The 70p a head budget family meal from Aldi that even the kids lapped up

We're all looking for ways to keep costs down at the moment, especially when it comes to our rising food bills. And when it comes to feeding the family, the last thing you want is to spend money on something that gets wasted.

But when you want a substantial meal that grown ups and children will enjoy, pleasing everyone can be tricky and the budget can soon be quickly forgotten. However, eating on the cheap doesn't have to mean eating rubbish and with supermarkets competing for our custom, most are selling budget basics we can all benefit from.

I set out to make a family meal from Aldi for less than £1 a head - with at least one vegetable in there towards our five a day. The end result was a rather tasty and satisfying cottage pie which came in at an impressive 71 pence per head.

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We headed to budget retailer Aldi with a shopping list of all the ingredients needed to make the family favourite. The only extras we added from the cupboard were the cooking oil and the salt and pepper.

Altogether the ingredients cost £7.60, but that was for the entire packs of products, including stock cubes, gravy, Worcestershire sauce and thyme, all of which would be used in many further meals. I didn't even use all the potatoes or carrots, I only used two small onions from the 1kg bag and there was around two thirds of the full block of butter left over.

Admittedly I went for the cheapest options on everything, but who cares what wonky shapes your potatoes and carrots come in when they're being chopped up into pieces anyway. Apart from the odd sticky out bit on the carrots, they weren't actually that wonky at all.

And the potatoes were surprisingly