Mum-of-two shares how she got £21 of Lidl and Greggs food for just £4

Special needs teaching assistant Sarah Straker said she relies on reduced sticker items and always checks the bargain fridges – and it pays off, as she says it’s the best way to save money

A mum-of-two has shared her trick for picking up £20 worth of groceries from Lidl and Greggs for less than £5.

Teaching assistant Sarah Straker has a number of tips for bargain hunters and scours different supermarkets for the cheapest deals.

She said: “I pick up bargains every week if they’re available and look in lots of stores. For example, I look for reduced stickers whenever possible and always check the bargain fridge in Asda . I find this is the best way to save money.

“Every week I do the rounds in B&M, Lidl, Aldi and Asda. All of my cleaning products and toiletries come from B&M, and I go to Lidl for my fruit and veg. I have found that Aldi is the cheapest place for me to pick up toilet rolls, and I get the rest in Asda.”

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Sarah told money saving community LatestDeals.co.uk she recently went to Lidl at 10am and saw bargain boxes of fruit and veg at the tills – perfect for healthy meals and snacks for her two children aged 7 and 11.

“There were loads in there and I could see the potential for making plenty of meals,” she said, “I was sold when I saw it was only £1.50.”

For that cash she got a pineapple, a box of nectarines, a box of grapes, some large tomatoes, some potatoes, a plum, a red pepper, a box of cherry tomatoes, a box of mini peppers, a bag of lemons, an orange and a box of apricots.

“As I am used to finding bargains I immediately knew this was good value for money,” she said. “I looked up the prices online later and found that for example a pineapple is usually 95p and a box of nectarines will typically cost around £1.29 in Lidl.”

“When I added up the total price estimate, bearing in mind that some of the fruit and veg was loose so I guessed the price, it came out at £9.78 which means I saved over £8.”

Some of the dishes she made with the haul include soup with tomatoes and red peppers. The grapes were used for her children’s packed lunches and everything else was used up on dinners during the week.

Sarah, from Blyth, Northumberland, added: “From time to time I will pick up groceries from the Too Good To Go app and I was also able to recently collect a magic bag from my local Greggs. For £2.59 I picked up two steak bakes, a tuna crunch baguette, a Mexican wrap, a ham and cheese baguette and a small ham sandwich.”

The steak bakes are worth £1.50 each and the baguettes were originally priced at £2.60 each so she paid the equivalent of just one baguette with this magic bag.

“In total I worked out that the haul was worth £11.80 so I saved over £9,” Straker said.

Tom Church, co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Supermarkets and restaurants are coming up with more and more ways to reduce waste and enable savvy shoppers to pick up bargains.

‘There are plenty of ways that Sarah could have used the supplies she picked up. For example, potatoes can go in meals baked, mashed, fried, boiled or roasted.

“Peppers make a great snack for kids’ lunchboxes, or they will work in cooked meals such as stir frys. Don’t be afraid to eat them once they’ve become softer and wrinkled – they’re still good, you just might want to eat them cooked instead of raw.”