For the past decade, Aldi had been my go-to supermarket for shopping. But I noticed in recent years that the quality of their food had gotten worse.
It was usually some combination of;
the food is going bad
the food has already gone bad
the food just doesn’t have much flavour
Now I’m a firm believe in spending money on things that matter, and cutting back on things that don’t.
And for a long time, I believed that what I was paying for at other supermarkets was largely down to the brand.
Well it turns out I was wrong.
I think the moment it hit me was when I tried some freshly grown tomatoes and thought;
I wish I could buy these from the shop.
Turns out, I was just buying low quality ones from Aldi.
Why spend more on food?
When buying better quality food, it’s not just about the brand.
Especially when you look at real, fresh ingredients like:
Tomatoes
Berries
Chicken etc.
And whilst you’d be excused for thinking a tin of tomatoes is just tomatoes, whether it costs £1 or 40p – they’re not.
The tins of cheaper food will likely be filled with other ingredients, not just tomatoes (often, less natural ingredients).
And the tomatoes will likely have been picked sooner – so they’ve not had time to develop those rich natural flavours.
So in short;
You’re paying for food that tastes better and is better for you.
How to get the most bang for your buck
But I get it; life is expensive, and the thought of spending more on food probably seems out of reach.
But there are things you can do to make it more affordable or maybe even cheaper than what you currently spend.
1. Set a food budget
First of all, set a food budget.
My wife and I have been doing this for years (we have spending pots for everything).
For a long time, we had a budget of £400 per month for a family of 4.
We’ve recently increased this to £550 because of inflation and wanting to buy better quality food.
How do we do this?
We bank with Monzo
We have our joint account
We have separate pots for everything e.g. Groceries
We top it up to £550 for the 1st of each month
When paying, we move money out of the pot into our joint account
This way we can actually track how much we’re spending on food.
But these are just good money habits.
If we went to the shop without a plan, we’d end up spending money on things we don’t need and probably not even have ingredients to make meals.
2. Create a meal plan
Honestly, this one’s a game changer – especially if you’re the kind of person who just rocks up to the shop without any real plan of what you need to buy.
Before you head to the shop, make sure you’re prepared:
Create a meal plan for the week
Put together a shopping list
Figure out what you already have
That way, you know what you need to buy, and you’re not just impulse-buying things.
My Sunday routine
Here’s how I approach it:
Sit down on Sunday morning
Create a Notion page (a digital piece of paper)
Find the recipes I want to cook for the week
List out when I’ll be eating the meals during the week
Create a shopping list with the ingredients from the recipes
Check off any ingredients I have at home
It’s that simple, now I know what I need to buy – saving time and money at the supermarket.
Plus, I know what needs to be cooked and when.
The real impact of a meal plan
I do want to emphasise a real change I noticed doing this over the past 6 months.
By meal planning the entire week:
Writing down what to eat
What day I’ll be eating it
Scheduling time into my calendar to cook
Has made a massive difference.
Before, I used to buy food for around 4 days.
By the time Friday came around, we’d be winging it, impulse buying food (or worse, buying takeaways) just to get through to Sunday for our “weekly” shop again.
To put that into perspective:
We recently bought a takeaway for a family of 4, which set us back a little over £30.
This included 2 adult meals and 1 children’s meal (shared between our girls).
So that comes to around £7.50 per person, whereas when we cook at home, it’ll cost us around £10 for all 4 (depending on what we’re cooking).
So don’t sleep on how much this can help:
Eat healthier foods
Actually, save money doing so
Food brands I’m endorsing
So with this supermarket change comes the chance to swap out different food brands.
Looking at those that contain fewer “harmful” ingredients and more natural ones instead.
Ultimately, trying to reduce the number of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in my diet.
Here’s a list of those brands:
