10 Top Tips for Eating Well and Spending Less

1. Keep an essentials list in the pantry, starting with fresh fruit and veg, list everything the household needs to survive, not what they like, just what they need, use this list when planning meals, shopping etc. Make sure you include cleaning products and toiletries.

2. Try not to buy anything you can realistically make yourself – pasta sauces, biscuits, muffins…

3. Find a good local source of supply for fresh produce and meat; the supermarket is not always the best value place to buy these things.

4. Keep a price book- use an alphabetised address book to list the prices of everything you buy, then you can price out your weeks grocery shop, cost out your regular family meals, track promotional cycles, find the best suppliers for regular purchases and bulk buying…

5. Eat in season – seasonal produce is the cheapest, freshest and tastiest. It’s more versatile than frozen so use lots.

6. A bowl of soup before dinner is an inexpensive way to take the edge of the appetite while increasing our consumption of our 5+ a day, a cheaper and healthier option than serving seconds of the main course, usually the most expensive meal of the day.

7. Add extra vegetables to recipes when you can, an extra potato, carrot and kumara in a favourite casserole will give you at least one extra serve from the recipe and a healthier ratio of meat to veg.

8. Add cooked pulses- beans, chickpeas and lentils to your dishes; they are an inexpensive, low fat, high fibre protein source and a great meal extender.

9. Make a little bit of a luxurious ingredient go a long way, a handful of berries, a scattering of pine nuts, a drizzle of really good olive oil can transform an everyday dish into something special.

10. Choose quality over quantity with meat and make it go a long way – two good quality sausages will flavour a whole delicious risotto, cassoulet or pasta sauce giving a better result than a bigger quantity of cheap nasty sausages ever could.