Cheap Food and Drink Swaps – Would You Taste the Difference?
One of the best ways to save money on your household bills is to reduce the amount of money you spend each week on food and grocery items at the supermarket. You won’t have to starve in order to do that because it’s actually possible to lower your food bill and make your money go further at the same time. How? By switching to supermarket own label or value foods instead of expensive branded label items for cheap food without having to sacrifice taste.
Many own brand foods taste just as good as big named brands. Don’t get me wrong; there are some foods that are an exception to the rule, for example Heinz Baked Beans. In my experience, most own brand tinned beans just can’t compete (as many cheap varieties end up producing bullet-like beans instead). But there are plenty of other food and drink products that you can switch to in order to save money without having to compromise. Here are just a few examples below.
- Tinned tomatoes
Napolina tinned tomatoes are very nice indeed taste-wise but not so nice on the pocket at a whopping £1 per 400g tin in most supermarkets. You can switch to any variety of value tinned tomatoes to save more than half the price and you probably wouldn’t notice them tasting any different. Tesco Value tomatoes for example cost a mere 34p for the same size tin.
- Cereals
Kellogg’s Cornflakes can cost anywhere between £1.67 to £1.75 for a 500g box depending on which supermarket you’re able to visit. Most supermarkets own brand of cornflakes are just as scrummy and you can expect to pay around £1.45 (Morrisons) to £1.50 (Tesco). Aldi’s Harvest Morn Cornflakes cost just 99p. Muesli can cost an arm and a leg if you decide to go for a big name brand like Alpen who sell a 750g pack for £2.79 in most supermarkets. You can buy a much bigger pack for less if you buy a supermarket brand of muesli, for example Asda offer a 1.5kg Swiss Style Muesli pack for just £2.40.
- Pasta and Rice
Big brand dried pasta such as Napolina Fusilli Pasta can retail at around £1.50 per 500g pack. Yet you can expect to pay around 95p (or 2 packs for £1.50) at Morrisons for the same thing. Anyone who can taste the difference with dried pasta must have the taste buds of a talented chef. A 250g pack of Tilda Steamed Basmati Rice currently retails at £1.59 in Tesco. You can buy a 1kg pack of Tesco Basmati Rice for £1.89 and you’d be getting 4 times as much in terms of quantity.
- Alcohol
If you enjoy a decent bottle of wine, you probably won’t want to be convinced to downgrade to a cheap supermarket brand of wine. But before you knock it, perhaps you should try it! Many supermarkets label wines that they’ve imported from Australia as their own, such as Tesco who offer an Australian White for just £3.50.
- Milk
Milk is one of those products that many of us just pick up without casting a glance over the various brands available. You might not know that there are cheaper varieties right there in front of you! For example in Morrisons, their own brand British Semi Skimmed Milk (2.27L) is available to purchase at £1.39. That’s not bad when you compare it to Cravendale who offer a similar milk product (2L instead of 2.27L) for an eye watering £2 per carton. But, even further down the shelf is Meadow Park Semi Skimmed Milk (2L) which is available to buy at a very reasonable 88p. That’s more like it!
Have you already made any of these swaps to save money on your shopping bill? Can you think of any others?
Disclaimer: Prices included in this article are correct at the time of publishing!