A woman has shared how she has slashed her food shop by around £450 a year thanks to cashback and other discounts.
Sue Bhatt, 41, from South Woodford in London, always has an eye out for a bargain as she shops at a range of supermarkets.
She helps get the shopping in for her family including her husband and five-year-old son and they use their savings to go towards meals out and other treats.
The savvy shopper uses loyalty memberships at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose to slash her bills.
The mum said she has slashed her costs by around £300 a year through the loyalty schemes from the supermarkets.
The savvy shopper also uses TopCashback to get cashback as well as supermarket gift cards and other voucher, saving her another £150.
She said TopCashback is particularly good for new members as they offer a lot of discounts on top of the discounts offered by the supermarket.
The cashback can also cover things like delivery fees and the money can be cashed in for vouchers, which can be used for other food shopping.
Sue also takes advantage of recipe boxes from HelloFresh and Simply Cook. She told Express.co.uk: “I’ll get some cashback through TopCashback and then on top of that I would get 60 percent off the first box, and then 25 percent off for two months.”
The mum said she saves around £30 to £35 a month in cashback while she saves even more through the offers from the supermarket.
Her loyalty memberships also help towards family treats. For example, she uses points from her Clubcard at Tesco to get meals out at Pizza Express.
She said: “We treat ourselves to a night out or a family meal out, sometimes we get tickets to the zoo or to a museum.
“We go away once a year. I use whatever is left over to cash it in and use it as holiday money.”
But she says she prefers to use the cashback to buy vouchers and gifts cards to use in the supermarket again.
She is not restricted to the supermarket as she can also get vouchers for TK Maxx or for Clarks, if she needs some particular shoes for her son.
The mum said she also does meal planning on Sunday night to plan for the week ahead to make sure she only buys what she needs from the supermarkets.
Asked which supermarket offers the best deals, she said Sainsbury’s is good for offers on home maintenance items, such as laundry pods.
She said Lidl and Aldi are good for cheap fruit and veg although their fresh produce sometimes doesn’t last long so she knows to use it quickly.
She said she doesn’t go to Marks and Spencer often but sometimes does when they are about to close to get the reduced price items.
The savvy shopper also has the Waitrose app and she said they do good offers on healthcare, beauty and household items.
Her husband is also part of a separate scheme through his work, through which the family get Tesco giftcards, which are topped up a percentage.
Sue said her shopping bills have gone up a lot over the past year, as the family would previously spend £30 on a top-up shop each week for basic groceries but now they would spend this on just a quick shop for the very basics.
She said many other bills have gone up over the past year, including energy bills, council tax and rent.
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