through a Google search, on Pinterest or YouTube, where you can cook along with the chef.
Have a freezer week
Every so often, make an effort to empty your freezer of all those things that have been there for a while that you keep passing over. You may have to get super creative with this but it will use up the food in the freezer and free up space.
Make your own
Constantly throwing out bread? Learn how to bake your own. Buying ingredients in bulk is relatively cheap and you can bake the amount you require. Have a variety of sizes of loaf tins on hand.
If that sounds like too much hard work, then you could buy a breadmaker. Though it will take a little while to recoup the costs on this, if you have a large family, then it really could save you money. You can experiment with different styles of bread that your family will love to try. You can also make your own pizza bases and rolls with the same ingredients too. Get creative and try things like focaccia, brioche or sun-dried tomato bread. You can even get the kids involved with this one. Not only will you be spending quality time together, but you’re teaching them a valuable skill too.
Also, imagine how fantastic you’re house is going to smell?
Conclusion
We spend so much time (and money) buying, preparing and eating food. Not being prepared can add hundreds of pounds a month to your food spend. Being disciplined when shopping and planning and cooking in advance can make life so much easier too. It can be a difficult habit to get into and sustain, especially if you have spent so many years buying and eating what you want.
Once you realise how much money you can save, you will be trying to find your own ways to get creative with ingredients and save money.
*This is a collaborative post.
