Will be visiting Oxford / Summertown in 4 weeks and have to shop & cook!

[crouton]

Hi, all! I am taking part in a British Lit class at my college and part of it is a study abroad course. I will be actually living in a house in Summertown outside of Oxford for about 3 weeks.

My meals are not paid for, only the cost of the course and housing. I have a budget for my meals, so I need to find out what I can do in order to eat cheap but well. I will have access to a kitchen. I will also have to pack some lunches to take while sightseeing. I am so happy to see this thread because it means there is a way to coupon while I'm there!

What are some simple things I can do when I get there to help keep the cost of the food down? How easy is it to find and use coupons there? Any tips?

Thank you all so much!

[lensperson]

Hi Crouton,
Welcome to the site.
Shopping is an art and a science.
Experimentation will bring credible results, and a basic know-how in cooking is a very powerful tool.
Cook long, and prosper

[dasher27]

Hi Crouton - hope you have a great time in Oxford, I got married there so have happy memories. Nice place but parking is impossible in town, so go for the park and ride.

Anyway, UK coupon use. We do use them, and as I have posted elsewhere (but it got deleted as I think the mods thought I was inciting people to illegal coupon use in the US, LOL), MOCs in the UK can often be used for items you haven't bought, and it's not illegal here. Some, but not all, Tescos and Asdas will let you use, say, 50p off soap when you haven't bought any toiletries at all, but we don't have the high volume of coupons that you have in US. No inserts in the papers I'm afraid. There are often single coupons in newspapers and magazines, if you want to find what is available go to Money Saving Expert: Consumer Revenge - Credit Cards, Shopping, Bank Charges, Cheap Flights and more, a very useful UK site, and type 'newspaper coupons' in the search box, that will bring up a daily thread that gives all the available coupons. You can also find coupons being given away on promotional stands in supermarkets, shopping malls, etc, you just have to look out for them.

You will find a lot of BOGOF offers, and stuff reduced in certain areas of the supermarket, usually at the end of the day. Also, if you shop at Tesco make sure you get a Clubcard and collect points on it which you can exchange for money off or for deals.

The best way to keep food costs down is to cook from scratch as much as possible and avoid ready meals and takeaways (though you must have some fish and chips while you are here, and of course a good curry!). Most supermarkets have a Value range, which are often as good as brand names but not always, so worth experimenting.

[crouton]

Thanks, Dasher. I do have some money budgeted for eating out, but I'm thinking most of my meals will be eggs, oatmeal, tuna, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips (crisps), maybe a few casseroles to make for supper and have as leftovers the next day. Good to know there are store brands there as well, I'll keep an eye out for them and for the BOGO offers. Not sure what stores are available where I will be. I've tried looking up the area online but there's not a lot of practical info, just tourist info.

Do the stores put out a flyer showing what will be on sale or do you just have to go into the store and see what is available?

[dasher27]

Stores do put flyers in local papers and put them through doors, but it's a bit hit and miss; the best place to look is the store's website where they will post up their best offers. I had a look on yell.com for you, and Summertown has a Somerfield and a Co-Op, both reasonably cheap stores. There is a 'deep discount' store called Lidl in Oxford too, they are very good for cheap basics.

The site I mentioned earlier, moneysavingexpert, does lots of threads on food offers and bargains, it is a very complicated forum with loads of threads (very like this one!) but well worth looking through. We eat a lot of tuna and peanut butter ourselves, and always try and buy it up when it is BOGO which tends to happen quite often. Bread has got pretty expensive here, might be worth making your own, though loaves do tend to get reduced at the end of the day if you can shop then.

[derketchup]

it's generic advice, but if you want to eat out lunch is usually cheaper than supper

[lensperson]

Hi There !
One of the things one will notice in a trip to the Colony (Hawaii), is how big it is over here.
The immense acreage of grain crops can feed a lot of folks.
The Yankee accent of New Yorkers is a descendant of the Dutch language of that time.
The upcountry accent of the high Appalachian hills is a form of Shakespeares "Ye olde Englyshe"
Spelling at that time was highly variable and sometimes even Shakespeare spelled the same word 3 differing ways.