Keeping your shopping bill down is getting harder and harder. According to mysupermarket.com, a basket of 24 staple items in August 2008 has gone up by 27% since the start of the year. Therefore, the Diva’s have come up with a few ideas to help you budget and avoid hefty food bills without compromising on healthy family meals.

Bringing certain foods such as potatoes back into our diet will certainly cut down on family food bills.  Baked potatoes are a great way to feed a family on a budget and they really fill you up. Add a topping such as cheese, beans, leftover chilli and a salad and hey presto a healthy balanced meal. Mashed potato is also a great way of making a meal go further which is why it's in great British staples like shepherd's pie and fish pie.  If families replace some meals that were rice or pasta-based with potatoes then their food budgets will go further."

The following ingredients are ones you should try and keep in stock. They should help you put something together for everyone to enjoy if you have not managed to go shopping or money is particularly tight.

You may find some of the ingredients are expensive initially but remember they will keep for a while which means they will be able to last a few meals.

• Dried pasta shapes (any type) • Dried / mixed herbs • Onions • Tinned Sweetcorn

• Tins of Tuna • Frozen peas • Tins of Chopped Tomatoes • Olive Oil

Budget Busting Recipes! Click below to view credit crunching Diva recipes. Do you have any great recipes that you would like to share with us then submit it by clicking here!

Meat Fish Vegetarian Other Desserts Christmas Dinner Shopping Tips

• Buy online
  Buy using online shopping facilities you tend to stick to your shopping list rather than being tempted by the ready meals and cakes in the next aisle.

• Plan Ahead
  Plan the week's meals before you go shopping. This will allow you to get all the right ingredients for proper meals rather than picking up what you think you might like and buying bits and pieces which don’t make a meal.

• Never shop when you're hungry
  Everything looks good then and you're more inclined to bring home too much junk food or too much of whatever you're hungry for.

• Make your own meals from scratch
  We all want to feed our families good food so they can thrive at school and at play ... to do this you need to ditch processed food and get cooking. On the face of it, it may seem like the cheapest option but when you look at the labels, you'll find you're only getting 50% of meat in your chicken nuggets - you really aren't getting value for money.
  
  The food manufacturers manage to make their food cheap by using the poorest quality ingredients and an abundance of additives to cover up the poor quality and taste. If you take quality into account, processed food is not cheap at all.

• Buy seasonal produce
  Seasonal food usually costs less as they are grown naturally, in local farms without the use of artificial chemicals or expensive green houses. Seasonal food also tastes better, as consumers, many of us don't realise the hidden cost of out of season food and we've probably got so used to seeing strawberries in our shops all year round, we forget what the taste of a real, seasonal strawberry is like. If you follow the seasons (as opposed to a shopping list) you'll also find a more rich and varied collection of fruit and vegetables which will entice little ones to experience lots of interesting tastes and textures, whilst learning about different fruit and vegetables.

• Buy loose fruit and veg
  Loose fruit and veg can save you a few precious pounds over time, as you're likely to get just the amount you need. Large bags of fruit and veg are fine if they're going to be eaten up but if you have no plans to use them immediately, they may go off and end up costing more than they're worth.

• Avoid wasting food
  If you've made a bit too much food, don't throw it away. Most foods will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge (not fish or seafood though!) and can be used again.
  Double up the quantities of a recipe with ‘leftovers' in mind. Freeze half of it and have it later in the month.

• Be wise to supermarket tricks
  Supermarkets are cleverly designed to entice you to buy more, with expensive items at eye level and the cheaper varieties on the lower levels, so keep that shopping list close at hand and wear blinkers.

• Use local shops
  Use your local butchers and fruit and veg shop, sometimes it may appear to be a few pence more but it all last longer, the quality is much better and you get more for your money as your not paying for all the packaging.

• Shop late
  When the sun goes down supermarkets often decrease their prices to half if not more of the original cost. Take a trip to the store around 8pm and you're guaranteed to find some good bargains that you can either eat quickly or freeze to extend its shelf life.

• Buy own brands
  Try buying budget or economy own-brand foods, especially carbohydrates such as pasta and rice, and tinned goods such as tomatoes and fruit. They are often cheaper because they use less expensive packaging than the premium brands. Watch out for economy processed foods though as they often contain more sugar and salt than other brands.

• Grow your own
  Growing your own is by far the cheapest way to get your fruit and veg so, if you've got the time, it's a wonderful way to reduce your food bill. You can produce totally organic food and get some exercise at the same time.

• Coupon Shopping
  Use the coupons to save money on your shopping bills but check that the coupon makes sense, the supermarket brands may still be cheaper.
  
  Many of the flyers that come through your door offer a buy one get one free meal before a certain time at certain restaurants. So you can save money but still eat out occasionally.

By Michelle Davies

With help from netmums.com, mysupermarket.com and sainsburys.com