The recent period has prompted many to pay more attention to the shopping budget. If you want to shop at one of the Lidl stores, it’s good to know that you can plan in advance both your budget and the list of products you want to put in your basket. You can use the Lidl Plus app to do this, and we wanted to see how online planning helps you shop offline in two different situations.

I split my shopping into two parts: a basket of regular products that I buy almost every week, and an unplanned basket that I called the ‘let’s see what’s in Lidl this week’ basket.

Lidl runs weekly promotions on a wide range of food and non-food products, and by simply scanning the Lidl Plus digital loyalty card at the till, all customers can enjoy extra benefits. The offers available in the app come in the form of discounts and promotions, and you can also find out which products you buy the most by using the search option in the “digital vouchers” section.

I started by installing the Lidl Plus app, created an account, selected my store on the map where I usually shop and started browsing the weekly brochure and coupons for the deals available.

After a quick mental list, I checked the app to find the best time to shop and headed to Lidl.

Here are the products I bought and how much the offers in the brochures and coupons in the Lidl Plus app reduced my total spend.

A regular grocery cart

I’ll start the calculations with a regular grocery cart. The first stop was directly at Lidl Market, where we bought vegetables and fruits. I threw in half price potatoes, carrots, cherry tomatoes and lettuce, yellow onions and some fruit.

The next stop was the cold section, where I bought a chicken breast, beef, where I came across a promotion that I remembered from the weekly brochure and activated a discount coupon in the Lidl Plus app for pork salami and beef.

In the basket there could not be oil, flour and rice. On the way to the dairy, I also threw a pack of coffee into the basket, along with a pack of sugar.

Still thinking about coffee, I also put milk in the basket, and in the same area I also bought yogurt and telemea on offer. I finished my shopping with a can of water and chocolate and went to the checkout.

From the list of 20 products, 12 were at regular price, and 8 had various discounts – from 14% to 50%.

I came to the checkout, loaded the products onto the conveyor, scanned the card from the Lidl Plus app and “piu”, the final price of the basket was 193.61 lei – thanks to the promotions I followed in the brochure available in the app and the offers I activated in Coupons section. I also calculated what the price of a basket of regular products would be without discounts: 217 lei.

The difference of 23.39 lei means a decrease of about 10.8%.

The ‘let’s see what’s in Lidl this week’ basket.

You’ve probably walked into Lidl at least once without a specific purpose. I also did a calculation for a basket which I called ‘let’s see what’s in Lidl this week’ with both regular items and a few things I don’t buy that often.

I made a quick stop at the fruits and vegetables section where I picked up some cherry tomatoes, some green apples and two bell peppers. Also in the food category I also threw in the basket a loaf of bread, a packet of pork leg, two boxes of frozen veg with butter which I had activated and a 20% off coupon available on the Lidl Plus app, some beef sausage, a packet of parmesan cheese and two sleds in the morning quickly.

When I saw in the brochure on the Lidl Plus app that there was a luxury week coming up, I picked up some flavored olive oil, a packet of spinach tortelloni and some Roquefort cheese. I ended up combining all three – great.

Since it’s Lent, I also put some vegan items in the basket: dairy-free chocolate, two vegan yogurts, a liter of soy milk, some vegan bars and out of pure curiosity I also tried a veggie alternative to feta. Finally, I topped it off with a jar of olive anchovy paste for fish weekend.

Without thinking twice, I also picked up the pliers set that I had been looking for for a long time, activated the 2+1 coupon for several cleaning bags, and added a regular price room freshener to my cart.

I ended up adding two bottles of wine, a visit to the Lidl bakery and a few handfuls of holiday candy.

The final price of the basket was 243.84 lei with all the discounts I tracked in the brochure available at Lidl Plus and the offers I activated in the Coupons section.

I also calculated what the price of the basket would be without discounts: 264.46 lei.

If I saved almost 11% on a basket with ordinary products, I managed to save about 9.2% on unusual purchases.

During the two purchases, I tried to put myself in two different situations. I planned a basket of regular products from home and added a few extra products on site.

An unplanned basket, I opened the Lidl Plus app on the way to the store and ran through what caught my eye, then used the app among the Lidl shelves.

Better planning can get you an even bigger discount at checkout.

In addition, on the two-year anniversary of Lidl Plus, Lidl updates the mobile application and offers active users a section of exclusive offers and discounts on a series of services and products from the portfolio of partners such as Vodafone Romania, Regina Maria, Dr. Max, Optiblu, DinoParc or Electric Castle.

However, it should be noted that both in-app partners and their offers are constantly updated and provided for a limited period of time and within the available discount codes for purchases, personalized packages and additional discounts.

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