Smart Shopping Strategies for Saving Money at the Supermarket and Improving Your Financial Health

Although food inflation has slowed over recent months, prices in supermarkets continue to cause concern. According to consumer champion Which?, trust in big stores has plummeted to its lowest in 10 years. And food prices are now as big a worry as energy bills for millions of families.

As an increasing number of us look for ways to spend less on groceries, we’ve compiled a guide on smart strategies that can save several hundred pounds a year on your supermarket shop and help keep your finances under control.

Plan Your Meals
Buy Cheap, Healthy Veg
Avoid Food Waste
Shop Around
Leverage Loss Leaders to Your Advantage
Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry
Choose Store Brands and Value Ranges
Check Unit Pricing
Limit Use of Supermarket Convenience Stores
Shop Late
Improving your Financial Health and Reducing Stress

Plan Your Meals

Cutting the cost of your supermarket shop starts before you set foot in-store or go online to browse the aisles.

Plan your meals for the forthcoming week (or at least a few days). You can then write a shopping list and get all the groceries you need with one big shop, avoiding top-up shopping trips and costly impulse purchases. Knowing what you require before you start shopping makes it easier to keep within your budget.

You can further reduce the cost of your grocery shop by planning meals that use ingredients lying around in your store cupboards. It’s a waste of money if you buy ingredients for a fancy recipe and only use them once.

Buy Cheap, Healthy Veg

Saving money at the supermarket can be good for your health as well as your household budget. Buy vegetables when they’re in season and therefore plentiful and more affordable.

Opting for wonky vegetables is another smart supermarket shopping strategy. They may be less visually appealing but they’re still nutritious and tasty and can be half the price of “normal” veg.

Choosing wonky veg and fruit and planning your meals also helps reduce food waste that ends up in landfill, which brings us to our next supermarket money-saving tip.

Avoid Food Waste

If you let food go to waste, you need to spend more on continually replenishing stocks.

According to business waste management company Waste Managed, households in the UK bin 9.5 million tonnes of food a year – the highest amount of food waste in Europe. The value of this wasted food is estimated at around £14 billion, and the average household spends £470 on food that ends up in the bin every year.

You can reduce food waste and save money by using up leftovers or making meals in batches that you can freeze and reheat at a later date.

Shop Around

Hunting down the cheapest supermarket prices can save you a lot of money. But doing this physically takes a great deal of time and effort. And the cheapest store one month may be more expensive the next.

The good news is that in the digital age, shopping around is a breeze if you use an online supermarket comparison platform.

Which? compares thousands of prices at the UK’s eight biggest supermarkets every month. Its September 2023 survey found that the top three cheapest stores were:

Aldi (average basket price £67.72).
Lidl (£68.96).
Asda £75.42).

Leverage Loss Leaders to Your Advantage

Supermarkets often sell selected items in high volume at below cost price – loss leaders designed to pull customers into the store and motivate them to pay full price for other products.

The ploy is aimed at gaining a competitive advantage by increasing footfall. But it can work to your advantage if you limit your shopping to only what you need. Groceries such as bread and milk, for example, may be heavily discounted because they have a wide consumer appeal.

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

If you’re shopping on an empty stomach as you browse around supermarket aisles, you’re more likely to buy food you don’t need, with less healthy choices.

These poor decisions are based on temporary cravings rather than nutritional content. And you end up wanting more food later. Scientists say shopping when you’re peckish can also make you buy more non-food products.

Choose Store Brands and Value Ranges

Supermarkets typically offer bargains on non-perishable foodstuffs, with their own-brand versions and value ranges.

Downscaling to these options instead of choosing leading brands can cut the cost of your supermarket shopping by nearly one-third, according to the MoneySavingExpert comparison platform. And you probably won’t notice much, if any, difference in taste.

Check Unit Pricing

Larger “value packs” don’t always beat smaller ones on price. You may find, for instance, that buying two 500g packs of butter is cheaper than putting a 1kg pack in your basket. Or a pack of eight sausages may cost less per kg than a pack of 12.

If you check the unit pricing on grocery labels, you can compare products by weight or volume, regardless of size.

Limit Use of Supermarket Convenience Stores

Supermarket neighborhood convenience shops can offer a convenient alternative when you only need a couple of items. But regularly shopping at these smaller stores instead of the chain’s main supermarket in your area could cost you hundreds of pounds more each year.

Shop Late

You’re likely to find more supermarket bargains if you go shopping later in the day. Items whose use-by date is close to expiring may be substantially discounted. Ideally, visit the store an hour or so before it closes.

Improving your Financial Health and Reducing Stress

While we can forgo luxury items in a cost-of-living crisis, putting food on the table is essential.

With the average UK household now spending more than £4,100 a year on groceries, cutting the cost of supermarket shopping is becoming increasingly important for more and more families.

Understanding smart supermarket shopping strategies will improve your financial health by reducing the burden on your household budget. It can also help avoid problems such as debt and stress-induced emotional and psychological issues that can result from bad credit.

Written by Jordan Gilliard