After inflation hit a 30-year high this year, many families are leaving their weekly supermarket trip with far less bang for their buck. But with food prices on the rise, and food wastage at an all time high, there are now apps out there that can help with bagging a bargain.
Mum, Kelly Cavill frequently uses the Too Good To Go app, and often purchases £5 magic bags from shops like Waitrose and Morrisons, filled with produce worth a staggering £60, making a saving of £55 per shop.
Most recently, the administration manager bagged a sizable steal from Waitrose, filled with heavily discounted items such as sausages, sourdough pizza, Thai curry, lemon tart and much more.
The 42-year-old said: "I started using the Too Good To Go app around 18 months ago. I’d read about it in a news article about food waste on Facebook. During lockdown, there was very little we were permitted to do outside of the home and the Too Good To Go app became a real focus for me as food shopping was something that we were allowed to do.
"It took several attempts to successfully reserve my first bags as the retailers only release a limited number a day, varying from one to five in my experience, and they are released at different times during the day depending on the retailer. I had managed to work out when my local Morrisons released its bags and I was so excited to reserve my first two bags.
"As the contents of the bags are unknown until you collect them, it gave me something to look forward to for the next day and provided a welcome distraction from lockdown boredom. The first bags I got were priced at £3.09 each and for just over £6 the amount of food we got was insane. My first haul was over £58 worth of food – I couldn’t believe it.
The magic bags bought by Kelly, who is from Surrey, included family size pasta ready meals, Gu desserts, ham, yoghurts, individual ready meals and salads. Most items were Best Before or Use By the day but Kelly was able to freeze a lot of it. With two children at home, Kelly says she got through everything.
She said: "I loved the variety of the food and it allowed my children to try foods that they ordinarily wouldn’t. I would plan meals around the contents of the bags so that nothing was wasted and sometimes we got so much in the bags that when lockdown restrictions were eased, I was able to donate food items to a local charity that makes and delivers meals to families in need.
"I am a single working mum so I like to make our food budget stretch as far as I can and the Too Good To Go app allows us to eat well whilst making considerable savings.
"My latest Waitrose haul was one bag priced at £5 and I got over £60 worth of food. I was able to freeze most of the items and shared the desserts that had to be eaten that day with my neighbours.
"The app has changed the way I look at food waste and my food shopping habits forever!”
Kelly shared her experiences on Latest Deals.
