Nine tips to save money on your food shopping

I have nine tips to stop you from unknowingly wasting your money; from blocking out the noises that make you spend longer looking at the shelves, to avoiding the 'amazing' offers that really aren't that great. I'll go in order, from before you even step into the shop, all the way to buying your food.

1. Eat before shopping

This is a piece of advice I'm sure we've all heard being thrown around by parents and friends, but how many of us actually use it? If you shop on an empty stomach you are almost guaranteed to pick out items you wouldn't normally buy, especially unhealthy ones. You'll be much more likely to think of what you want in the moment, rather than logically considering what you'll need for the future.

The worst bit? Supermarkets know about this, and a lot of them exploit it! Got a whiff of that mouth-watering freshly baked bread when you walked through the doors? Yep, that's to get you thinking with your stomach rather than your head. And I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that your tummy's not thinking about your bank balance. So before you set out for your food shop, make sure you have something to eat first so you can go in and resist all extra temptations and stick to your list.

2. Wear headphones

Supermarkets are clever. It's not just your nose they're targeting when you step inside, it's your ears too. You probably don't even notice supermarket music anymore you've heard it so many times, but music is an incredibly powerful tool if it's used in the right way.

Psychology studies on supermarket shoppers have tested how buying behaviour changes when people are exposed to slow, fast, modern, and classical music. Slow music makes you spend longer walking through the shop with more chance of you picking up extra items, fast leads to more impulse purchases, and classical tempts you to buy more expensive items. Keep an ear out next time you're shopping and listen to what's playing.

You're most likely to hear classical music next time you're in a classy off-licence; they benefit much more from you picking the slightly more expensive items than a supermarket would. So pop in your headphones, (and if you need a new pair check out our top five alternatives to Dre Beats headhones because they're just awful), choose your own music and consciously set your own pace rather than letting the supermarket subconsciously set it. The next tip should help...

3. Time yourself

If you've got nowhere to be, wipe away that lonely tear and set a limit for how long you can spend food shopping. If you're not checking the time you're likely to be slower, and if you're slower you're probably popping a few extra bits and bobs into your trolley. Try to set an alarm on your phone, or at least glance at the time every now and again, to track your progress. It'll definitely keep you sticking strictly to your list to get it all in time!

4. Use a basket, not a trolley

Did I say pop a few extra bits and bobs in your trolley in the last point? I obviously meant basket! Trolley's have actually been made bigger and bigger over the years, because subconsciously it makes you want to fill them. You feel like you haven't bought enough if the whole space isn't taken up, and this is an especially big problem with the deeper trolleys.

The best thing you can do is grab a basket instead, but we all know how much effort dragging one of those around with you is. And there's no way you're doing a shop for more than two people with one. If you have to grab a trolley, go for the smaller, shallow one. You can always over-fill that a bit, and psychologically you'll be much less likely to when you see yourself with less space.

5. Work out the price per unit

This tip's a little more time-consuming than the others, but it's so worth it, and the more you use it the quicker and more natural it becomes. Never buy something simply because on first glance it's the cheapest.

I'll use fresh chicken as an example. Say one pack is priced at £3.32, cheaper than every other pack on the shelf. On closer inspection, you realise that it's £3.32 for 333g, whereas another pack of chicken is £4.29 for 613g. That means the first pack, which you thought was cheaper, works out at £9.97 per kg, and the second pack of chicken works out at £7.00 per kg - significantly cheaper.

You might think you need to walk around with a calculator, but due to pricing laws a lot of supermarkets have this kind of information displayed in small print on the ticket prices. Look out for the price per kilogram and compare it to the other products on display.

6. Evaluate your needs

After we all read an article about a supermarket glitch that left butter at a rock bottom price, this has become a sore spot for us here at Scoperks. Incredibly, people were coming in to buy over 50 packs of butter in one go when this happened. Leaving out the morality of abusing a glitch like this (I mean, really, it's almost like stealing), WHO NEEDS OVER 50 PACKS OF BUTTER? You'll never get through them all before they go out of date! Unless you're take part in a secret butter-wrestling ring or something, in which case you're excluded and might need to re-evaluate some of your life choices…

In all seriousness, think about what you'll need and what you'll actually eat before caving in to any offers. Think about how much food you throw out already, and if you know you won't be able to get through a certain amount of fresh food don't buy an offer just because it seems cheap. You'll end up spending more money because the extra food will just get thrown out. If there's a ridiculously good offer on something that will last a long time, or that you know you'll get through, then by all means go ahead and get it.

7. Special offers

The signs for special offers are normally huge and red, which means they must be great and worth the money. Not! They're brightly coloured to catch your eye, and probably aren't as good as they pretend to be.

It's not unknown for a special offer like 'three for £1!' to be signposted, when the product itself to be something like 20p. Meaning you'd lose out on 40p, all whilst smugly thinking you'd bagged yourself a great deal. Always check the item you're about to buy, and never be suckered into buying something just because it's got a special offer on. That's an impulse buy. Of course, if it's something you want and which you'll use, like I said in the previous point, you should go for it. Just evaluate your needs first.

Special offers are almost always in place to make the supermarket some money. Often they're trying to get more attention to the items that need it, so if a certain yoghurt isn't selling well, it'll probably get some money knocked off it to shift a few. Big 'family' sized special offers are printed right onto things like cereal boxes, when they're often more expensive than the medium sized boxes. Now you know though, you can avoid the trap.

8. Check the bottom shelf

Did you know that brands have to pay more to get their products onto 'prime shelf real-estate'? It costs much more to have your product at the customer's eye level than it does to have it up too high or too low to see. This doesn't ensure these products are the cheapest, but it often means there are some hidden gems on the lower and higher shelves. It's worth checking at least.

If you've got kids, this is an especially handy tip to know because the game changes for them. Brands position their child-centred products like sugary cereal or colourful fizzy drinks on the lower shelves so that they're eye-level for children; perfect for them to pick up and beg their parents for.

9. Pick products from the back of the shelf

This might not sound like money saving advice at first - surely the same loaf of bread behind all the other loaves costs the same amount. Yes, it does. But check the use-by date. Supermarket staff are always instructed to put the fresh products at the back of the row and put the ones going off sooner at the front. This stock rotation minimises the amount of produce the supermarket has to throw away. And in certain cases I agree you should buy from the front to avoid this ecological problem.

In the case of fresh food though, it can be beneficial to buy from the back. An extra day or two on your loaf of bread and your bag of carrots could mean that you throw out less. It's better not to do this on canned goods though - their use-by dates are so far in the future it wouldn't make much sense.

Be responsible with this tip though. If you know you're buying a chicken to eat that same night, buy one that's going out of date sooner and leave the longer use-by dates for other customers. You could be saving the supermarket from throwing something out, doing your bit for the environment and all.

That's it for this list, but if you have any advice of your own let us know in the comments below or over on our Twitter page (we post cool and funny stuff, you'll love it there). If you want to find out more shopping and money saving advice, head on over to the Scoperks Blog which is updated at least three times a week with new articles!