Research carried out exclusively for moneysupermarket.com by mysupermarket.co.uk, a shopping comparison website, shows that prices of key food items such as bread, flour and deli meat have fallen back over the last three months after a nine-month surge.
How prices are falling
Between November 2007 to August 2008, the price of bread leapt by 6.8%; chocolate prices increased by 4.6%; rice, pulse and grain costs leapt up by 24.8%; sausages and burgers jumped by 12.2%; and deli meat increased by 10.9%. However, in the last three months prices have finally started to slip back.
For example, the price of bread has fallen on average by 1.4%, while fruit juice has dropped back 3.3%. Beer prices have fallen by 1.3%, deli meat by 4.3%, chocolate prices by an even 2%, and sausages and burgers by 0.6%. Only rice, pulses and grain prices of the staple household items have continued to rise albeit their rate of growth has been cut - their prices increasing by just 1.3% in the last three months.
Although shoppers are still paying about 14% more for staple products than this time last year, the introduction of special offers, new cheaper brands and a fall in the price of many key commodities means the savvy shopper can offset some of those price hikes. And with the festive season less than eight weeks away now is the time to start planning ahead so you can spread the cost of Christmas and New Year.
How you can save for Christmas
Mysupermarket.co.uk enables customers to compare prices across the main supermarkets - including Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's - so you can find the items you need for the cheapest price. Mysupermarket reckons this can knock about 20% off your total bill.
And even though Christmas isn't until next month, there are already some great special offers available. We're likely to see more of these in the coming weeks and it's obviously still too early to be buying anything that will go off, but it pays to be organised, so why not take advantage and start stocking up on the unperishable things you're likely to consume over the Christmas and New Year period.
If you want to stock up the alcohol cupboard, there are some great beer and wine offers.
Asda, for example, is offering multipacks of Fosters, Stella and Boddingtons for £10 (you get 15 cans of Fosters per pack, and 18 cans of Stella and Boddingtons), but if you buy two it'll set you back just £16. Sainsbury's has knocked £3 off the cost of 20 bottles of Budweiser - instead of paying £14.99, you'll pay £11.99. It's also got Guinness on offer - an 18-can pack has been reduced from £21.19 to £15.19.
If you're more of a wino, Tesco has some fantastic red wine offers: the price of Berberana Rioja Reserva Etiqueta Negra has been slashed from £9.99 a bottle to £4.99. Other half price deals include Nomaqua Diamond Coast Shiraz and Dino Sangiovese which are available for £3.99 a bottle instead of £7.99.
There are also some great white wine deals with Asda offering three bottles of French Connection Special Reserve Chardonnay for £10 - usually it's £6.98 a bottle.
Chocolates, biscuits and nibbles are also popular purchases for Christmas and Tesco has slashed the price on a 400g Cadbury Selection box from £6.99 to £3.49 and you can also get two for £6 on the Tesco Cookie Selection. Asda has plenty of appealing offers too including two boxes of Burton's Royal Edinburgh Shortbread Fingers for £3, while two boxes of Asda's Chocolate and Cream Biscuit Selection will cost you £6 instead of £7.96.
Other ways to save
Planning ahead, shopping online and taking advantage of special offers is the key to making savings this Christmas on everything from food items to presents. Mysupermarket.com has a service which allows you to see cheaper alternatives to the item you wish to buy, allowing you to discover the cheapest brands and potentially rack up some serious savings.
Don't forget to shop online for your gifts too - our new shopping channel enables you to compare prices on all the must have Christmas presents this year. So whether it's an Xbox 360 Elite or an iPod Touch that you're after, you can find the cheapest place to buy it from.
It's also a really good idea to keep an eye out for discount codes and vouchers which you can use in-store or for online shopping. We've recently added a Discount Codes and Vouchers forum where you can find a range of codes and links to some great deals including:
Have your say: Don't forget to add your own discount codes and vouchers or ask other members if they can help out...
Disclaimer: Please note that any rates or deals mentioned in this article were available at the time of writing.
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