I’m a money-saving dad – here my top three tips on how to track down the best food offers from AI help to bulk bargains

THIS Father’s Day, we talk to two money-saving dads.

They reveal the ultimate cost-saving tips for cash-strapped parents when it comes to grocery shopping and family outings. . .

Follow grub . discounts

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DAD-of-one Tom Church is the co-founder of latestdeals.co.uk – an online community where bargain hunters share the best deals they’ve spotted.

And it seems those transaction-detection skills are ingrained as his 20-month-old son imitates his father.

Tom, 31, from London, said: ‘I call him Little Deals because the first time we went to the supermarket, he started picking out items with yellow stickers.

This is Tom’s advice

FIND WHAT TO BUY AND WHERE – When shopping for the family, it’s important to know where to shop.

Aldi excels at getting fresh fruits and vegetables at ridiculously low prices, with Super 6 deals.

It’s great for food and beautification, plus it’s cheap to make diapers, batteries, canned tuna, and other fish.

But don’t assume everything costs less there.

I’ve seen before that M&S ​​is cheaper than Aldi for eggs and wings.

The Latest Deals app features a supermarket comparison tool so you can check prices on the go.

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FIND SHOCKING PRICES ON eBay – Coffee is indispensable for busy dads with small children like me.

Now, I buy Nespresso capsules at great discounts on specialized eBay stores, along with lots of other perishable items that are near or past their best by date.

I couldn’t tell the difference in the taste of the coffee because the pods were tightly sealed.

This week on the eBay Zenox Health store, you can get 80 boxes of Starbucks Nespresso for £19.99 with free shipping, which will cost you around £32 if purchased elsewhere.

To find an eBay store, go to ebay.co.uk/sns and then search for the store name: Gronets, Priceless Discounts and Superpet are all discount stores worth checking out.

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ASK ROBOTS TO HELP YOU SAVE – To avoid littering, when I don’t know what to cook from the leftovers in the refrigerator, I use artificial intelligence to help me.

I downloaded the Bing app, a Microsoft artificial intelligence engine that works like a chatbot.

So I asked Bing, “I have a banana, chicken, onions. What can I cook?” And it came up with a delicious recipe for chicken with spicy rice and banana sambal.

• For more tips, follow Tom on TikTok at @latestdeals.

Cut family entertainment costs

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Primary school teacher and father of two Olly Cator, from Norwich, runs the Wise Dad blog and Facebook group.

He’s always looking for cheap ways to keep his energetic sons Max, ten, and Samuel, seven, entertained.

Here Olly, 42, offers her top tips:

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PHAM’S Trick – I make the most of Children’s Week at London theaters to take the boys to a West End performance.

It should be called Children’s Month because it takes place throughout the month of August.

One child 17 years and under is free when the adult pays full price. Pre-orders are now open for gems like Spongebob The Musical.

This year I booked a surprise show for us. . . it costs £140 for two adults and two children compared to £208 full price. See officiallondontheatre.com/kids-week.

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OFFER ON GOOD DAY – Theme parks and other attractions can hit your budget, but there are plenty of ways to get a discount.

The Sun Superdays promotion is great. For example, you can now collect codes for two free tickets to Warwick Castle worth over £70.

Last year we went to Chessington World of Adventures with Sun Superdays and the boys enjoyed the Gruffalo River ride.

GAME PROFIT –Instead of paying for expensive consoles, my boys use cloud gaming. I bought a used Nvidia Shield TV Pro for £115 from CeX instead of paying over £400 for a PlayStation 5. They use the service to play on services like GeForce Now and Boosteroid – basically is Netflix for gaming.

Boosteroid is the cheapest at £6.40 per month. There’s a lot of free content, plus you can buy games that you can then play on the platform.

We bought the Hogwarts Legacy for £39.79 from the CDKeys website to use on Boosteroid, instead of paying around £50 for a hard copy to play on consoles.

• For more tips, follow Olly’s blog at savvydad.co.uk or at facebook.com/SavvyDadUK.

LOCKED FUEL RATES CAN HELP YOU TO RECOVER

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ENERGY suppliers are rolling out flat tax rates as they bid to attract customers to close in before the new price cap goes into effect within a few weeks.

The four providers have exciting deals, many of which are only available to existing customers, but experts have urged households to think twice before signing up.

The new incentives come just two weeks before the price cap is changed on 1 July, reducing gas and electricity bills from £426 to £2,074 a year for a conventional energy home. .

However, government rebates worth £400 a year on bills end in April, so most households on the standard variable tax rate won’t see the bill. Theirs is greatly reduced. New fixed-rate deals could be attractive after energy prices skyrocketed last year because they provide certainty that payments won’t rise for a certain period of time.

But you may end up paying more if prices drop in the future.

Utility Warehouse has offered a one-year fix for new and existing customers at £1,974 a year for an average household.

That’s a £100 savings over the next 12 months if the price cap stays at the current rate. However, customers who want to receive the offer must subscribe to at least two other services offered by UW, such as cellular, broadband or insurance.

For many, this will wipe out any savings from the tariff, especially since anyone in the middle of a contract will face hefty exit fees to switch. “You need to be careful not to burden yourself with something you don’t want – or pay more because you’re following,” said Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown. chasing a bargain for one aspect of the package.”

So Energy has a deal for new customers – a one-year fix costs £2,047 annually for a typical household, through Uswitch and Confused.com.

It’s a bit cheaper than the £2,074 that most would pay by maintaining their supplier’s standard tariff (based on July’s price cap).

However, if the price ceiling falls in October, as experts predict, it will likely be more expensive. Analysts at Cornwall Insight predict the cap will fall to £1,969 a year from October, then rise to £2,026 a year from January 2024.

But for some, paying a little more will be worth the peace of mind knowing that their bills won’t soar if energy prices move higher than currently forecast.

“If you are offered a flat rate, take a moment to consider whether it is right for you,” said Ashton Berkhauer, energy expert at MoneySuperMarket.

E.ON Next and Ovo Energy both offer one-year fixed deals only to their existing customers.

E.ON costs £2,050 a year for a typical household – slightly below the July limit – while Ovo’s is £2,220 a year, so there’s more to it.

By James Flanders