How to make gluten free products cheaper: your most expensive things!

Some gluten free products are reaaaaaaaaally expensive – bread, wraps, cereal etc. In this blog post, I’ve written tons of ways to (1) buy them cheaper and (2) reduce waste, which will in turn save you money.

This blog post works in conjunction with my 21 Tips: How to Make Gluten Free Cheaper, which is more generalised and includes info on everything from free food on prescription to using thermos pots for your on-the-go lunch!

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Bread

How to buy it cheaper

• Buy yellow stickers (price reductions on products that are near their use by/bb date).
  • Where to find them. At my local supermarket, its often on offer in the *normal aisle* reductions section, NOT in the free from bit.

• Switch brand? How much are you spending on yours? As a guide, supermarket own breads are around 15p a slice and some of the big brands are almost double.
  • I have an “Eat Well for Less” reel on brown breads and white rolls that might help you pick which brand to switch to (saved in the “Eat Well for Less” highlight – shout if you can’t find it)

How to reduce waste

• Freeze leftovers whilst they’re fresh

• Going stale and not got any more room in the freezer?
  • (1) Toast them and blend into breadcrumbs and store in an airtight container to top on your pasta, fish or make scotch eggs
  • (2) Make croutons
  • (3) Eggy Bread/French Toast…yum!
  • (4) Bread and butter pudding

• Do you keep wasting bits because it falls apart when you butter it? Butter it with a spoon. The bread won’t fall apart… trust me!

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Wraps

How to buy it cheaper

• Heron Foods: Have you seen my wraps “Eat well for less” reel on wraps? (saved in my “Eat well for less” highlight – shout if you can’t find it). There’s a surprise at the end… Heron Foods sometimes stock BIG gluten free Old El Paso wraps and they’re ‘normal’ aisle price (8p per wrap vs free from aisle supermarket options at 50-70p) so keep your eyes peeled.

• If you can’t get those, here are some other cheap supermarket options:
  • PIC 1: Supermarket own options (Tesco, Sainsburys etc): about 50p a wrap
  • PIC 2: Old El Paso smaller free from aisle wraps: 50p a wrap – you can buy these separately in some supermarkets, hasn’t got to be in a kit
  • PIC 3: Old El Paso *normal aisle* corn wraps: even smaller but 22p a wrap

• Happy to bulk buy? You can buy Old El Paso Gluten Free wraps (pic 2) on Amazon
  • They’re 45p a wrap (£32.40 for 12 x 6 pack) and often discounted to as low as 30p a wrap.
  • You have to buy 12 packs but they can be frozen for up to 3 months according to the packet (I’d freeze them for longer but shhh).
  • Extra 10% off if you subscribe.

How to reduce waste

• Freeze them! Yes, you can!!
  • How? Make sure you freeze them flat. Some people put paper in between the wraps to make them easier to prize apart.
  • When you want to defrost them, you can either do it at room temperature or stick them in the microwave for 10 seconds, flip them over and put back in for another 10 seconds. Repeat until its warm!

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Cereal

This one annoys me because we used to be able to have lots of supermarket own brand, normal aisle cereals but due to a change of policy with Coeliac UK, we no longer know which ones are safe so we can’t have ANY normal aisle cereals.

How to buy it cheaper

• Stock up when they’re on offer – sounds obvious but I for one never actually do it, so this is your reminder to start!!

• Check out places like Home Bargains where you wouldn’t normally think to look (quaker oats porridge sachets are regularly on offer – currently £1 vs supermarkets at £3)

• Double check you can’t get any on prescription – click on >>this post<< and scroll to the bottom for more info

• Motatos – often has reduced Deliciously Ella cereal (it’s a site for short-dated/damaged etc products)

• From having a quick look, Asda’s own brand free from cereal is by far the cheapest so worth checking whatever you buy (compare on 100g so its equal – most of Asdas are 46.7p/100g)

• Do you buy FREEE cereal? Shop around! Their own website is MORE expensive than it is at most supermarkets so it doesn’t look like a good idea to order direct! e.g. Gluten Free Organic Fruit & Fibre Flakes – £4.29 on their website, £3.50 on Ocado (over 20% more!!!).

How to reduce waste

Ok… this might be obvious but have transfer your cereal to an airtight container and it will keep fresh for waayyyy longer. I don’t eat cereal very often so this saves me a fortune.

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To come…

I need some feedback!!! If you like the above, I’ll add more. I’m thinking:

• granola
• oats
• cereal bars
• ready meals
• on the go lunches

But tell me what you thought of the above. Helpful? Not? How can I make it better? Are there other products you want to see?