By Two years ago our weekly grocery shop for two adults was consistently £110-130. It wasn’t extravagant — no premium brands, no luxury items, just a fairly normal shop at a mainstream supermarket. Then I started paying attention. By the end of the year we were consistently shopping for £60-70 a week for the same two people, eating at least as well, and I’d become mildly obsessive about food in a way that had actually improved how we ate.
Here is exactly what changed, what worked, what didn’t, and how to replicate it if your circumstances are similar.
The Single Biggest Change: Switching to Aldi for the Main Shop
I’m going to be direct: switching the majority of our shopping to Aldi was responsible for the largest portion of our savings. We previously shopped at Sainsbury’s for everything. The same basket — pasta, tinned tomatoes, chicken thighs, rice, eggs, bread, milk, yogurt, vegetables, cheese — costs roughly 35-40% less at Aldi. This isn’t about brand comparison. Aldi doesn’t have brands. It’s own-label everything. And in most categories the quality is genuinely comparable to the mainstream supermarket equivalents we’d been buying. We still supplement at Sainsbury’s or Waitrose for specific items Aldi doesn’t stock or doesn’t match on, but the main shop moved.
The Meal Plan: What Actually Stopped the Waste
Before meal planning, we threw away food every week. Vegetables that were bought with good intentions. Half-used jars of things. Leftover ingredients without a plan for them. Our waste estimate was probably £15-20 per week — money paid for food that went in the bin. Meal planning for five dinners per week (accepting that two nights will be leftovers, takeout, or out) reduced this to near zero. The planning itself takes 15-20 minutes on a Saturday morning and then generates the shopping list for Sunday. Everything bought has a job. Very little gets wasted.
Cooking Protein Differently
We shifted from chicken breast to chicken thighs (significantly cheaper per kilo, more flavourful, harder to ruin). We started using pulses and lentils as a partial or full protein source two or three nights per week — a 500g bag of dried red lentils costs about £1 and produces four generous portions of dahl. We bought cheaper cuts of beef for slow cooking rather than premium cuts for quick cooking. None of these changes made dinner worse. Several of them made it better.
What I Still Buy at Full Price
I want to be honest that I didn’t cut everything. Coffee beans come from a specialty roaster and cost more per gram than supermarket coffee — and are worth it to me. We buy good quality bread from a local bakery once a week. Wine gets a reasonable amount of thought rather than just buying the cheapest bottle. These deliberate choices absorb some of the saving. But the total is still dramatically lower than before, and the things we do spend on, we actually value.
The Cupboard Stock Strategy
Keeping a well-stocked pantry of staples means you’re never caught without something to eat that requires emergency expensive shopping or takeout. My permanent pantry list: tinned tomatoes, tinned beans and lentils, pasta, rice, dried lentils, olive oil, a range of spices, stock cubes, soy sauce, coconut milk. When these are stocked, almost any protein and vegetable combination becomes a meal. Shopping for the occasion rather than maintaining a pantry means you’re always buying from a position of urgency.
Pros and Cons of Aggressive Grocery Savings
Pros: Genuinely significant savings — £2,500-3,000 per year for a household spending £100+ weekly that reduces to £60-70. Meal planning reduces waste and often improves nutrition simultaneously. Switching to Aldi or Lidl requires one habit change with permanent savings.
Cons: Aldi and Lidl don’t stock everything — a supplementary shop elsewhere is often needed. Meal planning requires consistent weekly effort and breaks down during stressful or busy periods. Cooking from scratch requires time that convenience food or eating out doesn’t. Some people find the reduced spontaneity around food a genuine quality-of-life reduction.
