Where Should You Buy Groceries?

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If you’re concerned about your bills and saving a few pounds here and there, you have probably thought about your food bill at some point. Sure, it’s not your largest bill – that would be bills like energy, fuel and other housing costs, according to the ONS – but on average, we are still spending £56.80 per week on food and non-alcoholic drinks. Compare that to the £68.00 spent weekly on housing, fuel and power costs (excluding mortgages), and you can see that even if it’s not the biggest weekly expense, it is still a major one.

So where should you buy groceries? You can’t exactly go from shop to shop, comparing prices for each item on your list. Well, we’ve looked around, and this is the best advice we’ve found. This is where you should buy groceries.

If you’re shopping at the major supermarkets, Asda, apparently

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According to the latest Which? survey of supermarket prices, Asda comes out the cheapest. The consumer organisation took about 100 “branded food and grocery items” and compared their prices across the major grocery retailers – Asda, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Ocado. They averaged out the prices they charged for the whole month, using the data provided by MySupermarket.com, and they found that Asda had the lowest prices. The basket there cost £193.68, while the most expensive basket, from Ocado, ran to £211.56.

But you may save more by avoiding the supermarkets

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In the Guardian, one blogger writes that she found she could slash her food budget just by avoiding the major supermarkets. Instead, she opted for wholesalers, independent retailers and discount shops, amongst other strategies. She buys long-lasting food items like tea, coffee, rice, dried beans, pasta and tinned veg from the wholesalers, getting giant bulks of these long-life products for much less. She also buys cleaners and toiletries in bulk online, since she can buy them when products run low and wait a bit to have them delivered.

She accidentally found that she could get discounts on orders she placed with independent shops, too. She ordered boxes of healthy snacks from her local health shop, and they gave her a 15% discount, without her even having to ask. Finally, she does a lot on her own, from making her own chemical-free cleaning products with soda crystals and vinegar to growing a couple of lettuce and broccoli plants in her small home garden.

All told, she cut her weekly spend from £90 a week to less than £40 – all for a family of four, including lunches at work and at school, cleaning products and toiletries, and the occasional trip to the café.

Best of all, she insists, is the time saving she has made. Her weekly shop simply involves a trip to the local greengrocer, where she picks up her fresh fruit and veg, milk and some eggs. It takes ten minutes in total.

And of course, you could save by making things yourself

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Everyone knows that cooking your own meals is cheaper than eating out or buying ready meals. But did you know you can make your own mayonnaise, ketchup, tortilla chips, crisps and hot sauce? It’s also often a lot simpler than you might expect. Making your own Nutella or peanut butter is as simple as getting a good food processor and adding either hazelnuts and milk chocolate or peanuts and a bit of salt, respectively. Blitz until combined, and you have your favourite spreads, customised to your own tastes and without all the controversial additives.

If you want a great collection of recipes and ideas, check out this Buzzfeed article. It points you to all the recipes for all the foods mentioned here, as well as more than 20 more ideas.

So as it turns out, if you want to buy groceries at a major supermarket, head to Asda. But don’t forget that making your own products (mass cooking and freezing on the weekends is the best friend of busy folks) and shopping around can also help you save loads of money.

Got any cool tips and tricks to save on your weekly shop? Let us know what they are in the comments.