There's one of those run-up-to-the-Budget articles in the Observer today about how you can ease the pain of the impending tax rises and one of the areas they focus on is food. Apparently the Food Price Index rose for the eighth successive month last month (by 2.2% since January) as I'm sure you'll have noticed yourself with commodities like tea, coffee, pasta, bread and veg having taken the biggest hit.
The advice is not rocket science - substitute own brands for branded goods, shop at a less expensive supermarket, set a budget and shop online (not sure about that last one) but the best specific tip is one I was about to post myself which is that tortilla chips are much cheaper than crisps because they don't attract VAT. In Tesco you can buy a big pack of their 'Value' tortilla chips for just 25p.
Other anomalies are that cream gateaux are cheaper than arctic roll, chocolate chip cookies cost less than chocolate covered ones and unshelled nuts are cheaper than shelled nuts. According to this article in the Telegraph if you buy dried fruit and nuts in the baking section you're likely to pay less than if they're packaged as a snack.
Oddly ready made desserts like mousses are also cheaper than sorbets or ices which incur VAT. And takeaway food is VAT-rated whereas ready meals aren't making a supermarket pizza almost invariably cheaper than one you buy from a pizza delivery firm. In Waitrose today I spotted two huge Pizzeria pizzas for £5.
How much you save obviously depends how much you spend on processed, snack and takeaway foods but it's good to be aware that there are bargains to be had.*
If you want to plough through it you can find the official HMRC list here.
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