Our food shopping bill in August came to £600. For a family of three. In one month.

I’ve been staring at that number for a few days now and I cannot fully account for where it went. Okay, I can a bit: school holidays meant my son was home all day and eating constantly, my husband had significantly more beer in the fridge than usual, and if I’m honest we indulged a fair bit — more convenience food than normal, a few extra treats here and there, less structure around meals. August is always a bit like that. But £600 is still too much, and I know it.

So this month I’m setting myself a proper challenge: I want to cut our grocery bill in half and stick to a £300 food budget for September.

That’s £75 a week, which is actually more in line with where I think we should be as a family. For context, the average UK household spends around £60-70 per week on food, so even £300 puts us slightly above average — which feels more like it.

I’m counting everything we buy at the supermarket in that £300, not just food. Household cleaning stuff, toilet roll, toothpaste, all of it. So it’s a proper all-in budget for the weekly shop, not just the groceries.

I’m sharing my plan here partly to hold myself accountable, and partly because I suspect a lot of families are in the same boat and looking for the same answers. Here’s what I’m actually going to do.

One thing I’ve set up before anything else: I’m using a separate bank account just for food shopping. I used to use it for matched betting and it’s just been sitting there doing nothing, so I’ve added it to my Apple Wallet and I’m putting £300 in at the start of the month. That’s it — that’s my food money. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Having a dedicated account means I can see exactly where I’m at without having to tot things up across a main account, and it makes it a lot harder to accidentally spend food money on something else.

Make a Proper Meal Plan Before I Go Near a Shop

The single biggest culprit for overspending on the weekly food bill is going to the supermarket without a plan. I know this. I do it anyway. I wander around thinking “oh, that looks nice” and then Friday comes and half of it’s gone off in the fridge because I never actually decided what we were eating.

This month I’m meal planning every Sunday for the following week before I even open the Tesco app. Seven dinners, mapped out, with a shopping list that covers exactly what I need for those meals and nothing else.

It sounds basic. It is basic. But the difference it makes to monthly food bills is significant — you’re only buying what you’ll actually eat, which cuts both grocery costs and food waste in one go.

Get Serious About Yellow Stickers

If you haven’t got into the habit of yellow sticker shopping, it’s worth starting. Most supermarkets markdown fresh food between 6-8pm and again around 9-10pm, when they’re reducing anything that needs to be sold that day. You can pick up chicken breasts, fresh veg, bakery items, and fresh fruit at a fraction of the cost.

I’ve had brilliant luck with yellow sticker items at my local Morrisons and Lidl — I once got a whole chicken for £1.49 that I used to make three different meals. The trick is to know your local supermarket’s markdown times and go then rather than treating it as a lucky bonus.

Yellow sticker shopping works. It just takes a bit of planning to make it a habit rather than a happy accident.

Swap Chicken Breasts for Cheaper Cuts

This one’s going to make a real difference to our food budget. Chicken thighs are so much cheaper than chicken breasts (usually about half the price per kilo) and in most recipes — casseroles, curries, traybakes — they’re actually better. More flavour, more forgiving if you cook them a bit longer, less likely to dry out.

A whole chicken is an even better deal. Roast it on a Sunday and you’ve got Sunday dinner, leftovers for sandwiches on Monday, and if you’re organised, enough meat for a pasta dish or soup mid-week. One chicken, three or four different meals. That’s how you cut food costs without eating less well.

I’m also planning to cook more vegetarian dishes this month. We’re not going meat-free, but swapping one or two dinners a week — a lentil dal, a veggie chilli, a chickpea curry — takes a noticeable chunk off the weekly grocery bill. Less meat is one of the easiest ways to spend less without feeling like you’re scrimping.

Actually Use the Slow Cooker

My slow cooker lives in a cupboard and I need to stop letting that happen. Slow cooker meals are ideal for cutting food bills because they work brilliantly with cheaper cuts of meat that would be tough any other way — shoulder cuts, shin, braising steak — things that cost a fraction of premium cuts but come out tender and delicious after six hours on low.

The other piece of this is making double and eating the same thing two nights running. I know that’s not everyone’s favourite idea, but for things like spag bol, cottage pie, pasta bake, or chilli, it works really well — they often taste better the second night anyway. No extra effort, no extra shopping, one less dinner to think about.

Stop Impulse Buying — Shop Online Where I Can

Supermarkets are designed to make you spend more than you planned. This is not a conspiracy theory, it’s just retail. The layout, the special offer displays, the bakery smell — it all adds up, and if I’m shopping in person without a very strict list, I leave with things I didn’t intend to buy.

Shopping online, with a list already in my basket, removes most of that. I can see the total before I checkout, I’m not tempted by things I walk past, and I can compare prices properly rather than just grabbing what’s at eye level. For the big weekly shop especially, doing it online is one of the easiest ways to stay under budget.

That said — and this is the one thing that gets me about online food shopping — the delivery charge. I always book a 4-hour window slot on Tesco rather than a 1-hour slot, because it’s the cheapest delivery option. It means I have to be a bit flexible about when it arrives, but I’m at home anyway so it works. Make sure you’re picking the cheapest slot rather than the most convenient one, or get a delivery pass if you’re shopping online every week.

One Ultra-Cheap Meal Per Week

This is new for us and I think it’s going to make a real dent. One dinner a week that costs basically nothing — pasta with a jar of sauce and whatever veg I’ve got kicking around, or jacket potatoes. That’s it. No meat, dead simple, about £1.50 for the whole family.

It sounds a bit grim written down but it really isn’t. A jacket potato with beans and cheese, or pasta with a tomato sauce loaded up with courgette and mushroom, is a perfectly decent dinner. And doing it once a week adds up over the month.

Sort Out the Pantry and Use What’s Already There

The average household throws away about £60 worth of food a month in the UK. I’d say ours is probably lower than that, but it’s definitely not zero.

I’ve just had a proper sort through my food cupboards and found quite a bit I’d forgotten about — stuffing, gravy granules, a few curry mixes, some noodles. I’ve put anything that needs using up in the next month into a separate box so it’s right there when I’m planning meals, rather than hidden at the back where it’ll just expire.

The longer-term habit I want to get into is keeping proper pantry staples in bulk — a big bag of pasta, a big bag of rice, a decent stock of tinned tomatoes. If those are always in, you can build a meal around almost anything without needing to do a big shop. It keeps the weekly grocery bill down because you’re only really buying fresh stuff to go alongside things you already have.

I’m also going back to making my own bread in the bread maker. Bakery bread is so expensive now — a decent loaf can easily be £3-4, and we go through bread quickly. Making it yourself costs a fraction of that and tastes better.

We’ve also had a really good year for courgettes in the garden, so I’ve been chopping and freezing them to use through the month. Free vegetables, basically. They’re brilliant thrown into pasta sauces, curries, or the cheap pasta dinners — and it means I’m not buying veg I already have growing outside.

Use Cashback Apps on Top

On top of all of this, I’m making sure I’m actually using my loyalty apps and cashback apps every shop. I do a lot of my shopping at Lidl and Morrisons, so I want to be properly making the most of the offers on my Lidl Plus card and the Morrisons More app — both have personalised deals and discounts that I honestly don’t check as often as I should. This month I’m checking them before I go rather than after.

On top of those, CheckoutSmart, Shopmium, and Greenjinn all have offers on specific products that pay you cashback once you’ve bought them and uploaded your receipt. I haven’t bothered with these for a while and I need to log back in and get them set up again. But they’re worth doing. It’s not life-changing money, but over a month it adds up.

I’ve written about all of these in more detail if you want the full breakdown:

• The Best Cashback Apps in the UK
• CheckoutSmart Review
• Greenjinn Review
• Shopmium App
• Asda Rewards Review
• Lidl Plus Reviews

The September Plan in Short

To hit £300 this month I’m: meal planning every Sunday, shopping online for the main weekly shop, hunting yellow sticker items, switching to cheaper cuts of meat, having one ultra-cheap dinner a week, eating the same meal twice rather than cooking something new every night, working through what’s in my pantry before buying more, and using every cashback app I have.

My son’s back at school next week too, which will help — lunches will be sorted through the week, so I’ll only need to think about breakfasts, dinners, and weekend food. That’ll take a surprising amount of pressure off the grocery budget.

I’ll report back at the end of the month with the actual total. I’m hoping to hit £300, I’ll be happy with £350, and anything over that means I didn’t follow my own plan closely enough.

Have you tried cutting your food bill significantly? I’d love to know what’s actually worked for you — drop a comment below.

Related posts:

• How to Reduce Your Food Shopping Bill
• The Best Cashback Apps in the UK
• Grow Your Own Food UK