Mid-Week Dinners Basket: Save Up to $10 by Shopping Smart

A trolley of mid-week dinner basics shouldn't cost the earth. Pasta bolognese, a stir-fry, a quick rice dish, the kind of meals you cook on autopilot after work. But even for a straightforward basket like this, the price gap between stores is wider than you'd expect.

We priced 13 items across Coles, Woolies, Aldi and IGA. Here's what we found.

What the whole basket costs at each store

If you did every bit of this shop at a single store, here's what you'd pay:

• Aldi: $63.93
• Coles: $67.19
• Woolies: $68.50
• IGA: $71.46

Aldi wins outright as the cheapest single-store option. The gap between Aldi and IGA is $7.53, which isn't massive but it's not nothing either, that's a couple of extra dinners over the course of a month.

Coles and Woolies are close, separated by only $1.31. If you're already loyal to one of them, there's no compelling reason to swap just for this basket.

The cherry-pick figure, buying each item at whichever store has it cheapest, lands at $53.57. That's $10.36 less than the best single-store price (Aldi). We'll get to whether that saving is actually worth chasing.

Where the biggest price gaps are

A few items in this basket have a genuinely interesting price story.

Beef mince (1 kg) is the biggest-ticket protein here, and Aldi has it for $4.99. That's a solid price for a kilo of mince that'll easily feed a family of four in a bolognese or cottage pie. If you're buying mince at IGA or a full-price supermarket without checking the shelf first, you could easily be paying a dollar or two more per kilo without realising it.

Chicken breast fillets (1 kg) come in at $7.19 at Aldi. Chicken breast prices bounce around a lot between stores and week to week, so this one is worth checking every time rather than assuming any single store is always cheapest.

Olive oil (500 ml) is $8.99 at Aldi, and it's the item most likely to blow out your bill if you grab it without thinking at IGA. Condiments and oils are where supermarkets quietly make their margin, and the variance across stores on a 500 ml olive oil can genuinely be $3 to $5. Worth keeping an eye on.

Pasta sauce napoletana (500 g) is $1.69 at Aldi. That's cheap. If you use jarred pasta sauce regularly, stocking up a few jars when you're already at Aldi makes sense.

Where the prices are pretty much the same

Not everything has a wild price swing. A few items are close enough across stores that it's not worth stressing over.

Garlic (3 pack) is cheapest at Coles for $1.25, but this kind of item rarely varies by more than a few cents at the big two. It's not going to make or break your shop.

Soy sauce (250 ml) is $1.90 at Coles. Again, soy sauce is soy sauce, the price difference across stores on a standard 250 ml bottle is usually small. Buy it wherever you already are.

Penne (500 g x2) is $0.90 per pack at Woolies. Own-brand pasta at any of the major chains tends to sit in a similar range, so if you're at Coles and the price is a few cents different, don't lose sleep over it.

The fresh veg is where IGA surprises. Brown onions (1 kg) at $0.88, carrots (1 kg) at $0.49 and zucchini (500 g) at $1.00 are all cheapest at IGA this week. That's not always the case, IGA pricing varies a lot by location, but it's a reminder that IGA isn't automatically the expensive option on every item.

Is cherry-picking across stores actually worth it?

Honestly, for most people, no.

The total cherry-pick saving is $10.36 versus buying everything at Aldi. To get that saving, you'd need to split your shop across at least three stores: Aldi for the proteins, oils and pasta sauce, Woolies for the penne, and IGA for the onions, carrots, zucchini and mushrooms.

If you live near all three and you're already driving past them, that might work. But if cherry-picking means an extra 20-minute round trip and parking at a second or third store, the maths don't really hold up. Your time and fuel have value too.

The more realistic win here is a two-store approach. Grab your proteins, dry goods and olive oil at Aldi, then pick up fresh veg at whichever of the other stores you pass on the way home. You won't capture the full $10.36 saving, but you'll likely cut $6 to $8 off the Aldi total without much extra effort.

Cup mushrooms (500 g) are cheapest at IGA at $5.90, and mushrooms are one of those items where freshness and size matter as much as price. If you're not happy with what's on the shelf, a slightly higher price at Coles or Woolies for better quality is a fair trade.

Who should shop where

If you're feeding a family of four or more, Aldi is the clear starting point for this basket. The proteins alone, mince and chicken, represent meaningful savings, and those are the items you're buying the most of. Build your Aldi list around the proteins, oils, pantry staples and dairy, then supplement fresh produce wherever's convenient.

For singles or couples cooking for two, the calculus is a bit different. You might only need 500 g of mince instead of a kilo, and the absolute dollar savings compress accordingly. In that case, the convenience of a single Coles or Woolies shop might genuinely be worth the small premium. The difference between Coles and Aldi on this basket is $3.26, less than a coffee.

If you're close to an IGA and you buy a lot of fresh veg, it's worth checking your local store's pricing on produce each week. This basket shows IGA beating everyone on carrots, zucchini and onions, but that can flip depending on the store and the week.

Budget-conscious households who don't mind a bit of planning will do best with the Aldi-plus-one-other-store approach. Everyone else should just pick the store that's most convenient and check the Cuugo comparison before buying the olive oil.