With the ever-increasing cost of living, households across Scotland and the UK are struggling to afford their bills and everyday necessities.
For this reason, many families have been looking for ways to cut costs in order to save as much money as possible.
Food shopping is one area where you can save a substantial amount of money if you know where to look.
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While finding healthy meals for the whole family can prove a challenge, it is definitely possible — as one writer from the Manchester Evening News discovered.
Emma Gill from the MEN sought to put together a family meal that cost less than £1 per head, and wanted to ensure that there was at least one vegetable included.
Taking to Aldi, she managed to source ingredients for a "rather tasty and satisfying cottage pie" that in the end totalled just 71p — here's how she did it.
The 70p a head meal
Emma went to her local Aldi with a shopping list of ingredients that she needed to make cottage pie, with the only extras she included from her cupboard being cooking oil and salt and pepper.
She wrote: "Altogether the ingredients cost £7.60, but that was for the entire packs of products, including stock cubes, gravy, Worcestershire sauce and thyme, all of which would be used in many further meals.
"I didn't even use all the potatoes or carrots, I only used two small onions from the 1kg bag and there was around two thirds of the full block of butter left over.
"Admittedly I went for the cheapest options on everything, but who cares what wonky shapes your potatoes and carrots come in when they're being chopped up into pieces anyway. Apart from the odd sticky out bit on the carrots, they weren't actually that wonky at all."
She continued: "And the potatoes were surprisingly good, given the fact I usually go for the more expensive Maris Pipers after being told they 'make better mash'.
"If you wanted a healthier version, you could pay extra for the lower fat beef mince -while it's £2.49 for a 500g pack of 10% fat, it's £2.99 for the 5% fat pack of the same size.
"With the healthiest option it would bring the cost up to 95p per head, still a very reasonable price for such a hearty meal, which was wolfed down by us adults and two children, with one portion leftover."
Emma added: "My other half even approved and he's a chef so not always easily pleased - although he did ask why I hadn't run a fork through the mash to give it a pattern like he does. I won't tell you what I suggest he do with his fork.
"My son on the other hand dared to suggest the dish was 'nicer than when dad makes it'. Now that's karma right there!"
Here's the full list of ingredients and cost, with the amount we used and what that equated to
- Potatoes 2.5kg 89p / we used 2kg 71.2p
- Carrots 1.5kg 45p / we used 800g 24p
- Onions 1kg 69p / we used 170g 11.7p
- Beef mince 500g £1.79 / used full pack £1.79
- Stock cubes pack of 12 37p / used one 3p
- Gravy granules 300g 79p / used 45g 11.8p
- Worcestershire sauce 150ml 65p / used 10ml 4.4p
- Thyme 15g 49p / used 1g 3.26p
- Butter 250g £1.48 / used 80g 47.36p
Total shopping list £7.60 / total used £3.53 (serves five / 70.6p per head)
