Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's top tips to reduce your food bill. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Food is one of those core expenses that soaks up a lot of our money, but that we can feel powerless over.

Now you do have to pay something for food, obviously, but there are ways to reduce both your cost, and your effort.

You don’t want to be only eating beans and rice, and you certainly don’t want to be spending hours in the kitchen just to save 10 cents.

But you can make progress without doing either of those things.

Tom Hartmann, personal finance expert from Sorted, came on the latest Cooking the Books podcast.

We discussed how much wriggle room you have to bring down the food budget, how to stock up without sabotaging yourself, and how to use technology to your advantage.

If you have a question you'd like answered in a future podcast, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook