I saved £86 on Christmas dinner by ‘downshifting’ – I bought just as much as usual, with Champagne & all the trimmings

SUN writer Clare joined the canny shoppers who reduce festive grocery bills by dropping to cheaper brands.

“The big Christmas shop” – four words that strike fear into households across the UK.

Whether you are trying to book a delivery slot when they open up as early as October, or you are facing one of the 488million supermarket trips made nationwide in December, you cannot escape the festive rush.

The average family forks out £267.70 on food and drink for Christmas and, in the four weeks to December 25 last year, shoppers spent £13.7billion on groceries — seven per cent more than the previous year.

With 2025 set to be even tougher economically than 2024, canny customers are taking on a “downshift challenge” to reduce their grocery bills.

Downshifting means dropping a brand level in the weekly shop — so if you usually buy “premium”, such as Tesco Finest or Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference, you drop a step to branded, say Kellogg’s or Heinz.

If you pick up those labels already, you slip down to “own brand” supermarket items.

And if those are your regular buys, you are urged to shop “value”, which is the basic or savers ranges.

Every saving counts and, as a mum of three hungry humans aged 20, 16 and 13, I am willing to try anything to cut costs.

Like most people, I try to get the nice things for Christmas dinner, so I’m interested to see if there’s a big taste and price difference with the downshift challenge.

This year, I’m feeding nine people. In the spirit of the experiment, I set out to buy my usual version, which consists mainly of premium and branded items from Sainsbury’s, and then a budget equivalent to compare the cost and quality.

‘If you’re not fussed, basic is almost as good’

Retailchampion.co.uk’s Clare Bailey reckons downshifting is a great way to save.

She says: “I’ve been living like that for many years. I’ve got two children at university, and that’s how I tell them to shop, too.

“This is how the budget retailers like Aldi and Lidl win, because they sell a comparable product for a fraction of the price.

“So there’s almost no point in buying the brand unless you have a particular passion for their recipe, like Branston baked beans, for example, or Heinz tomato soup.

“Those specific recipes aren’t replicable. But if you’re not fussed, the basic versions are almost as good.”

I’m always mindful of how much I spend at the supermarket, and am usually strict, but I do push the boat out at Christmas.

With my shopping list in hand, and downshift challenge in mind, I start off in the fruit and veg aisle.

I compare sprout prices and find them just a penny apart.

The same can be said for the lettuce and the prawn cocktail, too, which has only nine pence difference between the cheapest and priciest versions.

Frozen food is excellent. From prawns to turkey to vegetables, there’s not much you can’t get frozen for Christmas dinner and it prevents waste

Clare

The parsnip prices are hugely different, though, with a £1.15 gap between the premium SO Organic Parsnips (£1.90) and the own brand Sainsbury’s British parsnips (75p).

I always buy a frozen turkey, because the one time I did buy a butcher’s fresh one, it cost me over £100 — but £6.50 between the Taste The Difference frozen turkey and the own brand one is a decent saving.

Consumer expert Clare says choosing frozen is a really good way to keep costs down.

“Frozen food is excellent. From prawns to turkey to vegetables, there’s not much you can’t get frozen for Christmas dinner and it prevents waste, meaning you only cook what you need,” she explains.

“People often think they need the branded and finest versions for things like prawns for prawn cocktail, but it’s slathered in Marie Rose sauce, so you can compromise on the most expensive version.

“Don’t buy Marie Rose sauce either. Mixing mayonnaise and ketchup is much cheaper, especially if you use saver brands.”

Having clocked up savings in the first few aisles by swapping things like premium smoked salmon for branded smoked salmon (saving £3.26); KP peanuts for Sainsbury’s basic brand Stamford Street (saving £2.15); and Fever-Tree light tonic for Sainsbury’s own brand (saving around £3), I already feel pleased.

But it’s the drinks aisle where the costs really mount up.

Another element of downshifting is to switch supermarkets.

‘The kids didn’t spot the difference in anything’

So if you usually shop at Waitrose or M&S, you shift a level down to a supermarket such as Sainsbury’s or Tesco, and the level after that would be Aldi or Lidl.

I’ve always heard friends say that Aldi’s booze is cheap and tastes good, but I’ve never tried it.

I decide to get what I’d usually get from Sainsbury’s from Aldi.

I don’t buy champagne at any other time of year, but £7 is a huge difference — enough for a second bottle of the £4.85 pinot noir.

Overall, I save £22 on booze by downshifting my supermarket.

Industry experts say that Aldi and Lidl buy their booze, particularly wine, the season in advance and pay suppliers up front, bagging deals on big orders.

Other retailers buy in batches as and when they need it. It is also likely that they simply make less money on booze than some others.

Across the board, not just with alcohol, Clare says that premium, branded and budget versions of items often come from the same factory.

She adds: “I used to work in fresh meat for Safeway, now Morrisons. Lots of companies got their beef from the same meat plant. McDonald’s had the first choice of the beef. They picked the absolute best. Then it was like Marks and Spencer and Waitrose who got the next dibs, and the rest of the supermarkets went after that.

“So we were all basically having the same meat from the same meat plant.

“But some of the more luxury brands would pay more to have the better bits.

“That’s a small example of how a lot of these factories will be producing the same items, but with slight variations.”

The downshift challenge is a fantastic way of saving money without actually sacrificing taste or what you like

Clare

After downshifting, I can see at the checkout that the savings are huge.

Prawn cocktail, turkey with all the trimmings and Christmas pudding — along with a cheeseboard, snacks, wine, mince pies, pate, Christmas cake and champagne — cost £203.73 at my usual supermarket, shopping at my normal brand bracket.

Downshifting by one brand bracket, or two on some things, and getting the booze from Aldi, meant almost exactly the same items cost me £117.84, a difference of £85.89.

I expected some discrepancy in cost, but that’s massive.

‘I’d encourage everyone to give it a go’

It’s enough for us to have a takeaway on Boxing Day or go out for a meal.

And considering my weekly shop is around that amount, just dropping a couple of brands has saved me the equivalent of a whole supermarket trip.

Clare agrees, saying: “The downshift challenge is a fantastic way of saving money without actually sacrificing taste or what you like.

“Economy baked beans are the same as some named brands — it’s just that there are fewer beans and more sauce.

“That’s the only difference.

“Lots of budget brands do this, too, where they cut back on a couple of ingredients, so the recipe might be tweaked, but the output is broadly the same.

“I’d encourage everyone to give it a go this Christmas.

“You’ll be surprised at the changes and how much you can save.”

And the best bit? My kids can hardly tell the difference when I sneakily give them a pre-Christmas taste test.

They go at the bowl of own brand pigs in blankets like they’ve not eaten in months.

The same went for the Yule log — a £3 saving per log is brilliant.

As for the pate, while the Taste The Difference version comes in a fancy glass jar and the own-brand one in an unglamorous plastic packet, once it’s open and spread on toast, none of us can tell them apart. I’m delighted at that £4.50 saving.

I often look for bargains when I shop, and the kids tease me for being the queen of the yellow sticker.

But actually I’ll take the downshift challenge forward and start doing it in my weekly shop.

The kids didn’t spot the difference in anything and, while I’d like to think it’s down to my cooking and preparation, I suspect it’s not.