Living In The UK: Saving on your shopping

When it comes to shopping and saving you can bet I'm the queen. Before I came to the UK, I thought it was so expensive but I found myself saving a lot more money than I would back in Portugal. So that's why I'm giving you guys my TOP 5 cheap supermarkets and some tips I use on a regular basis. As a student you are always looking for CHEAP, FAST and EASY TO COOK food because either you don't have time or you just can't be bothered to cook. So, you find yourself ordering food or just buying Meal deals or Ready meals over and over again. This is not a lifestyle, it's actually cheaper to cook at home then ordering or buying those type of foods so if you are looking to save some money and start eating a little bit better you should be going for these supermarkets:

1- LIDL or ALDI (I personally like LIDL better)

2- Heron Foods

3- Home Bargains

4- Local Market (I know its not a supermarket but its fresh, cheap and amazing quality)

5- Iceland

Before you go to these you should know that they all have specific features. LIDL and ALDI are more diverse and they have quality products at low prices, they are usually far from the city centre in order to increase the sales in supermarkets like MARKS AND SPENCERS or SAINSBURYS but they are worth the bus or uber cost. Heron Foods is my favorite store in the world, they have the best bargains (as in I bought light and free yoghurts from DANONE for 10p each when four cost 3.50£ at Sainsburys, Tesco, ASDA or Morrisons) but the disadvantage of this one is that they have daily and weekly deals that means they are constantly changing the deals and products they have, you might not find the same product twice in the same week. Home Bargains is the heaven for sweets, snacks, drinks, cupboard foods, beauty products and canned products but they offer a very small range of fresh or refrigerated foods and they don't sell any meat or fish. The local market just brings me all the way back to my country, fresh and tasty products for only 1£ a bowl! The market offers a full range of fresh products (vegetables and fruits), fresh meat and fish shops restocked daily but it's cash only so get yourself to the cashpoint before coming into one of these. And last but not least, the best deals for branded cereal or frozen foods are on Iceland.

Hope you enjoyed my tips and find them useful, if you have other opinion or tips just send them to me so I can use them as well!

Xx Mariana.