Supermarket Comparison - Save Money On Your Weekly Shop

In these times of low wage growth and high prices, it's always good to save money where you can. Supermarket comparisons are useful for showing you how to save money on your weekly shop. Here's some information about comparing supermarkets, and how online comparison websites can help you save time and money.

Although it's OK comparing supermarket prices, the problem is that it can sometimes become a false economy. If dog food is cheaper one week in one supermarket than another, then you don't want to drive to a different supermarket just to buy dog food. To get the most out of supermarket comparison sites you really need to be the kind of person that is organised enough to write shopping lists.

An alternative to supermarket comparison sites is to just shop at the supermarket with the most consistently low prices. Here's a brief overview of the UK's supermarkets:

• Asda is consistently the least expensive supermarket. However, it's own brand food isn't the best. It's also difficult to find gourmet food and special items at Asda.
• Tesco is the UK's most popular supermarket. Tesco has a wide range of products from the Tesco Value range to the Finest range.
• Morrisons is making good gains, especially in the South of the country where it took over the Safeways branches. Morrisons is good for fresh produce and fresh fish. Its own brand products are surprisingly good. Like Asda, it can however be difficult to find gourmet food and speciality items.
• The CoOp is often the only choice in smaller towns and villages. CoOp own brand food isn't great.
• Aldi and Lidl aren't as cheap as they used to be. The other supermarkets (particularly Tesco) have also caught on to the popularity of the discount supermarkets, and have launched their own range of discounted everyday products that look awfully like the Aldi and Lidl items.
• Sainsbury's is popular. It tends to be more expensive than Asda, Tesco and Morrisons. However, its own brand products tend to be of higher quality.
• The M&S food range is very high quality. However, it is very expensive and they often have frustratingly low quantities of products like ready meals and prepared salads - sometimes you can shop in M&S only to be confronted by empty shelves.
• Waitrose has some great food, but is also fairly expensive. They do however have an extensive range of competitively priced basic items.

To get more value from the supermarkets, you could also alternate between two or more major supermarkets. Just stock up on whatever is on offer that week in the particular supermarket you're visiting. Store cupboard essentials (baked beans, tinned tomatoes, pasta) are always worth bulk buying when you find them on special offer.

To make sure you save money on your weekly shop, always write a shopping list. Try not to buy anything that's not on your list, even if you can justify its purchase.

To help you compare prices across the major supermarkets there are a whole range of supermarket comparison websites. The two most popular include MySupermarket and Supermarket.co.uk.

MySupermarket compares prices at Tesco, Adsa, Sainsburys and Ocado. The site is mainly designed for online shopping, but you can use much of the site for your weekly shop at your local supermarkets. The site has a Top Offers section showing which supermarket has really good offers on selected products this week. If you input your usual favourite products into the site it will even produce you a shopping list split between two supermarkets so that you know where the cheapest place to buy your usual items is that week.

MySupermarket has extensive information about the products for sale through supermarkets. Details include nutritional information like you'd see printed on the packaging, and useful information for dieters.

Supermarket.co.uk compares prices from a wider range of supermarkets. As well as Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys, it also price checks Morrisons, Iceland and Waitrose. As well as a price comparison function, there is a voucher coupon part of the site (including printable discount vouchers). This site is a bit more confusing to use than MySupermarket as there's so much advertising on the site. The price comparison features are also a lot more basic than MySupermarket.

It's easy to find supermarket coupons online - just search for them. The Supermarket comparison sites also have a regular section for the latest vouchers which you can use to make even more savings.

Supermarket Insurance and Financial Products

The major supermarkets have a wide range of financial products like motor insurance, household insurance as well as bank accounts and savings accounts. Since the supermarkets can sell these products from their stores rather than high street branches they are often cheaper than the equivalent offerings from high street banks and building societies.

Tesco has a wide range of financial products. Tesco Car Insurance is especially popular.

If you're looking to buy anything from a loan to a holiday, then it's always worth checking a price comparison website. There are loads of these. Many of them specialise in just one niche, like financial products, or holidays.

For even more savings it's often a good idea to window shop on the price comparison website. But when you want to buy the product, use a cashback site such as CashBackToYou.co.uk. These sites rebate some of your money when you buy a product using a special link from their website. The savings can be a few pence every time you buy a CD or DVD, but if you're booking a holiday or renewing your car insurance then you can easily pick up £20 - £30 cashback. Over the course of the year this soon adds up to a nice pot of cash which you can use at Christmas or any other time of the year.

So if you want to save money on your weekly shop, then give supermarket comparison sites a go.