Thrifty gadgetry
Buy a blender
Wasting food costs the average family with children £680 a year. But with a basic blender and a bit of imagination you can transform leftovers or ageing veg into appetising soups and sauces, and surplus fruit into nutritious smoothies. Jug blenders are practical and can cost less than £20.
OWL Energy Monitor
Seeing how much electricity you’re using is a real incentive to turn things off and save money. The OWL CM119 is an accurate and affordable energy monitor. You simply clip the sensor to the mains power cable between the meter and the fuse box and it wirelessly transmits your real-time electricity consumption to a portable LCD display unit. The display also tells you how much you’re spending.
Billmonitor
Mobile phone tariffs can be bafflingly complicated but BillMonitor is a website that helps you find the cheapest for your needs. Devised with the help of Oxford mathematicians, it compares tariffs from the six main network operators. You supply details of your previous bills, or how many minutes, texts, overseas calls and megabytes of data you want, and it comes up with a money-saving recommendation.
Garmin ecoRoute
Sat-nav maker Garmin has developed software for its nüvi devices that can choose the most fuel-efficient routes and use the GPS receiver to record your acceleration and speed to estimate how economically you are driving. There’s also a plug-in module – the ecoRoute HD – which taps into more recent car models’ diagnostic systems for even more accurate performance data. garmin.com
(Tips from Kath Kelly's £1 a day book)
In the course of her book she meets someone who manages a supermarket. He tells her some expert advice like:
- Tinned of frozen fruit and veg are often cheaper than fresh ones; they can go as salads or soups and stews for extra colour and quantity.
- Freeze foods as soon as they are cool and get already frozen purchases back into the freezer fast. Getting what you didn't finish eating into the freezer avoids temptation too! Put things into portion-sized quantities to save wastage, and keeping the freezer tidy so it just takes a moment to grab something and shut the door again.
- Same with the fridge. Label it all, keep all leftovers and when you get a load home, half it and put half straight in the freezer.
- Separate fruit from veg storage as they contain different levels of ethylene, which hastens the rotting or ripening process.
- Take everything out of plastic bags and put it in newspaper or cardboard boxes, as spread out as possible in a cool, dark place.
- Garlic and onions keep best in the cupboard as long as its ventilated.
- Face your cupboard with the oldest stuff at the front, and transfer dry stuff from packets, once opened, into dry, airtight jars, writing the use by date on a label.
- Finally, regular snacks make you feel less hungry, so always keep something on you so your less likely to blow your food budget on chocolate.
(Tips from Money Saving expert here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cheap-supermarket-shopping )
Supermarkets are cathedrals of consumerism; they're almost perfectly honed marketing environments, benefiting from millions of pounds of research into how to encourage and seduce us into buying and spending more than we need.
It's one reason that if you want to teach an eight-year-old about money, the best place to start is a supermarket. Ask them what they can smell: it'll usually be bread or a bakery, as the scent makes us hungry and likely to buy more food, so the supermarket profits.
This means, as consumers, we must learn counter-moves. Obviously eating before shopping helps, but this is just one trick. Others include the following:
Sweets and magazines placed by the till.
These are impulse buys, so putting them near the till gives them one last attempt to grab our cash.
Store layouts make us walk the whole distance.
Regularly bought items tend to be spread around the store, so we need to pass many other tempting goodies to complete our shopping.
Eye level products are the profitable ones.
The most profitable stock is placed at eye level (or children’s eye level if it's targeted at them), yet profitable goods tend not to be the best deals. The age old adage ‘look high and low for something’ really does apply.
Same goods, different prices, depending where in the store you are.
Supermarkets charge as much as possible and differentiate prices around the store. For example, if you're buying snacks such as nuts or dried fruit, they're much more expensive in the snack area than in world food or baking.
Sales type signage for non-sales items.
Seedless grapes and other attractive treats are usually near the store entrance, often below cost price, to entice us in. Similar signs and displays are used elsewhere to promote deals, even when they're not on sale. Bright colours and the words 'discount' and 'sale' make us feel good, yet the reduction may be pennies and cheaper equivalents hidden elsewhere.
Don't let them steer your trolley
The beauty of supermarket design is that it's all aimed at making us impulse spend. Almost all the techniques in this guide are designed to put you back in charge. For those on a strict budget, it's important to get in the right mindset.
Replace "What's the cheapest way to get all the goodies I want?"
With “On my £xx budget, what's the best value I can get with it?”
Of course, working out a budget is part of a wider strategy and how much to prioritise food shopping depends on your other expenditure. Use the free Budget Planner tool to help.
The Downshift Challenge
Over the years, supermarkets have hypnotised us into spending more and moving up the brand chain. Many people gradually buy increasingly more expensive versions of the same thing.
The downshift challenge, which provides ENORMOUS savings, has a simple premise:
Drop one brand level on everything and see if you can tell the difference. If you can't, stick with the cheaper product.
Let's applaud the sheer marketing genius of this. The system allows supermarkets to justify huge price variations. Think about it for a second: when you're in Tesco, you assume Tesco Finest is glam and gorgeous and Tesco Value is cheap and nasty, so the immense price difference feels legitimate. Yet who actually decides this? Tesco of course! Its packaging and product placement are all designed to support this myth.
Don’t get me wrong, there are differences in ingredients and production quality. Yet it isn’t uniform: just because the salmon en croute is great, it doesn’t mean the same brand's gourmet mousse, made in a different factory in another part of the world, is too.
The downshift technique ... typical saving £800/year
Don’t worry, I'm not about to argue you should buy no-frills everything; my bottom certainly requires smoother toilet paper! The aim's to downshift only where you can't tell the difference and, for many families, this alone can save 15% a year on shopping bills, typically £800.
The Downshift Challenge in-store.
The next time you shop, swap one of everything to something just one brand level lower. So if you usually buy four cans of Tesco's own-brand baked beans, this time buy three and one Tesco Value. If you use luxury lavender shower gel, drop to Asda’s own brand.
The Downshift Challenge online.
The supermarket comparison site mySupermarket* now includes a downshift challenge section based exactly on this theory. So when you enter your shopping trolley, as well as comparing the price across online supermarkets, it gives you the downshifted option.
This is a quick system and a great way to see the scale of the savings, even if you don't shop online.
The impact is enormous:
Drop one brand level on everything and the average bill's cut by a third. On a £100 weekly shop, that's £1,700 a year less.
The proof of this stat is based on detailed research. I've done a number of TV programmes where we've downshifted a family's shopping and the 33% saving is staggeringly consistent. Yet for ITV1's Tonight Supermarket Cheap programme, we went a step further and number-crunched hundreds of prices from the big four supermarkets.
Again, there was a standard 33% average saving by dropping one brand level for every product. This consistency indicates that supermarkets deliberately devise their price structures this way. It's worth noting the biggest downshift savings aren't from premium brands to manufacturer brands, but for those already lower down the brand chain to begin with.
Downshift Challenge Savings by Supermarket
Downshift from… | Tesco (1) | Morrisons (2) | Sainsbury’s (3) | Asda (4) |
Luxury to Branded | 8% | 16% | 22% | 12% |
Branded to Own Brand | 31% | 36% | 31% | 35% |
Own Brand to Value | 37% | 39% | 45% | 41% |
An average one brand | 29% | 34% | 34% | 35% |
(1) 400 items compared (2) 266 items compared (3 ) 314 items compared (4) 319 items compared | ||||
Downshift Challenge Example Savings
Product | Mainstream Brand | Supermarket own | Supermarket economy |
Jaffa cakes (36pk) | £1.88 | £1.15 | £1.08 |
Teabags (240 pk) | £2.99 | £2.19 | £0.87 |
Toilet roll (4 pk) | £1.81 | £1.54 | £0.40 |
Toothpaste | £1.76 | £0.39 | £0.31 |
Lager (4 X 500ml cans) | £4.78 | £2.19 | £0.88 |
Remember, downshifting's about 'trying' not 'switching'
The downshift challenge isn’t about automatically dropping a brand level, it’s about seeing if you can notice any difference. If you don’t like the lower brand level or the drop in quality is too severe, all but those who are in drastic need of urgent savings should switch back. Yet you'll be surprised at how few things you notice the change.
However there's an important point to watch for when trying downshifted goods:
Taste with your mouth, not with your eyes
The packaging and look of a product has a big psychological effect: just knowing something is more expensive means, after years of retail hypnosis, we assume it’s better. Taste with that knowledge, and you often prefer it. If you can taste the food blind, great. If not, at least don't have the packaging out when you do.
A quick story: for a TV experiment, a professional chef cooked up two identical three course meals, one using normal ingredients, the other downshifted.
Off camera, I spoke to one of the assistant chefs; he'd dipped his finger first into a pack of I can't believe it's not butter and then the generic version, probably called I can't believe it's not better. He pointed at the cheaper brand and said, "you can tell the quality's worse as it's much saltier."
Yet a chef I independently asked said salty butter isn't automatically a bad sign. Was the assistant's reaction simply cognitive dissonance; spotting a difference and using it to justify it better, justbecause it was the expensive one?
Either way when the family tasted the three courses blind, they actually preferred the cheaper produce, never mind couldn't spot the difference.
Most spot the difference only on half the goods
The results of the downshift challenge again fit a standard pattern. Most people seem to only note the difference on around half the shopping. Therefore, it's worth quickly running through the maths.
For a family shop of £100 a week...
- Annual Expenditure: £5,200
- Downshift everything - annual savings: £1,700
- Downshift only 'no-difference' items - annual saving: £800
Downshifting can cut 15% off a family’s shop saving over £800 a year, without noticing the difference
Please discuss/feedback/report your Downshift Savings
More quick downshift tips
If you're following the Downshift, there are a few more things to consider which can help boost the savings.
Downshift cleaning products and cosmetics.
Rather strangely, reports show people are more likely to stick with branded washing powders, shower gels and other cleaning products than food. Yet these products don't even need tasting and the saving is huge. So try downshifting these too.
Then again, Old Style MoneySavers wouldn't forgive me if I omitted to say you can clean the whole house with white vinegar and lemon juice (read more on Old Style Cleaning and full info in the charity Thrifty Ways book).
Don't assume downshifting is worse nutritionally.
Often lower cost products can be better, as there are fewer flavourings, colourings and chemicals; always check the label if this is a concern.
Downshifting is about price not brand.
Some people religiously downshift brands, even if the higher brand is on special offer and cheaper. In that case, there's no need, pick the cheaper product, comparing on cost per gram.
Don't stop your downshift.
Once you've successfully downshifted once, try it again a few weeks later; you may be able to drop yet another brand level on some goods and save more.
Downshift ingredients further.
If you're cooking food, half the taste comes from your talents in the kitchen. So often you can get away with downshifting more, as you'll make up for it with time and skill.
Downshift your supermarket too.
It's also worth considering the well known uber-cheap supermarkets such as Aldi, Lidl and Netto, which, even if you don’t want to use them all the time, are great for a monthly stock up of staple goods, at substantial savings. The same 'try it and see' technique can be used here too.
To help, read a survey of MoneySavers' views in What's Hot and What's Not at Aldi, Lidl & Netto.
Finding the tastiest own brands.
There’s a great little website, SupermarketOwnBrand, that reviews supermarket own brands, pitting them against their brand name rivals and giving them a mark out of ten. Everything from shortbread to Chardonnay is covered.
Reviews are written by food critic Martin Isark; he’s gradually tasting his way through the big supermarkets and has reviewed over 5,300 products from Aldi, Asda, Co-operative Food, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Netto, Morrisons and Waitrose. His view is it shows own-brands can smack the bottoms of posh ranges, even when it comes to taste; you definitely don’t always get what you pay for.
Are own brands the same food in disguise?
After the downshift challenge, many people will be tempted to ask, “is there actually any difference between normal brands and own-brands?” Often they’re made in the same factories.
To help break through this, there's a special discussion in the Forum, which asks any current or past factory workers to dish the dirt on whether there's really any difference. Of course there’s no guarantee it’s true, but it makes fun reading.
Plus during the ITV1 Supermarket Cheap programme, I got a scientist to examine some own brands and compare them to the main brands. Surprisingly, almost none were nutritionally identical. The surmise is small differences are deliberately added so no one can say “they’re the same”. Even so, as they’re often very similar in taste, it doesn’t matter too much.
Grab Vouchers, Codes and Deals
Vouchers and deals are an integral part of most supermarkets' strategies. The promotions follow what I call a 'capture and exploit' system.
CAPTURE. The aim's to attract customers who wouldn't come otherwise. These are generally discount vouchers or codes or a small range of heavily discounted items.
EXPLOIT. This is about targeting existing customers, with the dual aim of making them feel they're getting better value to promote customer stickiness and trying to target impulse spending through promotions on attractive luxury items.
Turn the tables to gain
Correctly used, these promotions are a goldmine, allowing you to scythe chunks off your shopping bill.
£100s of free grocery coupons.
Grocery coupons don't just come in magazines; many are available instantly on the web. Better still, supermarkets sometimes accept coupons for products they’re not designed for e.g. a voucher for £1 off a box of Coco Pops could get you £1 off any shopping, not just the cereal.
Policies can vary store by store on this. It’s worth a try, yet never be dishonest; be upfront and ask their permission. Do note that Tesco, which used to be fairly accommodating on this, now has a stated policy of not allowing coupons to be used for items they are not designated for (read the Tesco Coupons news story).
To get loads of free vouchers see the Daily Updated: Supermarket Coupons List
Get big discounts off your weekly shop.
Supermarkets commonly put out introductory discount vouchers to 'capture' new customers e.g. £15 off a £50 spend at Waitrose. For a detailed list of free codes and vouchers, see the Daily Updated: Shopping Vouchers List
Whenever top codes appear, they'll be included in the free weekly e-mail
When to BOGOF and how to find them.
Bogof! No, not you! BOGOF stands for ‘buy one, get one free’.
Often there to 'exploit' our impulses, these can be a menace or angel. The time to grab 'em is when the BOGOF (or three-for-two or half-price deal) is on a good that won't go off that you'd buy anyway. Classic examples include toothpaste, bog roll and batteries. If you see these offers, get as many as you can store.
To locate supermarkets’ current special offers, go to the Fixture Ferrets website.
Ask for a raincheck voucher.
If a special offer item is out of stock, some supermarkets will give you a voucher entitling you to the same deal at a later date.
Tesco 'Special Promise' vouchers. Some Tescos hand out 'Special Promise', also known as raincheck, vouchers when special offer products are out of stock. This policy goes way back and many old shop assistants still give them out, yet newer staff haven't heard of them. Try your luck and explain at the customer services desk that you want a voucher, to take advantage of the deal at a later date.
Asda 'Smiley' vouchers. Asda staff are allowed to give out 'Smiley' vouchers for up to £1, when a customer's had a problem or just becase they feel like it. One of these reasons is that a special offer product's out of stock. Vouchers are at shop assistant's discretion, so don't be demanding, yet a friendly smile goes a long way.
Sainsbury's 'Special Coupons'. If a special offer's run out, Sainsbury's shop assistants dish out 'Special Coupons', allowing you to buy the same product from a different brand, at the special offer price. Again, it's at the shop assistant's discretion and some haven't heard of them, but MoneySavers report that politely explaining about the coupons can help. Coupons must be used on that day.
- Join Tesco clubs.
Tesco runs four ‘Exclusive Clubs’ for its members and it’s worth joining all of these, as members get special money-off offers through the post. The clubs are baby and toddler, food, wine and healthy living.
Grab loyalty cards.
Both Tesco with its Clubcard, and Sainsbury's with the Nectar card, offer loyalty points.
While these don't provide enough value to dictate where you should shop, if you are going to shop in these stores, always use the card. Tesco is especially good: you gain one point per £1 of spending, but if you redeem these in Tesco’s special ‘Clubcard Deals’ brochure, each point is worth 4p, meaning it's effectively a 4% discount on all spending, see Loyalty Points Maximisingarticle for details on this and other tricks.
Compare supermarket prices at speed
It's possible to speedily compare the prices of your typical shopping trolley at all the online supermarkets, and better still once you find which are the cheapest, you can just export your basket there, without entering the details again.
This takes place on the website mySupermarket*, which looks at the cost of the four main online supermarkets: Ocado (Waitrose), Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s. It's simple to use and you can save your basket of goods, so you don't need to refill it each week. The savings from doing this can add up to £100s a year. Here are some quick tips:
Check out its 'suggested alternatives'.
As you're entering your data, mySupermarket also suggests alternative options that may be cheaper, for example, if you’re buying two six packs of cola and a 12-pack is cheaper, it’ll let you know.
Consider Downshifting.
mySupermarket's also now got a 'Downshift Challenge' section, based on my technique, allowing you to drop down a brand online.
Want to check out latest offers?
If you're just looking for latest deals in store or online it's worth checking out madaboutbargainswhich highlights the latest offers.
Time trips to bag bigger reductions
Everyday there are bargains to be had in the supermarket, as huge reductions are made on ‘yellow ticket’ items that are near their sell-by-dates. To build the info on this, I asked MoneySavers who work in supermarkets to spill the beans on their stores' reduction policies.
Reduction times varied by store/opening time, yet some definite patterns emerged. The first yellow stickers appear around 10am, and the silly-price reductions begin at 7pm, when stores cut prices by 75% and upwards.
Supermarket Rough Reductions Schedule
Amount you may be able to save | |||
Up to 25% off | Up to 50% off | Up to 75% and up | |
| Asda | 12pm | 5pm | 9pm |
| Morrisons | - | 5pm | 7pm |
| Sainburys | 10am | 5pm | 8pm |
| Tesco | 8am | 4pm | 8pm |
| Co-op | 8am | 5pm | 7pm |
| Source: Great 'supermarket staff, tell us your reduction policies’ hunt. | |||
Who has authority to make reductions?
Most shop floor staff have the authority to reduce prices at their discretion, so it's worth keeping your eye out for goods that are damaged/nearing their sell by dates. Yet their overwhelming cry was: ‘we will reduce prices for friendly customers, but if you’re rude and demand a reduction – forget it'. A smile and a little politeness goes a long way.
Look for reduced ‘multi-buy’ items.
Watch out for reduced items that are part of multi-buy offers, as often the computer will still deduct the full-price discount at the till. Say there’s a ‘buy two get one free’ offer on £1 shortbread, and you buy three reduced to 50p, the computer may still take off the extra £1. This isn’t guaranteed, but worth a try.
Read the great 'supermarket staff, tell us your reduction policies’ hunt
Quick tools to reduce waste
There’s no easier way to waste cash than by regularly throwing out old food that you never used. Staggeringly, the average UK home chucks away £600 worth a year, yet a few easy steps and tools for better stock management can easily reduce this.
Step 1: Don't throw 'best-befores' away
Can you define the difference between a best-before and display-until date? If not, the likelihood is you're throwing a lot of food away unnecessarily.
Always remember...
Supermarkets usually stack from the back, so reach to the back of the shelves to find the longest 'use by' and 'best buys' dates.
Whether you're rummaging for reduced price goodies, or doing a clear out of stuff that's gone off, understanding labeling pays.
The 'Use By' date: Chuck it immediately
Use By means just that. Perishable food such as milk, fish and eggs that go off quickly and should be thrown out after this date; if not, they're a health risk.
- The 'Best Before' date: Still edible after the date
You’ll usually see Best Befores on longer-lasting goods such as frozen meal and tins. It’s usually safe to eat food after this date, as all it means is that the food will no longer be at its optimum quality. And the longer the time to the best before the longer it's likely to keep afterwards.
For example, if you buy tinned goods with a best before date two years in the future, then they're likely to still be pretty good three years ahead of time (though why you'd buy them and not eat them before then is anyone's guess).
- Display until and sell by. Instructions for shops' staff not for you
These dates are instructions for shop staff to tell them when they should take a product off the shelves. Check the ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates instead.
Buy “Beyond Best-Befores” at a fraction of the price
As there’s no explicit safety risk just from eating food beyond its best-before date, there are also many small independent stores who specialise in selling clearance, short-dated and out-of-date stock around the the UK. There’s also now an online store, Approved Food, which, once a cash-and-carry, now sells directly to the public.
Typical goods include:
- 24 x 250ml Buxton Still mineral water for £3.50 (15p each), best before: 1 Jan 2010
- 5l bucket of Lite Mayonnaise £1, 31 Oct 2009
Yet there's a £5.25 delivery charge, provided deliveries are under 28kg, so it's worth bulk buying. As there aren't any finite rules on how far beyond a best-before date it's still safe to eat products, you need to make the decision yourself. Generally though, the longer the original shelf life of the goods before the best-before date, the longer you can go beyond.
Step 2: Use a 2D linear tracking device
Modern technology hasn’t come up with anything to compete with ‘the shopping list’ and so hopefully by giving it a pretentious name, it feels more important. The reason's obvious: by planning what you need before heading out, it's easier to cut out anything that goes over budget and stick to it.
It should also stop those unnecessary small extra trips to 'grab some more margarine', which end up costing £20 a time, as you can't resist buying more.
There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Spotting a substantial bargain while shopping, something you were planning to buy another day, may rightfully loosen the purse strings. Always ask yourself the three key questions first ... Do I need it? Will I use it? And can I find it cheaper anywhere else?
Step 3: Free menu planners
While it’s admittedly time consuming, the best way to make your shopping list super-effective is by writing a meal plan for the week/month. That way you can work out what you’re going to eat every day, incorporating the ingredients you already have.
To help, there's an amazing resource, where thrifty MoneySaving Old-Stylers have put together menu planners of various thrift levels to copy and download.
Step 4: Do a larder audit
Rather than throwing food away, try doing a regular 'audit' once every few weeks of what's sitting in cupboards, fridge and freezer to see when it dates. Then you can use it before you lose it.
The obvious question is 'what can I make with it?’ If you’re stumped for ideas for what to make from spare ingredients, check out cookingbynumbers. Type in the ingredients and it comes up with a list of recipes.
