The average household in the UK now spends around £65-70 a week on food — and with food prices still significantly higher than they were a few years ago, the grocery bill is one of the areas where the cost of living squeeze has been most felt. Over a year, that’s well over £3,000 just on food costs.

Most of it is unavoidable. You have to eat. But there’s quite a lot of waste baked into the way most of us do the supermarket shop — in food, in money, in time — that with a few practical changes you can cut out.

Here are the tips that actually make a dent on the food budget, not just the obvious stuff (though the obvious stuff is in here too, because sometimes obvious is correct).

Last updated: May 2026

Make a proper shopping list before you go anywhere near a shop

Smart shopping lists are one of the most effective things you can do for your food bill. Not a mental note, not a half-remembered list on your phone — a proper list organised around what you actually need for the coming week.

Before you write anything down, check what you already have. Then plan your main meals for the week and write your list by section of the shop so you’re not doubling back through the pasta aisle when you’ve already passed it.

It’s a simple tip but it does real work. It cuts impulse buys, stops you buying duplicates of things already in the cupboard, and means you’re using what you buy rather than discovering it three weeks later at the back of the fridge.

Meal planning is the thing that makes the most difference

Meal planning is the foundation of a lower food budget, full stop. I know it sounds like faff but it takes about 15 minutes on a Sunday and the savings are consistent in a way that most other tips just aren’t.

When you plan for the coming week before you shop, you buy what you need and nothing else. You’re not standing in the kitchen at 6pm with nothing planned, ordering from local restaurants or paying convenience store prices for a ready meal. You’re cooking home-cooked meals that cost a fraction of the price per portion.

A few meal planning approaches that actually help:

Build your meals around what’s on special offer. Before you plan, check what’s reduced in the fresh food section. If chicken breasts are on a special offer this week, make two or three main meals around them. Plan around what’s cheap rather than shopping to a fixed menu every week.

Cook once, eat twice. Leftover chicken from Sunday becomes chicken pasta on Monday. Leftover foods generally don’t get the credit they deserve — they’re not sad end-of-week meals, they’re just cheap meals you’ve already half-made. Leftover chicken in particular goes much further than people think.

Plan portion sizes. Cooking more than you need is one of the quieter ways food costs climb. If you’re cooking for two but consistently making four portions, that’s either food waste or surplus foods that may or may not get eaten before the use-by date.

Hit the reduced section at the right time

The reduced section — or the yellow sticker section, as everyone actually calls it — is the best place in any supermarket. Major supermarkets have them, and if you get your timing right you can pick up fresh food, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, dairy products, and meat products at a significant discount on the original price.

The best time varies by store but generally: late afternoon (4-6pm on weekdays) or early Saturday morning when fresh stock hasn’t shifted. Saturday night can be a great time for bigger reductions — stores want to clear fresh produce before Sunday.

Yellow sticker items are fine. The use-by date is usually the next day or a couple of days away. Either cook them that night or freeze them for a later date. Most fresh produce, meat, and dairy products freeze well before the use-by date. This is the money-saving tip that feels most like cheating — you’re essentially getting good food at a lower price for doing nothing except knowing when to shop.

Switch to own-brand products for the staples

Own brands — or own-brand products, as supermarkets call them — have genuinely improved over the past decade. For most things, the quality difference between own-brand and the equivalent branded product is small, and the price difference is not.

Tea bags are the classic example. Supermarket own-brand tea bags are often a third of the price of the branded versions. Most people genuinely cannot tell the difference. The same holds for similar products across the shop: pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, kidney beans, peanut butter, flour, cleaning products.

The places where own brands don’t quite match up are few — a handful of dairy products, the odd condiment. But for the staples, own brands are the good value choice without any real downside.

One approach: don’t switch everything at once. Try own-brand versions of the things you buy most often and see what you actually notice. Most of the time, the answer is nothing.

Buy less meat, and buy it smarter

Meat products are one of the main drivers of food costs. A lot of meat — particularly premium cuts — is expensive, and for most households eating a little less of it makes a meaningful difference to the weekly shop.

You don’t need to go vegetarian. Replacing one or two meals a week with plant-based protein — kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas — saves a noticeable amount over a month. These ingredients have a long shelf life, they’re cheap, they’re filling, and they work in most of the same dishes: curries, bolognese, chilli, soups.

When you do buy meat, chicken breasts are usually the most cost-effective fresh option. Cheaper cuts — thighs, mince — are often better for slow-cooked dishes anyway. Buy in larger quantities when there’s a good deal and freeze what you won’t use immediately.

Use loyalty schemes and actually use them properly

Loyalty schemes are worth more than a lot of people realise, particularly on a regular weekly shop.

The Tesco Clubcard is one of the more generous ones: Clubcard prices on hundreds of products throughout the store are meaningfully lower prices than non-members pay. If you shop at Tesco regularly and you’re not using it, you’re paying more than you need to. Sainsbury’s Nectar, Morrisons More, and Waitrose MyWaitrose all have equivalent programmes worth signing up for.

A good idea: install the app for wherever you shop regularly. The personalised offers sent through the app are often better than anything in store.

One nifty tip: Lidl Plus and Aldi’s app both have weekly digital coupons and scratch cards that don’t require any spending history. Worth two minutes of your time.

Use a food waste app

Food waste apps connect you with surplus foods from local restaurants, cafés, and supermarkets at a fraction of the normal price. Too Good To Go is now available in most UK towns — you pay £3-5 for a “magic bag” of surplus foods from a nearby place and get good food worth significantly more. It’s a great way to try local restaurants cheaply, or just to supplement your weekly shop.

Olio is more of a community model where people post free food they don’t want. Genuinely free food, if you’re in an area with active users.

These free apps take two minutes to download. If you use them consistently, they can make a real dent in the food bill.

Stop topping up at convenience stores

Convenience stores are expensive. Not slightly — a significant amount more per item for most products. A pint of milk, a loaf of bread, or a block of cheese from a corner shop or petrol station can cost 30-50% more than the same item from a supermarket.

For one emergency item, fine. But regular top-up shops at convenience stores cost more than most people track. A better deal is simply to plan your weekly shop properly so you need less from the convenience shop in the first place.

The same logic applies to soft drinks and non-food items — supermarkets are almost always the better option on price for these.

A few other smart ways to save

Use a gift card. Supermarket gift cards are regularly sold at a discount through cashback sites and gift card marketplaces like Cardyard and Zeek. Buying a £50 Tesco gift card for £45 is a 10% discount on everything in the shop. It’s a nifty tip that most people don’t bother with, but it’s easy.

Follow supermarkets on social media. Flash deals, extra loyalty points offers, and money-off coupons often appear on supermarket social media accounts before they’re advertised anywhere else. Takes ten seconds to follow.

Don’t shop hungry. Impulse buys happen most when everything looks good. Even a glass of water before you go can take the edge off.

Check the unit price, not the headline price. A larger pack isn’t always a better deal. The unit price (per 100g or per litre) is on the shelf label in major supermarkets — use it to compare similar products rather than going by the big number on the pack.

Switch fresh vegetables for frozen where it makes sense. Frozen vegetables are often better quality than tired fresh ones, they’re cheaper, they don’t go off, and they’re just as nutritious. Not for everything, but for peas, sweetcorn, spinach, and mixed veg in cooked dishes, frozen is a good option.

Think about energy bills too. Batch cooking — making large quantities of a dish and freezing portions — cuts both food costs and energy bills. One long cooking session uses less energy than cooking from scratch six nights a week.

These are small changes individually. Together, on a regular weekly shop, they add up to a material difference in what you spend.

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