Lidl

Meadows

Lalaladybird wrote: »

I get all the nappies from lidl and I do buy jars of baby food which costs about £12 a week but I make homemade as much as time allows. Baby wipes about £4 a week, I get spartprice washing powder and asda non bio for the baby's stuff, I don't use fabric softener, the total amount is for all the food and groceries, no alcohol and I don't think many luxuries just some biscuits. We seem to spend a fortune on milk every week! Our weekly menu is something like this....

Breakfasts - porridge with chopped nuts and maple syrup OR weetabix OR bran flakes

Lunches - packed lunch includes cheese sandwich, crisps, yogurt, fruit and a piece of banana bread, if we're at home it is soup or beans on toast for example

Dinners are roast chicken, potatoes and veg one night, next night might be chicken and mushroom risotto (to use up chicken), next night cottage pie and veg, next night salmon and noodles, next night kievs and rice, next nigh a pasta bake that sort of thing

Snacks and drinks ... dilute juice, tea, coffee, milkshake. Biscuits, fruit, crackers etc

This all costs us about £150 a week and I don't think there is much waste at the end of the week. Does anything in that list jump out as expensive/luxurious to anyone? If I am missing any obvious savings I could make that someone can spot from that description it would be really helpful xx

Baby food - make your own from liquidised meals you eat (I did this for my daughter 30+ years ago, I would also cook meals for her meat, veg etc. blitz up and freeze in to individual portions, often having four pans on the go with different meat in each, then add peas, carrots and potatoes).

Breakfast - I take it these are stores own brands so no savings there (do you need the maple syrup?).

Lunches - Can you make your own bread? Do you need the crisps?

Dinner - Salmon can be very expensive unless you buy whole or sides when on offer and cut into portions.
Chicken do you boil the carcass for stock?
Cauliflower leaves are edible and make an extra vegetable.
Kiev's, are they home made as shop ones are not that cheap.
Buy 3 for ? Chickens to get the best value from them and then cut into portions, this will be cheaper than buying chicken portions.
Cottage pie (or any dish with sauce) add Red Lentils, not only are they good for you but they bulk out a dish.
Mushrooms added to a dish can be quite cheap but also adds to bulk and add texture (buy the big family packs - not a pretty but who cares when cooked).

Snacks - Do you need them? Why not make your own biscuits at a fraction of the price if you have to have them.
Milkshakes? how about some low fat Natural yogurt with a banana, linseed's and honey blended up together, or summer fruits.

Shop for the stickered foods where you can.
Grated Cheese goes further than cut.
Mix clothes Wash Powder with an equal amount of Soda Crystal to cut costs.
White Vinegar, Bleach, Soda Crystals, Bicarb will do much of your household cleaning tasks.
Dish Wash Liquid neat is a good de-greaser.

Bulk buy when items on offer (especially none perishables), some items never need to be bought at full price. So if you can put a few pennies aside here and there to take advantage of offers when available that will save £'s in the long run.
(My hubby likes canned pilchards in tomato sauce normally 99p, the other day they were 44p so I got ten. KP nuts which he also likes £1.99 a bag or 3 for £3? (no brainer - so I got 9 bags), Co-op Toilet rolls the other week £2.49 instead of around £5 so over a few weeks I picked up about 9 packs (these are full sized rolls and not the Velvet ones that seem to go on offer where the roll is half the size of a normal toilet rolls).
Blocks of Cheese forever on offer, buy which ever offer is best at any given time.
Cans of Tuna, frequently on offer.
Toothpaste and mouth wash when on offer.

Down Brand where possible to cut costs if needs must, if you buy branded get stores own, stores own go down again even try value some you will say yuck, some might be acceptable. Whatever works for you and your budget.

Shop around if and when you have the time as all stores have different offers and no one place is the cheapest to shop all the time!

sweetsheep84

Hi OP. Wondering if you do prefer certain brands? My OH does prefer certain brands of stuff so I tend to stock up when the things we do eat on offer.

We used to buy milkshakes but now I have cut it out. DS keeps asking for it but i just dont give in. I dont do meal planning coz I prefer working round the offers and same with fruit and veg. I dont buy pre cut pork or beef. I buy them then slice them, mix with your choice of veg (normally onions, mushrooms and red peppers in my house) to make a stir fry. OH and DS love it.

DS loves biscuits so I buy the cheaper one and put them in a zip bag. DS never noticed the difference.

Forgot to mention, I dont really do lidl. I prefer asda in some ways. I find lidl have very limited choices for OH and DS.

alleycat`

Just to add something I've seen mentioned.

Watch out for Offers, a lot of them are an utter con.

The price is often artificially raised one week so they are then "On offer" another week.

The same applies on the buy 2 for x.
Quite often the saving is in the pennies and you end up buying something you did not need.

Supermarkets are turning into "DFS" with regards to how they are doing their sales and i personally think it is a very "sharp" tactic.

Cornucopia

Lidl / Aldi quality varies by item. Some things are comparable to supermarket value brand, often the same price, too. e,g. 1kg rice @ 40p.

Some things, particularly meat and dairy products are much better value than supermarket own brand. Cold meat especially.

However, they are smaller sites and do carry a smaller range of products. There are also differences between Lidl & Aldi. e.g. Ice cream - Lidl excellent, Aldi not so good.

To get the best from them you (a) have to adapt your purchases, if possible, (b) can take advantage of half-price weekend offers at Lidl and Super 6 at Aldi. I am fortunate in having both nearby, and within 5 mins drive of each other.

General issues/benefits with them:-

- Their prices seem to be *much* more stable than other supermarkets.
- Big brand products are often more expensive than in the other supermarkets.
- Fruit & veg needs closer inspection.
- Offers often sell out

I estimate my weekly spend (1 person) to be: £15 weekly shop at Lidl/Aldi, £5 top-up shop at Lidl & weekend offers, £5 Asda.

meer53

I do my weekly shop at Aldi. The only things i buy elsewhere are Muller yoghurts and Heinz tomato ketchup. Lots of things i prefer from Aldi now, choc digestive biscuits, wholemeal bread, jaffa cakes, fruit and veg, whole chickens and sausages. Their tinned tuna in brine is really good and 61p per can, dishwasher tablets, toilet rolls, white, red and rose wine at £2.99 a bottle. Their cheeses and cold meats are brilliant.

I begrudge having to go to the big stores for anything now !

joolsybools

I have recently moved house and our nearest food shopping places are Aldi and Lidl, both of which are within a 5 minute walk. We mostly cook from scratch, nothing majorly fancy, but only tend to have 'ready meals', e.g. pizzas about once every 10 days or so.

We have found that we can get virtually everything we need now from Lidl or Aldi and the quality is absolutely fine. Yes we have had some ropey sausages and one dodgy lasagne but just didn't buy them again. This is no different to what might happen in Mr T or the other shops.

The only things we cannot get from L/A are fresh ginger, tins of spinach, cheap enough porridge oats and a few other bits and bobs. For these we got to Mr T once every week or two.

I really think the whole 'brand' thing is psychological. I have got to the point now where I find Mr T's lighting and in your face offers/instore marketing quite distateful. We very rarely buy 'brands' yet eat a very healthy diet cheaply. Our weekly shop for 2 is now around £60 to £70 and includes things for packed lunches too. It would be nearer to £100 in Mr T and co's.

embob74

Your menu doesn't seem particularly luxurious so not sure why it costs so much? We are a family of 5 and are spending over £100 a week and I'm trying desperately to rein it in.
We have two children in nappies and found the Aldi nappies were far cheaper and better than Huggies or Pampers. £12 on baby food is a lot. There are usually deals of 12 jars for £6 which is more than ample for a week. I buy jars but even at 12 months we only use one third for each meal. This is supplemented with finger food/ snacks such as breadsticks and fruit or yogurt. I also freeze liquidised meals in small portions which helps to use less ready-made and saves money.

I only ever buy Huggies wipes but I refuse to pay more than £1 a pack for them. When they are on multipack offer I buy quite a few which lasts until the next time they are on offer (it's a regular occurrence). At Asda they are currently 4 packs for £3.50 so not sure how you can spend £4 a week on them? I use a pack a week and that's wiping 2 little bums and hands and mouths although OH still hasn't managed to change a dirty nappy with just 3 wipes like I can lol.

andy.m_2

I used to love LIDL nappies!
Cheap and they just seemed to fit my lad just right, certainly I will be putting the daughter into them soonest.

With respect to wipes I bulk buy offers, last up was ASDA pampers pure 6 pack for £2.50 so I bought 12 packs!
Also buy dishwasher tabs, washing powder etc when on offer.
I buy Nickys toilet roll from farmfoods 18 rolls for £4.

Your menu doesn't seem particularly extravagant, but little things jump out at me.
You keep maple syrup, genuine maple syrup is VERY expensive, even ALDI own brand is £2.50, we use Lyons Butterscotch syrup at about 60p a bottle and it tastes good, certainly the kids don't know any better and I have a rule that if you are adding a sauce then you can drop a brand, if not two.

We buy porridge sachets from Oats So Simple when they are on offer, 32p a box at last offer, these are also pre flavoured so you save on the add-ons at breakfast time.
We mostly eat porridge during the week, my weakness/treat is bacon at the weekend but we buy Tesco own brand at £1.06 a pack for streaky.

I bake a batch of 12 gluten free muffins on a sunday so that there's grab-snacks in the cupboard, they cost about 25p each.


You need to pop over the old style board for some tips, or watch miss monepenny spendy thrifters or whatever it's called on CH4.
As I said nothing is out of the ordinary, you just seem to embellish stuff slightly and it's that which will make a pretty big difference almost immediately to your check out total.

andy.m_2

I think you could do well to keep an eye also on the grabbit board, and dare I say it on here but HUKD.co.uk is very good also.

Write a list of your staple items and how much they cost usually, then when they come up on offer you can check it is a genuine saving and then bulk buy.
As I said above we got Dishwasher tabs on offer and they came in at about 3p each, I'd pay that not to wash up!

meritaten

joolsybools wrote: »

I have recently moved house and our nearest food shopping places are Aldi and Lidl, both of which are within a 5 minute walk. We mostly cook from scratch, nothing majorly fancy, but only tend to have 'ready meals', e.g. pizzas about once every 10 days or so.

We have found that we can get virtually everything we need now from Lidl or Aldi and the quality is absolutely fine. Yes we have had some ropey sausages and one dodgy lasagne but just didn't buy them again. This is no different to what might happen in Mr T or the other shops.

The only things we cannot get from L/A are fresh ginger, tins of spinach, cheap enough porridge oats and a few other bits and bobs. For these we got to Mr T once every week or two.

I really think the whole 'brand' thing is psychological. I have got to the point now where I find Mr T's lighting and in your face offers/instore marketing quite distateful. We very rarely buy 'brands' yet eat a very healthy diet cheaply. Our weekly shop for 2 is now around £60 to £70 and includes things for packed lunches too. It would be nearer to £100 in Mr T and co's.

strange - fresh ginger is ALWAYS available in my local Aldi. as are porridge oats (but, my OH likes the instant one which is incredibly cheap) and they always have fresh spinach - which takes two minutes, literally, to cook!