I'm a single mother-of-four living on a budget - my big supermarket shop costs £300 but it lasts me a whole YEAR

Daily Mail​

19-05-2025

A mother-of-four has shared her secret for saving thousands of pounds on food and household goods every year.
Charlene Woracker, from the UK, took to TikTok to reveal the hack, telling her 29,000 followers that she manages to save shed loads of cash by doing just one stockpile shop a year.
The mother, who regularly shares her budgeting tips on social media, shared a list of 31 budget buys she swears by.
In the clip, she shared a series of pictures showcasing an array of stockpiled goods 0 including tinned tomatoes, bin bags, cereal and a whole year's worth of toiletries.
Charlene said she keeps costs down by doing big shops at the beginning of the year, bulk buying products that are on offer an stowing them away at home.
Sharing her impressive yield, the frugal mother said she had spent a whopping £300 on the haul from Sainsbury's.
First on the list, Charlene stocked up on multipacks of toilet rolls, with each pack having cost £1.44 using a Nectar card.
Next was an armful of multigrain hoops, each costing 85p, and offering 12 servings per box.
Penny-pinching Charlene also secured a barrel of bargain dinners with a tray of 20 tins of baked beans.
The savvy shopper didn't just stock up on canned goods, but made sure the bathroom and cleaning cupboards would be well supplied, purchasing several Nature Source shower gels on offer at two for £2 as well as Colgate toothpaste for £1, shampoo for 79p, conditioner, hand soap for 59p and panty liners for £1.60.
Piling the pantry with plenty of non-perishables, Charlene also stocked up on condiments and seasonings.
She also bagged several bags of basmati rice, each priced at £1.79, posh Maldon Sea Salt, a handful of bottles of tomato ketchup for 90p, BBQ sauce for £1.15, and a dozen dinners' worth of spaghetti, each packet coming to just 29p.
Charlene maximised her budget by buying very few branded products, including taking home a dozen packets of store-branded pasta which she insisted 'tastes just as good as branded packs of spaghetti'.
The mother took home four litres of Greek extra virgin olive oil for just over £30 using her Nectar card.
She also filled her pantry shelves with several packets of digestive biscuits for 59p each, real mayonnaise for 99p a jar, Fairtrade light brown soft sugar for £3.50 a kilo, and tinned tomatoes costing £1.88 for a four pack.
Making sure she is prepared or any event, Charlene also stocked up on a few cartons of UHT whole milk, should she ever run out and need some in a pinch.
Charlene maximised her budget by buying no branded products, including taking home a dozen packs of pasta which she insisted 'tastes just as good as branded packs of spaghetti'
She bought unbranded sponges in a pack of six for 65p each, bin liners for £1.25 a pack, Sainsbury's own nappies for £3.59, and cotton wool pads for 99p for 200.
At the end of the haul, Charlene said: 'Everything will last three to 12 months. It saves me thousands by shopping like this and brings down my weekly shop to about £50 a week.'
The mother regularly posts cash-saving tips to her TikTok page, showing her followers how to prepare cheap meals, plan parties, and even go on holiday with a tight budget.
The clip, which has since racked up 257,000 views, attracted attention from hundreds of budget shoppers looking for tips and tricks on saving their pennies.
One wrote: 'Love the stockpile, will definitely look at the olive oil! Have you considered a cup over sanitary towels? They last for years so saves money and much better for the environment. And you get the benefits you would from tampons ie. swimming etc but without the health risks.'
'It may sound silly but how do you get started with doing this? I need to do this,' a second said.
'I can completely get behind this. I bulk buy essential items like loo roll/fabric softener and detergent from Costco and it saves me so much money every week/month in my usual food/household shops!', a third commented.
Others though, were more sceptical about the benefits of Charlene's alternative shopping methods.
'Curious, what is the benefit of stockpiling opposed to buying weekly/monthly? Surely you're just shelling out loads in one go and have to find somewhere to store it. Do you not spend exactly the same,' one commenter questioned.
Answering curious queries, Charlene left one comment explaining that the way she managed to save was by buying in bulk items that were on offer.