It all adds up

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It All Adds Up
Why Save Food
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The average UK family with children throws away £720 worth of food a year, that’s £60 a month. All that food has to be replaced, meaning more shopping, more cooking and more expense. We’re sure you’d like to avoid those extra trips to the supermarket and save money, and so here are a few ideas about how you might spend it if you can save it.


Festive festivities

A saving of £60 a month over a year – £720 – could make a big dent in the cost of Christmas. In 2019, polling company YouGov found that British households were each expecting to spend an average of £1,116 on Christmas presents, food, drink and extras like cards..


Better getaways

Love travel? £720 could pay for a mini break to Venice, Prague or Budapest with British Airways. Or you could buy an annual family membership to the National Trust (typically £126) and still have £594 left to spend on travel, food and accommodation while visiting.


On-the-road costs

If you’re a driver, £720 will cover the cost of replacement tyres plus an annual service and MOT on many popular family cars, like the Ford Focus, at Kwik-Fit. Or it could take care of pretty much all of the cost of an average car insurance premium. According to, that’s £737 a year.


Savvy saving

If you’d rather not spend your savings, then paying off debt might make sense for you. £720 would take a significant chunk out of the average UK household’s credit card balance of £2,434. It would also cover over two months of the average UK mortgage interest payment – currently running at £271 a month according to


Raise a glass (or a mug) to savings

Finally, if you like a tipple now and again, £720 is the cost of 195 pints of beer in the pub (at around £3.69 for an average pint) or 90 bottles of off-licence wine (for a medium-priced £8 bottle). If you’re not a regular pub-goer but like a caffeine kick you could spend your savings on up to 288 coffees instead.


From spending... to earning

Spending is only half the equation. And that’s where the numbers get juicier still.

The £60 a month or £720 a year you could be saving is the amount after income tax and National Insurance contributions.

And to get another £720 in your pocket, you need to earn it through your salary. Let’s say you earn the average salary of £26,500 for a full-time worker. To take home an extra £720 net, you’d need to earn another £960 a year in gross salary.

It all adds up to... throw less food away = spend less on food = more money to spend on the things you love. Amazing.

Note: We’ve used average figures in this article, and your situation could be different depending on a whole range of factors including your age, salary, family, and where you live in the UK.