Debt Advice and Money Saving Tips Blog
In this weekly series, The Debt Advisor will help you with some useful hints and tips to help you save money on your most common expenditure items. During our debt advice calls we regularly find people are spending more money than they need to on basic household expenses, by following this series we hope we can help you save money and help make life that little bit more affordable!
Week 1 – The Big Shop
The average UK family with children bins around £700 per year! That’s £60 worth of food and drink per month being thrown away which means more shopping, more cooking and more expense. Follow these helpful tips to help you waste less and save more!
- Drop Down a Brand – Are ‘Frosties’ really that much tastier than the supermarkets own ‘Frosted Flakes’? 75% of consumers can’t tell the difference between the name brand or finest product and the supermarkets regular version. If you normally reach for the finest range, why not try the regular version? If you normally go for the average product, why not try the basic version, we guarantee you will find cheaper alternatives to some of your most bought products. If you don’t think the quality is good enough, many supermarkets will refund you the price if you are not completely satisfied and you can then go back to buying the brand name.
- Make the Most of the Internet – Use apps such as ‘My Supermarket’ which will compare the prices of a product across all of the major retailers allowing you to get the cheapest price for each item. You can also input your whole shopping list to find out which retailer is cheapest overall to save you visiting each and every shop. The app also includes a swap and save option based on the theory above. Most supermarkets will give you money off or a discount on your first online order, why not research which supermarket is cheapest for your shop, and get it delivered with a discount!
- Shop Socially – If you live with friends or in a house-share why not do the weekly shop together, buying items in bulk and making the most of 241 offers can really help you save in the long run. Try to avoid buying a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk each and throwing half away as its gone bad before you’ve had time to eat them, split the food, split the cost, split the waste. Buying items such as toilet paper, beer/cider, batteries, school and office supplies, pasta, rice and light bulbs in bulk can significantly reduce the cost, and best of all, these items do not perish quickly or at all!
- Prepare – Plan your meals for the week; plan exactly what you need to make each and every meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner before you head out to the shop. This will help you buy exactly what you need, reducing cost and waste, while at the same time encouraging you to eat at home and avoid expensive meals out. A quick search on Google for a weekly meal planner will give you lots of downloadable examples which you can stick to your fridge! Spend one night early in the week preparing your meals for the next few days, this will prevent you buying food unnecessarily and allowing food to go out of date.
- Have a Clear Out – At the end of the week have a clear out of all the food in your fridge and cupboards which is about to go off. Use up as many ingredients as you can before they go out of date and become waste. This could be a fun way to help teach the kids to cook, using whatever ingredients you have left to make something new and exciting!
At The Debt Advisor we pride ourselves delivering great debt advice, creating debt management solutions and helping our clients manage their money more efficiently. Our helpful blogs are a great source of information for money saving techniques and how to manage your income to help you remain debt free in the long term. Our debt advice is always free, fair and impartial, so feel free to get in touch here.
