Finances & Money

One Week $40 ALDI Meal Plan

Save HUGE money on groceries by shopping at ALDI. That’s the perception pushed by the grocery chain stocked with off-brand products and thought to be true by many who shop there. If you’ve never shopped at an ALDI, you might wonder just how inexpensively one might be able to buy a week’s worth of groceries at ALDI. I decided to find out.

How low of a grocery bill is achievable at ALDI has many variables such as a number of people, what you’re willing to eat to lower your bill, as well as your food preferences. The goal of this exercise is to create a grocery list for a single person for a bare bones meal plan that creates a middle of the road meal plan; not necessarily skimping by, but not culinary works of art either. Additionally, snacks are not addressed. The goal here is primarily to expose some of the prices at ALDI, and let readers decide how they compare to where they shop now.

The Meal Plan

With that in mind, here is the meal plan I came up with for three meals a day for one week:

Breakfast:

• Cereal with milk
• Waffles

Note: Alternate the two items between days, with a banana and orange juice

Lunch:

• Canned Soup
• Turkey Lunch Meat Sandwiches with Strawberries

Note: I’m not really picky about lunches, and could eat the same thing every day. This meal plan has sandwiches each day, with canned soup for one of the days. Also, many of the dinner meals would have left-overs, which could also be used for lunch.

Dinner:

• Baked chicken thigh with sweet corn and instant mashed potatoes
• Tacos
• Hamburger’s with chips
• 4 Meat Pizza
• Spaghetti with meat sauce
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Leftover cleanup

Note: As mentioned under Lunch, many of these meals would have leftovers that could also be used for the next day’s lunch.  In my house, we also have one day each week where we clean the fridge of all leftovers for dinner.

ALDI Shopping List

To execute this meal plan, my grocery list would include the following:

• Countryside Creamery Tastes Like Butter Spread $1.19
• Chef’s Cupboard Chicken Sausage Gumbo $1.29
• Kirkwood Chicken Thighs (1.74 pounds) $4.23
• Ground Beef 73/27 Beef Chub (3 pounds) $7.49
• Season’s Choice Frozen Corn $0.95
• 1 Pound Bananas $0.44
• 1 Pound Strawberries $1.49
• White Bread $0.85
• Aunt Maple’s Pancake Syrup $1.34
• Daily Basic’s Ketchup $0.88
• Breakfast Best Waffles $1.19
• Mama Cozzi’s 4 Meat Pizza $2.29
• Friendly Farm’s 1% Milk $1.67
• Nature’s Nectar Orange Juice $2.35
• Happy Farms Mexican shredded cheese $2.69
• Crispy Oats Cereal $1.49
• Reggans Spaghetti $1.39
• Reggans Meat Pasta Sauce $0.99
• Casa Mamita Taco Seasoning $0.35
• Casa Mamita Crunchy Taco Shells $0.89
• Macaroni and Cheese $0.26
• Lunch Mate Honey Smoked Turkey $2.49
• Idahoan Instant Mashed Potatoes $0.85
• Potato Chips $1.49

Total: $40.54

This meal plan from ALDI is fairly representative of what my family eats. We do add in some additional fruits and vegetables and like to make one extra special meal each week, but if we were looking to save money on groceries, our meal plan would look much like this.

What do you think Clever Friends, do you shop at ALDI?

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Brock Kernin

Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children,  Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.