June 2017 Grocery Challenge

Good morning lovely people xx

Quick question if I may?

Do you count the odd bottle of wine/beer in with your groceries

Xx

First shop of the month

Aldi - £73.06

armchairexpert wrote: »

I'd love to know how you manage it, Amanda! I'm making every meal for all four of us out of our budget; Mr Expert and I both take lunch rather than buy it, and the girls have packed lunches of course. I shop at Aldi as much as possible, I buy meat at the butcher which is better quality and about the same price, I do my vegetable shopping at the grocer's and change meal plans if I find bargains, we have veg meals at least twice a week, I try and bake for school lunches where possible, and the meat I buy tends to be cheap cuts. This week I bought 500g lamb mince for a moussaka with homegrown eggplant, a roasting chicken that will do for two meals and some sausages. I put pulses in a lot of things, so I bulk out bolognese with red lentils, make cuban pork with black beans, make lamb stew with leftover roasts and add pearl barley...

I do still buy occasional treats, like I buy muesli bars for lunches, a 2L bottle of Coke once a week and a bottle of nice cordial, and Mr Expert buys us a bag of crisps to share maybe once a fortnight, but that's not accounting for the extra $200 on its own!

If anything above jumps out at you that I could improve I would be super, super grateful.

I shop the specials, and then work out a meal plan with what I've bought unless I have quite a bit in then I'll splurge on a big joint of meat which we'll get 2 meals out of.
Generally I buy 2 meals of mince, a chicken meal, something like homemade pizzas or burgers, a roast - depending whats on special , now the weather is getting cool I've started making soups and a couple of leftover meals.
I don't buy juice or cordial unless its a special occasion, the boys have a milo in the mornings then it's plain milk or water (there was a time I refused to buy milo and only gave them cocoa)
Hubby likes coke but that comes out of his wages not the grocery budget as well as my wine comes out of my wages not the grocery budget
I don't buy chips, muesli bars and snack type foods, but I do buy biscuits - cheap ones like wafers, milk arrowroot, gingernuts and one of the women I follow on Instagram said she makes a rule of never buy fruit and veg over $3 kg - that's a bit hard here in the west but I've capped mine at $5 kg
We also have a little veggie patch which helps
Pancakes on the weekend as a 'treat' but cheap as chips
I also make everything from scratch as hubby is lactose and gluten intolerant and my 2 little boys are sensitive to artificial colours and like you I bake cakes/slices. I do buy ice cream every week as a treat but its only ever the plain home brand vanilla and they don't complain as long as there is some 100's and 1000's to go on top :rotfl:
Sometimes I get lucky with reduced meats and I'll stock up.
Aldi has been great! we finally got it here in Perth last year and its helped drive prices down at the other big 2 supermarkets
Sorry I've gone on a bit, hope that helps

amandaatnumber7 wrote: »

I shop the specials, and then work out a meal plan with what I've bought unless I have quite a bit in then I'll splurge on a big joint of meat which we'll get 2 meals out of.
Generally I buy 2 meals of mince, a chicken meal, something like homemade pizzas or burgers, a roast - depending whats on special , now the weather is getting cool I've started making soups and a couple of leftover meals.
I don't buy juice or cordial unless its a special occasion, the boys have a milo in the mornings then it's plain milk or water (there was a time I refused to buy milo and only gave them cocoa)
Hubby likes coke but that comes out of his wages not the grocery budget as well as my wine comes out of my wages not the grocery budget
I don't buy chips, muesli bars and snack type foods, but I do buy biscuits - cheap ones like wafers, milk arrowroot, gingernuts and one of the women I follow on Instagram said she makes a rule of never buy fruit and veg over $3 kg - that's a bit hard here in the west but I've capped mine at $5 kg
We also have a little veggie patch which helps
Pancakes on the weekend as a 'treat' but cheap as chips
I also make everything from scratch as hubby is lactose and gluten intolerant and my 2 little boys are sensitive to artificial colours and like you I bake cakes/slices. I do buy ice cream every week as a treat but its only ever the plain home brand vanilla and they don't complain as long as there is some 100's and 1000's to go on top :rotfl:
Sometimes I get lucky with reduced meats and I'll stock up.
Aldi has been great! we finally got it here in Perth last year and its helped drive prices down at the other big 2 supermarkets
Sorry I've gone on a bit, hope that helps

Well it does, and I'm very grateful, but I'm still mystified because the differences I can spot don't come to much. I do similar meals, and I only shop seasonal veg, that sort of thing. I think I'm going to spend this month tracking the grocery budget and breaking it down into categories so I can see how much we really are spending on processed foods. It might be an eye opener! Thanks so much for taking the time.

Kittencat wrote: »

Good morning lovely people xx

Quick question if I may?

Do you count the odd bottle of wine/beer in with your groceries

Xx

I think some people do and some don't. I don't as I have a regular order of a case of wine that arrives every other month so it's something I've already planned in. Some people just have a separate booze budget. It's whatever works for you.

I've started off the month with a supermarket delivery of £44.50 as I needed to get some ready meals and bits and bobs for my lovely MIL to make life easy for her as she is looking after our 4 year old while we go to the Lakes for the weekend. This will be our first weekend away without him so it'll be lovely and strange at the same time!