What with the credit crunch and gas and electricity bills on the rise, chances are you probably need to try and make some cut backs in your food budget. This doesn’t mean, however that you have to go into debt on flavour.

Here are some handy money saving tips to help you cut costs in your food consumption:

1. Grow your own herbs

Herbs are expensive when you purchase them from a supermarket, yet many people are daunted at the prospect of growing their own. The common herbs, basil, parsley, coriander can easily be grown on a window sill. Rather than grow from seeds, a quicker and easier way is to buy already growing herbs from the shop, then re-pot it as this makes them last much longer.

2. Grow your own vegetables

A phenomena that is becoming increasingly common in the UK, but is basically something that everyone used to do back in the day. If you buy from the supermarket, Vegetables, especially salad like lettuce and rocket is, lets be honest, a rip-off. So instead, grow your own. You don't need much space and stuff like lettuce is fairly fail safe.

3. Buy frozen instead of fresh (especially fish).

I don’t know about you, but I often by chicken breast from the fresh meat counter, only use half of the breasts purchased, and then freeze the rest. However, if you cut to the chase and buy meat that is already frozen you save yourself a good couple of quid.

While meat is perhaps not such a good quality frozen as it is fresh (particularly red meat which needs time to mature), fish on the other hand is as good if not better. Because fish trawlers have to preserve the freshness of fish between catching and packaging for supermarkets so what they do is they keep fish in boxes filled with ice (basically freezing them), which is why when you go to fish markets you see fish displayed on ice. Freezing fish from the instant is caught is therefore the best way to preserve the freshness of fish if it has to travel over a distance to its final destination.

4. Make double and freeze the rest

Like most things, you can save money by using the age old theory of economies of scale. It is cheaper to buy mince for four people than it is for two. If you're worried about the effects of freezing then don't be. It's amazing how well many things do freeze - especially meals like spag bol.

But also think about freezing the food you don't eat but would otherwise throw away. Have you ever roasted too many vegetables with your roast? Cooked vegetables however can make a tasty vegetable soup. If you can't be bothered to make soup there and then, freeze your remaining vegetables and make it later - it doesn't really make much difference to flavour.

5. Go halves with friends or neighbours

In the UK we throw away a lot of food. For example, you see a special offer on fruit - 2 bags of satsumas for the price of 1. Chances are, they're about go out of date, hence the need for the shop to do a quick sale. So you buy 2 bags and end up throwing away one of them because by the time you get round to eating them, they've gone off!

Instead, think about sharing your food with your neighbours or friends. This works on the same principle as above, but you can really take advantage of offers on fresh fruit and veg. What's more you might even make some new friends!

6. Buy value/no frills/saver on your dried products like pasta

Pasta is one of those things that if it is dried, it is pretty much ruined anyway. Fresh pasta is so much better than dried that it is almost a different food altogether. What does this mean? Well brands that try to place themselves as ‘good quality dried pasta’ are having you on. It’s already DRIED, therefore has already lost much of its quality. So value stuff isn't taht bad at all.

7. Make tea in a pot instead of in a mug

When making tea for two people, use one tea-bag and brew it in a pot. If you do this regularly you will in effect halve your tea consumption, which could amount to a saving of a whopping £13 a year! (based on average tea consumption in a 2 person household of 2 cups a day, 7 days a week buying 160bag boxes at £3). But in the wise words of a certain supermarket, "every little helps".

8. Make sure you only boil the required amount of water in a kettle rather than fill it to the top

This is the classic energy saving technique which a surprising amount of people do not do. I suppose for some, they think that the freshest water remains at the top (away from all the limescale), however if you’ve ever observed water being boiled, it gets thrust around quite violently at point of boil, leaving no water escaping from the impact of limescale, which is why most kettles have a little mesh to stop the limescale being poured out.

BUT you really don't need to fill the kettle - it saves neither time nor energy! And in the long run, not only will you reduce your energy bills but you can feel good about reducing your carbon foot print too.