Saving

Look for offers. Depends what you want to buy. Shop around.

Buy yellow sticker food items and freeze them. Use your leftovers to lower shopping costs. Look for deals on items you buy and use your loyalty cards. Shop around to get the best deals. Don't buy anything that isn't necessary. In terms of clothes, shoes etc, buy them in the sales. Buy things second hand.

OLIO App is great, depending on your area and when you can collect.

OLIO volunteers collect left over food (people also give food and items away from their personal items) but the volunteers collect yellow sticker food that the shops couldn't sell or give to charity, they then list them on OLIO app for free, you often have to collect by midnight that night for law reasons on use by dates, sometimes they aren't listed til 10pm as they store doesn't release them til late and the volunteers have to list them, but some stores do release things earlier on in the day.

You can even volunteer yourself and you get to keep 10% of the collection. You can freeze a fair few items.

Discount codes and freebies.

Just checking your whole monthly spend, if you can reduce your phone bill by even a pound or two, cancel a TV subscription, maybe if you have spare time doing surveys for money vouchers, it can all improve your end of the month saving.

Shop around. I visit all the big supermarkets and get selected things from each

Do you have such a thing as surplus food in your area, it's not a food bank but volunteers collect food each day from the likes of Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Marks,Costa etc rather than it going into landfill and it's still perfectly good to eat, ours usually opens for an hour each day and people can go and take a bag of food.

Ask yourself do you really need it. Apart from food the answer is generally ‘no’. This method has really helped me save in the last few years.

A lot of freebies/samples even stuff like comfort samples I’ve had. Yellow sticker items at the end of the day or even during the day at places like heron etc

You have to shop in different places (obviously more restrictive depending on what’s in your town)

and spend time sussing out if an offer is really an offer. (You have to check everywhere items in B&M & Home Bargains aren’t always the best price although sometimes they can be again you have to check and don’t fall for the marketing) Lidl’s and Aldi will have 5/6 fruit & veg weekly on offer.

If you don’t already you need to look on shelf labels for price per kg/100g etc especially with product shrinkage. if something you use regularly comes on a genuine offer (if you are able to) buy in bulk.

I have been noticing on the Lidl’s app that items I buy regularly every 3/4 weeks it’ll now give me a 15% off coupon so I stock up until the next coupon.

Also if you can freeze it be it a reduced item or something that you worry will go off before you eat it.

Try non branded products- everyone has individual taste. Try everyone’s kitchen roll. This has become really expensive over the last few years some own brand are useless, some not and the discounters can be more expensive on this.

You can save a lot of money if you have the time and also once you get started less time is involved (as you get to know what to buy from where) and if you can’t remember prices write them down.

I’m very frugal with my groceries/household products shop. When I first moved out of home my boss couldn’t believe how little I spent and joked that I must only have value products- I said No because I shop around and I don’t just go into Tesco only and load up my trolley.

Use the supermarket comparison tool on this app (not all supermarkets are included but it’s a great start) and then google the product for the others again it doesn’t capture all but it gives you a price to have as your target.

For example my Dad asked me last week if there was any large jars 720g of small chunk branston pickle on offer. Standard price is £3.00

Morrisons with more card £2.50

Tesco with club card £2.35

Sainsbury’s with nectar £2.00

I then go into Aldi which being a “discounter” should be cheaper they only have the 520g jars for £1.89

So Sainsbury’s wins 720g for £2.00

He eats this throughout the year and being Christmas this is why the supermarkets have it on offer therefore I buy this in bulk for him now so he doesn’t need to buy it until next Christmas.

This is just one small example but you get the idea.

My mum always gets her cheese in home bargains as Collier’s is £1.99 for 350g/£2.99 for 550g. I get mine in Aldi as I prefer theirs which is £2.49 for 400g. There is no need to pay cathedral city prices etc

I hope that helps.

I work at Asda so always look for cheap items that get heavily reduced Most the time but even small reduc make a difference

Download olio. I use it all the time. It's worth becoming a volunteer as you get to keep 10% and it's a great way to get to know others in your community.

Don't just compare the prices, compare the grams etc that you're getting for the price. Sometimes it might workout cheaper or better value to get two small tubs instead of the big one or vice versa as an example