Pub Night In for Under $70: Best Prices at Each Store

Friday night. You don't want to fight traffic to a pub, pay $35 for a steak and $12 for a pint, and then wait 45 minutes for a table. A pub night at home fixes all of that. Steak on the grill, a bowl of frozen chips, a proper garden salad, garlic bread, and a cold one from the fridge. The question is where you shop for it.

We priced an 11-item pub night in basket across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and IGA this week. The spread was almost $38 between the dearest and the cheapest single store. That's before you even think about splitting the run.

What the Pub Night In Basket Costs at Each Store

Full basket, everything in the trolley at one store:

• Coles: $98.65
• Woolworths: $100.66
• Aldi: $67.64 (one item not available)
• IGA: $62.38 (one item not available)

Woolies comes in dearest at $100.66. IGA is surprisingly the cheapest single-store option at $62.38, though you'd be shopping without one item. Aldi is close behind at $67.64. Coles sits in the middle and, honestly, doesn't do much to justify the gap.

If you cherry-pick the best price on every item from whichever store is cheapest, you're looking at $70.68. That's a saving of $27.97 against the full Woolworths shop. Whether it's worth two trips is a different question, and we'll get to it.

One thing worth knowing before we break down the items: beef and veal prices in Australia have recorded their steepest rise in the year to early 2026, according to ABS data tracked by CheckRate. That context matters when you look at how much the steak drags this basket around.

Where the Big Savings Are on This Basket

Scotch fillet steak (500 g) is where the money is. Aldi has it at $8.00, which is a substantial gap below both Coles and Woolies. Steak is the anchor item in this basket, it's the most expensive single line, and the gap between what Aldi charges and what the major two chains charge is real. If you only make one detour this week, the steak is the reason.

Beer (24 pack) is the other eye-opener. IGA has it at $5.00, which is where the IGA total gets so low so fast. For context, a 24-pack at the majors is typically much more. The catch is that IGA doesn't carry every item in this basket, so you're not doing a complete shop there either way.

Tomatoes (1 kg) and iceberg lettuce both come in cheapest at Aldi, at $0.63 and $1.79 respectively. Salad veg is where Aldi consistently outperforms, and this basket is no different. If you're doing a big salad as a side, Aldi saves you money on almost every element of it.

Garlic bread is $2.09 at Aldi. Aioli is $1.99 at Aldi. Tomato sauce is $1.75 at Aldi. Those three pantry and fridge items are all Aldi wins, and they add up faster than you'd expect.

Where the Prices Are Basically the Same

A few items don't move much between stores, and they're not worth agonising over.

Cucumber (500 g) is cheapest at Coles at $2.25, but it won't differ dramatically elsewhere. Steak seasoning (100 g) is cheapest at Woolies at $2.00 and Coles will be close. Red onion is $0.63 at Woolies, and again not something worth crossing town for.

Frozen chips (1.5 kg) come in cheapest at Woolies at $2.75. That's a genuine Woolies win in a basket where the majors are otherwise struggling to compete. If you're already passing a Woolies, grab the chips and seasoning there, the saving on those two items alone versus Aldi is minor, but combined with the steak you might already be picking up there it could tip you into deciding the detour makes sense.

Is the Cherry-Pick Worth It?

The honest answer: it depends on how you shop and where you live.

The theoretical cherry-pick total is $70.68, versus $67.64 for a full Aldi shop (missing one item) or $62.38 for a full IGA shop (also missing one item). The cherry-pick saving over the cheapest complete-basket option, Aldi, is only $3.04. That's not nothing, but it's almost certainly not worth two separate trips if they're not close together.

The smarter version of the cherry-pick for most people is this: shop Aldi for the steak, produce, garlic bread and aioli, then grab the beer from IGA if there's one nearby. Those two stops cover the biggest price gaps in the basket without you running around to four different carparks.

If the only Aldi near you is out of your way, Coles at $98.65 is your realistic alternative, and you're paying a $31 premium over Aldi for the convenience of one stop. That's the honest cost of not having an Aldi nearby.

Who Should Shop Where

Couples or small households doing a Friday night splurge: Aldi is the clear call. The steak, the salad, the garlic bread, the aioli, all cheapest there. Add frozen chips from Woolies if you're passing one and you'll barely notice the detour.

Families with a bigger appetite who need more quantity: the per-unit price advantage at Aldi grows as you scale up. Two steaks instead of one, extra chips, more salad veg, that gap between Aldi and the majors widens.

Anyone who does most of their weekly shop at Coles or Woolies anyway: don't stress too hard about it. The $30-odd premium for one-stop shopping at the majors is real, but if you're already there doing the weekly shop it's not worth a second trip just for the pub night basket. Grab the steak at Aldi if it's on your route, and call it done.

IGA shoppers: the $5.00 beer price is genuinely good, and if IGA carries the rest of what you need locally, their total is competitive. Just check the availability before you go, the basket as built comes up one item short there.

The steak is still the thing. In a basket where beef prices are running hot, saving $8 or more on a 500 g scotch fillet matters more than shaving 40 cents off the tomatoes.