Food & Drink

On 15 Jul, the Government cut VAT to 5% for the hospitality sector including restaurants, cafes and pubs till 12 Jan 2021. This has led to many big chains such as KFC, McDonald's, Costa, and Nando's slashing prices – so we've canvassed 21 big eateries, coffee shops and pubs to see where you'll save, and if so, by how much.

With Valentine's Day on the way, love is in the air, and so is the pressure to overspend on flowers and chocolate. So when I spotted ultra-posh department store Fortnum & Mason selling boxes of nine chocolate truffles for £20, I set about trying to make my own. Oh, and did I mention they have KETCHUP in them...

‘Tis the season to fill trolleys, and when Christmas bells ring and shop tills ding it's very easy to find yourself tempted to overspend. So when I decided to give hampers as gifts this year, I set myself the challenge of assembling a Champagne-style selection on a Prosecco budget...

Giant pub chain Wetherspoon is popular with those wanting cheap drinks and no-fuss food at a decent price. Many of its 900+ pubs are housed in grandiose buildings steeped in history – and let's not forget those jazzy (some might say garish) carpets which are so renowned, they have their own Instagram page.

These days, pick & mix tends to be sold in cups at a fixed price rather than weighed out in a bag - so you pay the same no matter how tightly you pack the sweet treats inside. Yet for traditionalists, there's usually an option to pay 'per 100g', which I think begs the question: where are the weighing scales?

If you live near a couple of the same restaurant chain, believe it or not, you could pay as much as 38% extra for the same food from the same chain, compared with another branch less than half a mile away. Yet this is only based on the small sample I've been looking at recently, so there could be even bigger savings out there...

With the return of The Great British Bake Off last week, many have been bitten by the baking bug - whether that's making cakes or just eating them. Yet baking can often become quite expensive once you start looking at all the ingredients you'll need. 

Seasoned MoneySavers will know all about yellow sticker reductions – where supermarkets reduce short-dated food at the end of the day – and the times their local supermarket starts slashing prices… but did you know you can grab clearance foods outside the ‘big-four’ supermarkets?

Plastics and waste are big news with the Government proposing plastic-free supermarket aisles. But outrageously we’ve found that many of the plastic-packaged fruit and veg sold at major supermarkets are actually cheaper than buying the exact same produce loose.