How to reduce your food bill
Whilst inflation has been slowing down recently, we are still all feeling the squeeze when it comes to our bills. Of course, many of these costs can be cut within reason but the major one that a lot of us can struggle to cut down on is our food bill; we all need to eat, regardless of the economical situation!
Over the last few months, I’ve been looking at some of the most effective ways that we can cut down our food costs and felt it would be useful to share these with you today, so here are the best tips I have found:
Feed a family for cheap (twice!)
Chances are that a lot of us have already signed up to HelloFresh, Gousto, etc. over recent years but if you have a separate email address it seems to be that you can get away with being viewed as a “new customer” and take advantage of the welcome offers available.
Whilst I have referral links to both of these services, there are actually better ways to do this:
HelloFresh New Customer Offer
This offer can be stacked to ensure you get even more out of it, and it’s easier than you’d think:
Download Airtime Rewards & get £1.50 with my promo code “ AUWX6FFC ” when you spend within 7 days.
Airtime Rewards is a mobile app that you link to your phone plan & bank cards, and you earn cashback as you spend which can then be redeemed against your mobile contracts. It’s one of my personal favourite cashback apps (more info here).
Sign up to TopCashback* if you aren’t already and search for “HelloFresh”
As a new customer you are going to get 60% off your first box + 25% off any boxes for the next two months
Based on the biggest box of 5 meals for 4 people, this will cost you £67.98 (incl. shipping)
You’ll only be paying 40% though, which makes this £27.19 as the total cost you spent
The juicy bit, is that because you signed up via TopCashback you will also earn £20 cashback as a new customer
You will also earn 10% cashback on the transaction via Airtime Rewards, which will give you another £2.71 back
Plus the £1.50 bonus for signing up to Airtime Rewards, bringing your total cost to:
Out of pocket cost: £27.19
TopCashback due: (£20.00)
Airtime Rewards: (£ 2.71)
AR Sign-up bonus: (£ 1.50)
Actual cost = £2.98 to feed a family of four for five days!
Gousto New Customer Offer
Sign up to Quidco* and search for “Gousto”.
You will get 60% off your first Gousto box for signing up as a new customer via Quidco which again using the top priced box will give you a reduction from £51.84 down to £20.74 for 4 meals for 4 people as a total out-of-pocket cost!
However, by going through Quidco you will also be eligible for £16.50 cashback as a new customer
Whilst it’s minimal, you will also earn an extra £1 if you are new to Quidco and sign up via our link above, bringing the total cost to:
Out of pocket cost: £20.74
Quidco cashback: (£16.50)
Quidco sign-up: (£ 1.00)
Actual cost = £3.24 to feed a family of four for four days!
You should be able to rinse and repeat these offers for both you and your partner so long as you both have accounts for TopCashback, Quidco, and Airtime Rewards. Therefore, theoretically using this method, you could get 18 meals for four people for ~£12 which is pretty good value!
!!!!Don’t forget to cancel the subscriptions if you don’t want to continue them!!!!
Supermarket shopping
Of course, not all of us want to have the hassle of recipe boxes and forgetting to cancel subscriptions after the cheap initial offer so it’s also key to make sure you are earning as much as possible when it comes to supermarket shopping!
The best option for this in my opinion is a mixture of new customer offers + cashback.
New Customer Offers for supermarkets
Sainsbury’s - £15 off your first £60+ online grocery order until 30 June 2023 (don’t forget to add your Nectar card to collect points)
Ocado - 25% off your first order (max £20) + 3 months of free deliveries until 31 August 2023
Morrison’s - £15 off your first £60+ online shop (see the banner at the top of the linked page to access) (don’t forget to add your Morrisons’ More card to collect points)
Iceland - £5 off your first £45 online shop
Cashback Offers for supermarkets (new and existing customers)
I don’t think that these offers will stack with the above, you can try it but don’t be disheartened if you don’t get both rewards. Worth seeing how much you’re likely to spend to see which offers work best in my opion!
ASDA - £10 for new customers on £48+ spend via Topcashback* or £3 for existing customers on £40+ spend via Quidco*
Sainsbury’s - £12.65 for new customers on £40+ click and collect spend via TopCashback* or £1.89 for existing customers
Tesco - £8 for new customers on £25+ click and collect spend via TopCashback*
Morrison’s - £6.60 for new groceries customers on a £40+ spend and 3.3% for existing customers via TopCashback*
Cashback Offers for supermarkets (ongoing)
So you can use the existing customer offers mentioned above going forwards, but one of the best ways to cut your grocery costs going forwards is to use cashback gift cards.
The best option for this method is currently an app called JamDoughnut which I love using. You pay full price for gift cards and accrue cashback in your app which can then be withdrawn when you reach £10 which is easier than you might think!
P.S if you sign up with my code “5ZNC” when downloading the app you will help The Bank Engine grow! (thank you in advance!)
So what are the cashback rates looking like in JamDoughnut:
M&S - 4%
Morrison’s - 3.5% (plus Morrison’s fuel - 3%)
Iceland - 3%
Farmfoods - 3%
Asda - 2.5%
Waitrose - 2.5%
Sainsbury’s 2%
Aldi - 2%
Tesco - 1.5%
These can seriously add up, and what I tend to do is purchase a gift card for £40 (our average weekly shop) and then use the gift card at the till - if it’s cost us more, pay the difference in cash, or if it’s cost us less then use the remainder of the voucher next time!
For your first transaction you’ll also get a bonus £2.00 of points added to your account, so it’s well worth doing (also, it’s not just groceries on this app, so it’s a good way to buy lots of things you’re probably paying full price for)
Bonus cashback when doing this
As if that wasn’t enough, you can also use your cashback cards (Chase, etc.) to purchase these gift cards which will result in earning even more cashback.
As an example, if you were to buy a £100 M&S gift card with your Chase debit card on JamDoughnut, you would receive £4 of points in JamDoughnut (+£2 if it’s your first transaction) and then another £1 into your Chase account!
Thanks for sticking with me!
This is one of the longest blog posts I have written, but it’s such an in-depth topic that I feel strongly about and wanted to share how we can pull together to showcase some of the best ways to save money!
If there’s any other deals that I’ve missed please do let me know on Instagram and I’ll be sure to add them to the list
Thomas, The Bank Engine
All information and deals included in this blog post were accurate as at Wednesday 14 June 2023. Please double-check all offers before spending your hard-earned cash as we will not be responsible for any losses