Realistically can I feed 5 for £150pw?

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Switching to Lidl/Aldi tomorrow (they are on same retail park) and would like to spend a maximum of £150 per week is this possible? Currently spending nearly double that at a major supermarket I no longer want to dip into savings each month to feed us. No alcohol but will need to include toiletries and cleaning supplies, any items I should give a miss and anything worth buying? We are a non fussy household but no fish/shellfish due to an allergy, I am happy to go into to both shops as they share a car park.

You will save by shopping in Aldi/Lidl, but not by half.
But that amount of fruit in a week seems insane.

Fresh strawberries, mangoes, blueberries are very expensive. Get them to eat more bananas, apples, pears etc. Or more vegetables like carrots and cucumbers instead. And frozen fruit is fine - if they are eating it with yogurt, you can defrost it in the microwave to make a kind of warm sauce - it's lovely with yogurt. Or make a smoothie. Or try tinned fruit.

Don't buy individual yogurts, that's so expensive - buy a big family pot and spoon out a portion into a bowl. The Aldi greek yogurt is delicious with frozen fruit and seeds added.

I think it's not so much where you are buying your food, but what you are buying, and the quantity of it.

We're a family of 5 adults (me, DH, 3 kids in their early twenties) and we spend around £130 per week on food, including basic toiletries and cleaning products, but not alcohol. We eat carefully and well, and shop in Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons.

@whatthedickens5 you are my inspiration of the day! I just quit using ocado, I was spending around £80-90 for 1/2 a weekly shop (didn’t include meat as I get that from a butcher and no cleaning products or toiletries).

May I ask what a weeks worth of typical meals looks like for you? I really need to make changes and would love to still use ocado! I probably do get a bit too tempted to add non essentials… have to hold my hands up to that one.

You can still push the balance more towards cucumber and carrots, and away from mango, melon and pineapple. Or even just cheaper fruits, if you want to keep the same fruit:veg ratio.

Fruit wise we always have lots also. But I try and swap what we have each week by what’s in season, on offer or growing in garden.

Its wont help this year, but if you have garden space I would really look at growing berries for in future. Plant once and they just grow every year. Our blackberry bushes planted 3 years ago have given enough for fresh consumption of 7 people all summer and I have frozen around 5kg worth

Bananas are pretty cheap all the year and filling. So banana with a few berries will be cheaper than masses of berries.

£1200 a month was very high even for 5 people.

That's £40 a day.

What were you eating?

Yes.

But.

You’ll need to have a plan for the menu for the week, and cook a reasonable chunk from scratch.

It’s generally easier to budget for the week rather than the day. There are some very cheap meals that work well, and some that are better being more expensive.

eg. Jacket potatoes, beans and salad. Very cheap.
Lentil cottage pie. Very cheap.

Meat meals - worth increasing the budget for.

Lidl posh pizzas and bag of salad make an excellent take away swap.

Meat is expensive so use nature's Ozempic to pad out meals cheaply and feel full - beans, pulses and lentils. Tinned butter beans, red kidney beans, black beans or red lentils are all great (I'm sure other lentils are ok but red cook quickly). Meal plan and batch cook - cook a meal for 10 then have the rest the next day or freeze for when you want to cook. Good luck!

If they're snacking on fruit and it isn't filling them up then they need to eat each portion with some fat and protein to help fill them.

Do you have a local butcher? We only buy meat from the local farm shop but it’s not pre-packaged so if I want 5 chops I can just buy 5 chops rather than 8. We also only eat meat 3-4 times a week

I was going to say the same.

It was all planted by the previous owner so I take absolutely no credit for it, but we do not have a big garden at all and we’ve had several kg each of blackcurrants, raspberries, strawberries, and even grapes from our garden this summer.

You can buy bulk packs of things like chops and chicken thighs, and they’re considerably cheaper (and healthier) if they aren’t pre-marinated. Make your own marinades.

Similarly, buy large tubs of yoghurt for people to share, as opposed to lots of little individual ones.

Is the issue basically that you’re buying lots of fruit and shortcut foods? As that’s easily fixed, without too much strain.

I feel your pain! I will save money when dd is back at uni, problem I find is things like pork chops, burgers, tikka chicken thighs etc all come in packs of 4, when there are 5 adults you need to 2 packs, when the kids were little we could get away with sharing 2 between the 3 of them

Just freeze the rest for another time. This is what I have to do as we are a family of 5 adults. Or buy the same amount as before, chop it up and slow cook with extra beans/veg to make it stretch.

For fruit snacks I get cucumber, tomatoes, apples, bananas and satsumas, sometimes kiwi. Frozen berries for smoothies/on greek yoghurt.
You won't save much money on exotic fruit by switching to Lidl/Aldi and it won't last as long - their fresh stuff is cheap because it's nearer its best before.

But do you eat everything in the packets? Obviously you need to open two packets, but do you freeze the excess for later?

Also meat daily is very expensive
The cheapest way to reduce food costs is some nights veggie or some nights cheaper soups or leftovers

ie our menu the last few days:
Veggie egg fried rice - using up bit of all veggies left in fridge.
Lentil soup with homemade flatbreads.Courgette orange cake after.
Roast couscous with tzatziki. Lamb koftas. Greek salad
eggs florentine tonight ( have garden spinach to use up)

We spend a fair amount on food, mainly organic. But meat daily would be even more expensive.

Also buying small individual portions or snacks is expensive. 1kg yogurt and decant

@ShesTheAlbatross i would love to add grapes next year. Ours were ancient and horrible so dug up and haven’t replaced yet

But you won't be using the spare 3 from the second pack of 4; you'd freeze that and only need to buy one 4 pack every three shops.

Also, chicken tikka thighs - flavour chicken yourself.

See, I think Ocado is fab. So much easier to compare prices, the quality is great and it's no more expensive than everywhere else. The only thing it's missing is the yellow sticker section.

Surely it depends on the size/age/appetites of those involved?

Aldis Greek yoghurt is 1.99 for a 500g tub. Fruit loaf is 1.25. If you buy berries look out for the 'wonky' ones, cheaper and absolutely fine. Blackberries are all over the place at the moment and free!
Make your own burgers, tikka chicken etc, quick, easy and much nicer. You're paying extra for someone to do that for you.
I think you'll struggle to halve your bill. Try for two thirds. Good luck!

Right but if you want to cut back you just have to start buying more of the cheaper stuff and less of the dearer stuff. Chop up a big cucumber instead of mini ones. I probably wouldn't bother with rice cakes if you're trying to fill up teenagers.
It's great that they eat so well, but no wonder they eat so much if it's mostly fruit. Protein and complex carbs will help.

What I can remember from this week:-

1. Lemon grass and ginger chicken mini fillets (£12) baby corn, green beans, broccoli and new potatoes.
2. Nandos rub/marinade on chicken thighs fillets 1kg (£11), home made vegetable spicy rice, corn on the cob
3. No1 pork sausages (12 pack £6) brioche buns, homemade coleslaw, potato salad and traditional salad.
4. Pork joint (£14) slowly cooked to make pulled pork, sweet potato wedges, corn on the cob and coleslaw.

Your teens are living how we’d all love to live if money was no object! You will be helping them for when they have their own homes and a less generous food budget if you can change their eating habits now. The fruit is ridiculous. Buy apples, oranges and bananas and cut out the berries and other stuff for a bit. If the teens want to snack, they can have cereal, toast, crumpets and basic fruit and veg. You have a healthy budget so try and prep for fast meals or snacks. For example, a massive chilli with part meat part lentils, portioned and frozen is super quick for a starving teen to microwave with either a jacket or rice and will help stop the snacking as it sounds as though they are trying to fill up on the vast quantities of fruit instead.

Plan your meals at the start of the week……write a list and stick to it……tell the family they have two choices, ‘take it or leave it’ and don’t cook different meals for different people! Buy seasonal vegetables which keeps cost down and be wary of some special offers as they can fool us into spending more than we realise.
You can do this OP 💪 and some 💐 for you for a special treat 😊

Chicken thighs are cheaper, less dry, and are tastier!