I’ve saved £2k a year using yellow sticker food bargains!
ASAVVY mum has revealed how she saves £2,000 a year on groceries – using yellow-sticker bargains to whip up gourmet meals for less than £1 a head. Now 43, Helen Rosbotham’s mind first turned to money saving in her 20s, when she was a single mum to Freya, now 22, and Rose, 19.
Living in social housing and reliant on income support, there were times when she struggled to afford food, and so she began shopping in the reduced aisle to keep costs down.
Now, she has such an eye for a bargain that she scores her weekly shop for just £40 for her family of four – saving enough to buy a three-bedroom semi-detached home with her husband, bakery cook Steve, 48.
She estimates that this saves her around £40 – which equals more than £2,000 a year.
She also enters competitions daily and has won a haul of goodies over the years including flights to New York, two televisions, and £1,000 worth of furniture.
Helen, a project manager from Norwich, said: “When I was in my early twenties, I had nothing. It was really quite tragic.
“I remember one time, I had enough money for milk and one potato, and a little bit of frozen veg for my daughter. I went without meals myself sometimes.
“I got quite upset that I could not get the shopping down to where I thought it should be. Prices kept going up and up, so I got into that mentality of having to figure out what I could make quick and cheap.” Since then, Helen, who met her now-husband 13 years ago, has stuck to mostly reduced stock when doing her food shop. She recommends shopping after 4pm, when supermarkets often begin slashing prices, and added that the best bargains can usually be found on weekdays.
In the past decade, she has doubled her income – but has not altered her spending.
Beyond yellow sticker-hunting, withdrawing a set amount of cash for groceries and massfreezing bargains for later have also been key to her saving success.
And though she admits she was previously “clueless about cooking”, she now regularly rustles up restaurant-quality meals for her family for less than £1 a head.
She said: “Coronavirus has definitely made a difference to what’s available in the reduced section.
“Sometimes, I couldn’t get the usual cheap stuff because it’d all gone off the shelves. But the challenge has made me a more creative cook. I’ll pick up whatever I can find and make a meal from it.” Some of her greatest triumphs to date include brie and caramelised onion tarts, homemade gammon-en-croute and shredded lamb samosas.
“I was quite impressed with myself, because the samosas were not something I would ever normally make. I used a massive piece of lamb that was reduced to £2.59, and added celery, onion, carrot and peas,” she said.
“The tarts cost me just over £3 to make four, and I’ve also made a hearty fish stew with some fish fillets I got for £2.18.”
Once Helen has done her grocery shop, she carefully plans meals for the next week to ensure she is not wasting any food, and also has “back-up” dinners in the freezer, just in case. Regularly searching online for recipes, tips and tricks, some of Helen’s greatest inspirations are writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe, and Miguel Barclay – the brains behind the Instagram account One Pound Meals.
“Certainly, over the last few years, with the internet and with social media, it’s made me look up new ideas, and it’s helped keep me healthy too,” she said.
Beyond her grocery savings, Helen also enters competitions daily, and wins “two to three prizes” every month.
“I’m a comper as well as a frugal cooker. I enter competitions as a hobby,” she added.
“I started about 10 years ago, and within the space of a month, I’d won flights to New York, a new mattress, and I won £1,000 worth of garden furniture all at the same time.”