As a family, we try to keep our grocery spends down. We do this in a variety of ways – i.e you will almost always find us using voucher codes for Sainsbury’s – but it is important we do so in order to make our money stretch further and ensure we don’t have as much wastage. So what are my top tips for keeping our food budget down?
Meal Plan – Meal planning is so important. We don’t always do it and we always notice a higher grocery spend if we don’t which is why we are going back to basics and meal planning everything. It means everyone knows what we are having when and there is little to no wastage.
Make a list – Similar to meal planning, we make a list of the things we will need for that week and stick to the list. We try not to pick up any treats (although the odd one does slip in, of course) but having a list makes it easier to be strict.
Shop online where possible – We do occasionally pop into store to do our food shop but shopping online is so much easier. We can stick to our list and/or meal plan around certain deals, we aren’t as tempted by treats like we would be if we were in store.
Take advantage of deals/ voucher codes – You will often find me using Sainsbury’s voucher codes as it is one of our main supermarkets of choice and you can always get a good discount. I wouldn’t dream of completing a food shop (or actually any shop at all) without looking for some form of discount as you can almost always guarantee that you will find a discount agreeable to you whether it’s on the grocery store’s own site, or a site like Codeland. Certain sites even offer 20% of their profits to charity so by using the vouchers on their site, you are helping to donate to charity – saving yourself some money whilst raising money for others has never sounded so good, has it?
These are just a few of my tips for keeping our grocery spends – and often our wastage – down so you too can save a fortune on food. If we can’t always use something, I will donate to the local food bank so that someone else can benefit from something we can’t or won’t use. Do you ever use voucher codes for Sainsbury’s or other supermarkets? What do you do to help keep your grocery spends right down? I’d love to know!
Collaboration
Meal planning is really very effective and have been following it since a while. I think shopping online too would surely help in sticking to a list coz often looking at all the full isles at the supermarket does tempt me to pick up things outside the list too
Meal planning is so important to save money.
I am currently on a self imposed ban to buy non perishables like pasta, grains, beans and lentils. I’ve not bought any this year astonishingly and have enough for another good few months.
Me and my mum both use sainsburys online service and I have noticed a huge difference in how much I spend compared to going to the actual store! I have bookmarked that website too!
I find meal planning and shopping online with a list really helps with keeping down costs and waste. I didn’t know you could get voucher codes for your Sainsbury’s shop though – will check that out!
I am a total impulse shopper when it comes to food, always buy more than I need and less than half of what I went to the store for!
Ahhhh, meal planning makes such a difference to the budget! It can be so easy to just pick things up and you can end up spending loads, but not actually have ingredients for a complete meal… Nightmare!
Since your last post I’ve been using voucher codes on UKhot deals. Mostly argos codes but there are tonnes of money saving sites too!
Great tips! I dfind that meal planning helps me keep my grocery spending down. Sainsburys voucher codes sounds great! 🙂