The average UK household is spending nearly £119 per week on food shopping, amounting to more than £6,000 per year. For families with children, the cost can increase to £170 weekly. Rising costs mean that 61 per cent of the UK claim they’ve had to cut back.
In a new series, The i Paper asks families how they manage their weekly food shop. This week, we hear from nutritionist Emma Hague, a 34-year-old mother of two in Devon, on how she and her husband, 33, budget their incomes. She helps families reduce their UPF intake and shares her tips on Instagram @switch.theupf.
I do one weekly food shop which I mainly do online, and I usually do a top-up shop in person. I go everywhere but Tesco is my local supermarket and I go between there and Sainsbury’s so I can use the Clubcard and Nectar deals. I tend to stick between £100 and £120 a week.On a Sunday, we try to plan the meals for the week ahead, I’ve found that when I have a list I don’t buy things that end up not being used. We’ve made a switch to just buying what we need so instead of buying loads of food wrapped in plastic that then might go off, I just buy two carrots for example, which works out cheaper.
Shorts
In the shops, I check out the yellow-stickered items at the end of the day that I could just put in the freezer. Sometimes there’s bread that’s going off, so we buy that and freeze it, which is honestly such a hack to stop bread from going off before you’ve used it.
