Are you worried about rising food prices? Serena Cowdy shows you how to keep your grocery bill under control.
If you're worried about the state of the economy, you may well be tightening your belt at the moment. Perhaps you've decided not to buy that new car, or to postpone this year's foreign holiday.
But what about the things you really can't do without? Food shopping normally accounts for the majority of a household's weekly budget. And unfortunately, the price of food is currently rocketing all over the world.
While overall inflation has officially fallen to just 3.1%, fruit prices have risen by 10%, fish is up 8% and the price of vegetables has increased by 5% over the past year, with particularly sharp increases seen in the last month.
Experts are blaming everything from the drought and wildfires in Russia to the floods in Pakistan, and say we should expect global food prices to increase further this year.
This means, if you haven't already started paying more for your groceries, you will soon.
Tonnes of food wasted
So what can you do to fight back against rising food prices?
Stop throwing food away, apparently.
According to Government waste agency WRAP, we chuck out almost seven million tonnes of unwanted food every year - which altogether costs us around £8 billion.
In fact, recent research by Abbey shows the average UK home throws out £5.10 worth of out-of-date groceries every single week.
Ethical considerations aside, that's the equivalent of chucking £265 in the bin every year.
Take action
Thankfully, there are lots of things you can do to reduce the amount of food you waste and the money you spend on it.
Here's a few of my own top tips:
Grow your own
Growing your own fruit and veggies could knock pounds off your grocery bill, and it seems that Toms and Barbaras all over Britain are getting the message. Sales of vegetable seeds have rocketed by 40 per cent in the past two years.
There's even a whole community in Hampshire working together to grow its own food.
Read Five ways to pay less for fruit and veg! for more help.
Before a big shop
Consider doing your shopping online. You can check what's in your cupboards as you go, and simply re-order from ‘your usual orders' list. This will ensure you are not tempted to buy things you don't need.
You can also use special offers from the supermarket that they send by email and, while you will pay a delivery charge, you will save the cost of petrol/public transport.
Alternatively, shop frequently for small amounts, so your food won't go off before you've had a chance to eat it.
Price check your groceries using a site like MySupermarket. It'll help you find the cheapest deals on offer, so you can decide which shops you want to visit before you leave the house.
And check out our Frugal Food blog, where every week we round up the best bargains at the supermarkets, and reveal the top grocery voucher codes you can use to get a discount on your shopping.
Where to shop
Remember, you don't always get the best deal in supermarkets. Farmers' markets and fruit and veg stalls can be cheaper.
Also try ‘deep discount' retailers like Aldi and Lidl. Their prices are lower than many other supermarkets because they keep shop overheads low.
Spot supermarket scams
Supermarkets will try and get you to spend as much as possible. Sneaky strategies include:
- Wafting smells around to make you hungry. Freshly-baked bread, anyone?
- Encouraging impulse buys. Notice the sweets and chocolate by the tills?
- Store layout. Often, commonly bought items are spread out around a store - so we have to walk past other tempting goods to get to them.
- Prominent product placing. The items that are most profitable are often put in the most obvious place - so you have to hunt around to find their ‘value' equivalent.
- Music with a slow beat. This encourages you to walk around more slowly, and take more time to shop.
What to buy
Value: Don't assume ‘value' means ‘bad quality'. Experiment with the different value ranges and make a list of the items you like as you come across them.
Reduced: Find out when your local shop reduces items for quick sale eg on a Saturday night.
Packed lunches: A £1 packed lunch, rather than a £6 meal, will save you £115 a month. So there's a real incentive for buying the ingredients as part of your weekly shop.
Snacks: All those visits to the office vending machine add up. So if you suffer from snack attacks, buy your snacks in bulk from the supermarket for half the price.
In season: It's generally cheaper to buy the fruit and vegetables that are in season - check out the Eat The Seasons website for what's good now and in the future.
Special offers: Special offers, like buy-one-get-one-free, can save you lots of money. Just make sure you really can eat all that food before it goes off, or store it safely until you need it.
Cooking
Consider getting a slow cooker - it'll allow you to buy cheaper cuts of meat and turn them into stews and casseroles.
Batch cooking (where you cook large amounts of food at the same time, then freeze it) can also save you money, because you're using less energy in the preparation.
Every week, we publish an original Frugal Recipe for a meal for four people which costs less than £1.50 per person, without compromising on either the ethics or the quality of the ingredients.
Alternatively, check out the Beyond Baked Beans website for lots of manageable and healthy recipes for those on a tight budget.
More: Check out this recipe for Prawn and chilli linguine | Gobble up this Homemade Cornish pasties recipe | Feast on Teriyaki chicken legs with coriander and lime noodles