People's budgets are being squeezed from every direction at the moment, and the weekly shop is no exception. There have been plenty of stories about staple goods rocketing in price.
And many people will have no doubt noticed that their 'big shop' has got even bigger, in terms of price at least. Supermarkets have been announcing various initiatives as they battle inflation. Asda, for example, brought out an expanded Just Essentials range, limiting items to three per basket.
German retailer Aldi, however, remains the cheapest grocer in the UK, according to Which?. The consumer group compared a basket of 47 items at different shops and found Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's to be 18% more expensive than Aldi. CEO of Aldi UK and Ireland Giles Hurley promised to do "whatever it takes" to maintain this discount and "keep prices as low as possible".
Shoppers, too, are finding ways to keep costs down. None more so, probably, than a TikTok poster called Cost of Living Crisis Tips, which shared a weekly shop from Aldi coming in at a blissfully bargainous £4.97.
It included penne pasta, spaghetti, bourbon creams, baked beans, chopped tomatoes, tinned garden peas, cornflakes, a loaf of bread, two tins of rice pudding and long grain rice. When quizzed on what meals they were making, the response came: "Tomato pasta, rice and peas, beans on toast, rice pudding etc." The Tiktok creator made it clear this was about one thing. "This video is about surviving on £5 for the week," they commented, "not 'having a nutritional protein rich diet for £5 a week.'"
Amber-Louise Large, from MyLondon, decided to test it out for herself. Here's what she found:
I visited my local Aldi to see if I could also do a £5 weekly shop with different items. The food I ended up adding to my basket was enough for seven dinners for one person. The meal plan started with baked beans (23p - one big tin split between two days) on baked potatoes (19p each) with crispy leaf salad (57p).
On Wednesday and Thursday I planned to eat pasta (a bag of penne was 35p) with stir in sauce (65p - one jar split between two days) and the remainder of the salad as a side. The most expensive food item was a bag of frozen chicken goujons for £1.25.
I planned to eat the chicken goujons with garden peas (21p) and home-made carrot chips (29p for a big bag of carrots) on Saturday and a 66p pepperoni pizza on Sunday. That left just about enough to pay for a 36p loaf of bread.
So I managed to cover dinner - but what about lunch? I could perhaps have toast for breakfast but did not have enough money left for butter so would need to rely on already having some in the fridge. No matter how careful I was, the items in my basket added up quickly and the meals were small.
It was also difficult to ensure I had some protein in my diet: if I added fresh meat to the basket half of my budget was already gone. The cheapest items were mostly carbs: potatoes, pasta, pizza. It was practically impossible to get a well-rounded weekly shop for under a fiver, even in Aldi, but I was impressed with just how much I could get.
