Food is normally a significant portion of budgets, so finding significant savings in this area can make a real difference to how much money is left over at the end of the month, especially with a large family. Here are some money saving tips on how to reduce your expenditure

      Before going shopping make a list: Making a list of all the things you want to buy is essential to staying in budget. When you are at the shop make sure you stick to your list. That way you won’t be tempted by special offers or products which you did not really need.
      Shop quickly: this will reduce the temptation to buy, shops spend billions to entice you to buy what you don’t need, and the shop itself is their playground, it has been designed specifically to make you buy
      Use unit price to compare products: When comparing between two products make sure to compare the unit price, rather than the total price displayed, as packaging can make two products look different sizes. Also the largest size is not necessarily the least expensive, be sure to check the unit price to see if this is true. If the largest size unit price is not that much cheaper consider staying with the smaller size as otherwise you may end up consuming more of the product than you where intending
      Beware the product placement: in the shop the most visible product are not necessarily the cheapest, instead these are the products which have had the most paid for them by the brand owners to get visibility with you
      A bargain is not always a bargain, super markets (as well as all other shops) will mark up their products then mark them down again so that they can say they are deeply discounted when really they are not if you consider their long term cost.
      Don’t buy in bulk just because you get a discount: often the discount is very small, and you will end up consuming more than you intended and spending more money
      Buy own brand or no brand stores tend to have different prices to differentiate the customer when in fact the product is exactly the same produced by the same manufacturer. So it is worth trying the own brands at least once to see if they are good enough, often times you can save 30% or more this way. The saving may not be great, but because these are products which you buy on a weekly basis the saving will add up.
      Check over your receipts at the till: given the many items of food which is bought every week it is not surprising that mistakes are often made at the cash register, the most common being an item being double counted, so be sure to give your receipt a good once over and see that everything is in order
      Write a list before you go shopping and stick to it. You need a very good idea of what you are going to buy before going into the store, otherwise you will end up getting more food than you wanted to. Do not put any items shopping cart if they are not on the list, you should save a significant amount.
      Make your own lunch, don’t buy it as eating out for lunch every day can quickly add up, it does not take much preparation to make lunch, and when you cook you can always cook more than you need for one mean and have left overs on the next day.
      When you cook, cook for 10, that way you can freeze the rest of it and have it later. Once you do this with a few different meals you will have a large selection and you will need to spend less time cooking, and need to spend less money outside buying food. This also allows you to buy ingredients in bulk that way you can save even more.
      Get a large freezer or an extra freezer this will end up saving you time and money and will mean that you can cook greater quantities of food, and buy more in bulk and thus save more money. Another benefit is that you will have less times when you run out of food as you are able to keep stock levels higher, even if everyone decides they suddenly like one thing one week.