The weekly food shop has sky-rocketed as the cost of living crisis bites, but Nicola Richardson, a full-time education worker and mother of two, has halved her grocery spend with nifty tips and tricks. Nicola, 37, from the North East, is sharing her smart cooking strategies on YouTube , which include meticulous meal plans, measuring food portions, hunting down yellow-sticker discounts, and utilising apps for complimentary groceries. Nicola revealed to money-saving platform LatestDeals.
co.uk : "Life is busy! I feed me and my two children on £45 a week. At one point it was nearer £100 so I've pretty much cut our food bill in half.
" Planning meals around existing cupboard stocks and sticking strictly to shopping lists are key to Nicola's approach, helping to stamp out unnecessary, spur-of-the-moment buys. Her methods also lean towards affordable cuts of meat and vegetarian dishes since not only are they cheaper, she explains, but portioning ingredients correct avoids wastage and overuse. On top of that, Nicola encourages savvy shoppers to snap up reduced-price, yellow sticker produce yet cautions, "Only buy it if you will actually use it though.
" Nicola emphasises: "Definitely meal plan and write a shopping list - planning on what you're eating and then writing a shopping list means you are less likely to impulse buy and buy things that you don't need which end up being thrown away." Nicola told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.
uk: "I plan all my meals every week , shoppi.