How can you do a comfortable shop for £30, two adults and a baby?

[DeanaPiana]

DF is adamant she does her Aldi food shop for £30 or under, for two adults and two teen boys.

This includes lunches for two adults but not baby essential etc, which she calculated separately and buys elsewhere.

Could I do it and eat comfortably from Aldi? My shop must include:

Vegetables
Fruit
NO meat
Limited dairy
Some decent snacks
Lunches for two adults
Yoghurt
Soft drinks

Other half is a vegetarian who doesn't eat much dairy. I don't eat meat within the home. Baby will be veggie too (I'm pregnant). I'll probably have to buy Quorn products elsewhere, which is a pain in the arse so a lot of meals from Aldi may well be cheaper because of me calculating the Quorn shop differently.

I use to shop at Lidl and spent around the £45 mark at least for two adults.

Oh sorry, they have school dinners, don't they? I assume you pay for those. But then you will also have to shop for lunches for the adults and for the kids during weekends and holidays?

Kids have school lunches free because they are ks1.
Breakfasts are included in the meal plan, I have given meals for 5 days during the working week, I also had enough veggies left over to make a curry at the weekend, the curry recipe is also on my blog.
I must confess I did already have some store cupboard stuff in - e.g. Olive oil that kind of thing, but it's a start and I hope it can help some people out there. Food is so expensive!

I love these threads for budgeting ideas. We used to spend around £120 each week on the food shop, which included cleaning products and toiletries. We realised just how much we were wasting so in the last year have made a real effort to meal plan, buy only what we actually will eat and as such have halved our shopping bill. I've found that Tesco is cheaper than Aldi or Lidl for the things we shop for at the minute. I think they bought their prices down in line with the cheaper stores, but I do check regularly as I see prices creeping up everywhere.

It gets a bit addictive and I find myself tying to get it a little cheaper each week.

Well done AliciaMayEmory! My mum used to spend £150 a week with Ocado (for two adults and a cat) and she was absolutely incredulous when I told her my partner and I only spent about £60 for the two of us (which I know isn't even that little). She was adamant that she was just buying the essentials and wasn't being extravagant!

One day she 'discovered' Lidl and now can't stop telling me how little she's spent every week. It's like it becomes a game for some people.

I don't earn very much and I often wonder what on earth my friends who earn 2/3/4x my salary can be spending their money on. This thread is making me realise a huge amount of it is probably going on their 'essential' grocery shopping

Alicia I agree about Tesco. I found their everyday value range to be pretty good. Used to love Sainsbury's basic range but that seems to be disappearing and whats left is getting really expensive.
What I found the best though is to shop at several shops if you can. I have access to Poundland, Sainsburys, Tesco, Icelands and Aldis, and they all have their cheaper items. Though obviously it's not worth it if you're using loads of petrol driving miles between them.

Sorry I was at work and then busy getting DC sorted for the walk tomorrow. He's leading his class at the head of the route 😍

Anyway the vinegar and bicarbonate I get in massive tubs and bottles from my lady at the weigh in shop where I get my gluten free flour and pantry staples. I pay about £10 and it lasts me about 9mths of daily cleaning. Plus because we take the containers back we get it for less.

It's definitely (just about) possible, with very careful meal planning. It actually works out cheaper per person, the more people there are iyswim.
I've managed it the past few weeks without shopping in a budget supermarket. I'm also vegetarian - I don't think I could do it if I was a meat eater.

Mummybear, where do you get the £2 box of fruit/veg from?

I can easily spend £45 in lidl on enough food to last me about 2 weeks and thats just for me but I buy microwave meals that I use for when I have work and freash meat and some frozen food for when I'm not in work which is a very rare thing for me.

@cakecrumbs the ugly veg comes from Asda. We get it on a Tuesday morning at our local.