Shop at the right times

Most of us don’t really think about the time of day that we choose to do our food shopping. When you have lectures, seminars and a busy social life to work around, we tend to just squeeze it in wherever we can.

However, for the best bargains, you should try to shopping later in the day, ideally an hour or so before closing time or in 24 hour stores about 7pm. Stores often have offers on perishable items which are near their expiry date. Many of these items can still be used or frozen to use at a later date. The problem for the supermarket is that nobody will buy them if the date is passed so they are just thrown away – just keep your eye peeled for the yellow "reduced" stickers.

Remember too that best before end dates aren’t set in stone.