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.

Was meant to say buy a whole chicken!

But I agree with you that if you must buy pieces, thighs are tastier as well as better value.

DH never believed me on this until he ate them at someone elses’s house, now that’s all we have!

Be less rigid in your shopping list. Some essentials you can't avoid but keep an eye on offers. Eg 500g tub of Anchor in Sainsbury's with be £4 one week then drop to £2.75 for a couple or weeks. Asda has good deals & savings (5 large tins of Heinz stuff for £4.75)

Shop the sale items & bargains. Also if youre almost out of something & its on sale buy it.

We budget £150 a week on food but buy cleaning supplies and toiletries separately. We eat really well and cater for one dairy free.

You said £11 for chicken thighs in Nando’s marinade… I am just home from Tesco and got 1kg of chicken thighs for £2.99 and Nando’s run for £1.25, that’s enough for 3 adults and one teen who eats just as much. We are having it with corn on the cob 89p offer and sweet potato 1kg for £1.19.

I would reduce the fruit a little but perhaps bake banana bread or breakfast muffins too each week.

Instead of buying the individual yoghurts it's normally cheaper per gram to buy the big pots.

You also mentioned baby cucumbers as a snack. Again, the big ones are normally cheaper per gram so you can buy them and cut them into sticks.

There might be other things that you can make cheaper by buying the bigger option (which you'll have no problem getting through), or a slightly different version.

Personally I don't find Aldi/Lidl particularly cheap but I'm a vegetarian so I know it does depend on what you buy.

If you bought half a lamb or half a pig you’d get a lot more meat for for your money. If you’ve got the space you could raise two pigs and then have them butchered for your freezer.

More bread my children eat a lot of toast and eggs. We have our own chickens and fried and scrambled eggs can be made quickly in the microwave

Cooked fruit puddings. Fruit pies, crumbles etc. There’s free apples and plums around at the moment which your children could prepare and freeze. Stewed plums are lovely with yogurt.

Buy what's on offer and in season. That means not buying the children punts of strawberries in January. Frozen fruit and some frozen veg are absolutely fine. Those little punnets of fresh imported fruit can be more than a week old when you get them. Have a serious talk with the others in the family about why they can't always have what they fancy when they fancy it. Let them choose some of the recipes.

Look at what you're throwing out, week after week. We were chucking out avocados that we'd let get over-ripe. Now we don't buy them unless they are part of a meal plan and will definitely be used. Bananas gone over? Make BBC Good Food's banana cake or mush them up and freeze for instant banana ice cream.

Drop meat at least twice a week and have a lentil bolognese and a chickpea curry or a veg tagging or chilli non carne or similar. Learn to do lovely Italian pasta sauces from scratch: mushrooms, onions, cream, parsley and you can have a big bowl of lovely tasty comforting fare for £1 a head. Big stir fries with whatever's in season (buy fresh veg and chop yourself, don't buy things pre-grated and chopped) and a few bits of chicken or whatever over the top. Make your own stir-fry sauces with garlic, ginger, soya sauce and so on. Don't buy little single-use sachets or packets. Buy a whole chicken, roast it for one dinner, use the leftover bits for another meal. Buy a large pack of mince and use it for a lasagne and a shepherd pie.

I always have spring greens in the fridge. 70p for a big bag, just rinse, chop and steam for green goodness that costs far less than broccoli or spinach. Steam, add some soy sauce, butter or lemon and pepper (sometimes all of the above) and serve them on the side. If you like caraway, add some caraway seeds.

Latest discovery, Coronation chickpeas. Can of chickpeas (40-50p), a couple of tablespoons of mayo (Bramwell's (Aldi?) is better than Hellmans and half the price), some finely diced onion, some mango chutney, a tsp or so of curry powder, lemon juice. Enough to fill four pittas or wraps with some salad leaves: ridiculously tasty. £2.50-ish for lunch for four people.

Honestly Id said no. I shop at Aldi as I do love their food but its not as cheap as it was say 5 years ago.

We eat meat and like to eat fresh produce as much as possible and Id say we spend about £200 a week in aldi plus toilet roll, washing powder, fabric conditioner etc as I get branded ones that they dont sell.

We have 4 adults here plus a much younger dc who has school dinners every day & goes to wrap around childcare so only really eats at home over the weekend plus breakfast.

If you are happy to live off of frozen food then you could probably do it but not if you are wanting to eat fresh fruit, veggies and meat every day like us.

This isnt knocking Aldi as I am a complete convert but I dont think you can eat well every day for 4 people for that. And yes I meal plan every meal.

2 large 800g punnets of strawberries
2 large 600g punnets of blueberries
4 mangoes
2 pineapples
8 avocados
12 kiwis
punnet of peaches
punnet of nectarines
punnet of apricots

This is treat fruit on my house. Tend to stick to apples, banana and oranges, unless above fruit is cheap

I cut up loads of carrot, cucumber, some peppers - for snacking

I find it spend less if I online shop as no impulse purchase. Didn't find lidl ro be any cheaper

dont buy fruit and veg from Aldi it goes off so quick. With thy amount of fruit I would go to either a ‘market’ if you have one near or a greengrocers you will get more for your money and it’ll last.

You can, yes. I spent £150 a week at Lidl - you get 10% off your next shop once you hit £250 each month so it's a no-brainer to keep spending with them - but that includes all the pet food (two dogs and a cat) and a top-up shop for eggs, bacon, milk. I could easily spend loads more - and could probably spend less - but that seems to be our sweet spot.

PrincessOfPreschool Please can you share your recipe for the chorizo and Polish smoked sausage dish, it sounds delicious! 😊

Tesco is cheaper for dishwasher tablets and laundry powder as well as some other cleaning products.

Greek yogurt tesco - buy 1kg tub £2 - split into individual pots?

Agree. We are increasingly turning back to Tesco/Sains for fruit because it's tastier and lasts longer.

All the meat things..surely it's cheaper just to buy "plain" meat and season /prepare it yourself?

The only cleaning product you need is washing up liquid. It's great for cleaning floors, sinks etc.

Never had a problem here. Apples etc last over a week.

I really feel for you OP. Everything is so expensive now & it sounds like you have no choice but to buy lots of fresh fruit. We tried to switch to Aldi but their fruit & veg isn’t great & it was driving me crazy throwing food away that was rotten almost as soon as we’d bought it. We’ve gone back to Ocado now (yes I know we’re lucky to be able to afford it.) I’d rather eat well & cut back in other areas.

I don't think its a case of where you shop but what you buy. Pears, Apples, Bananas, kiwi are all great sources of fibre and cheap, I think watermelon is actually quite good value for money given the amount of fruit you get but berries etc are bloody expensive for very few servings. I get a whole chicken score it and cover in tikka seasoning it comes out lovely. Anything you are buying pre seasoned its probably going to be cheaper to do it yourself. So in answer to your question, if you are not wanting to change what you buy, no I do not think you will get it anywhere near 150.

I would have the same amount of fruit in my weekly shop, minus a few bits you listed there, but I would have a large amount of vegetables too and I spend approximately £160-180 on average per week. I do a lot of meal planning, and make all of my own snacks like banana bread, scones, flap jacks, granola, etc

There are lots of Instagram accounts about how to feed your family cheaply from aldi / tesco/ Lidl. I have discovered mummawhocooks and tried some of her recipes which have been a success. She even has an app now which would be handy for meal planning. Plenty of budget recipe books out there too.

I second the PP who recommended growing your own berries, if you have any space at all. We have saved a fortune by growing raspberries, blueberries and strawberries--all super low maintenance and they crop reliably year after year, but we do have to protect them with nets (also cheap) or the birds will strip them. They cost a fortune in the supermarket so we feel smug when we see how much we've saved.

Do you have to do online shopping? If you're trying to cut costs then you need to embrace the delights of reduced to clear. Yes it's fruit which is approaching its sell by date but is usually still fine for a day or two and the amount your children are eating it won't need to last.

Can the DC with allergies have oats ? The huge teens in this house have overnight oats or porridge or Bircher muesli with fruit and a dollop of Greek yoghurt if they want it . I also make flapjacks each week a couple of times which helps with snacks . Just wondering if that might fill them up more and decrease the other food costs as a result . I limit us to £200 a week including a lot of veg and fruit ( though nowhere near the amount you buy ) , whatever organic I can get , very little meat ( only half of us eat it) . I visit Waitrose and Sainsburies each week as they are close together - but 75% of the shop is Sainsburies . Everything you buy in Waitrose is always 10-30p more whatever it is .That soon mounts up