February 2018 Grocery Challenge

First shop of the month, used my 'Out of Milk' app to make the shopping list, which was very quick and easy; I love that you can put notes on there! So I added king prawns to my list, which are actually on offer in Aldi, so I put in the price £2.49 for 180g so I know not to buy them from anywhere else unless its the same price or less.

Went to Tesc0s, was very good until we realised we still don't have a plunger (hubbie went to three pound shops and could not find-guessing it was right in front of him, but he probably didn't 'see' it) so went to the bathroom section...where we had to walk past the krispy kreme fridge...I just wanted one doughnut. It obviously works out cheaper per doughnut if you get a dozen, so um, we got a dozen for £12.75 in total we spent £50.89, so £38.14 pre-doughnuts!). We really needed some chicken to keep us going for another week, before I can put in a musclefoods order in, but couldn't see any offers (I'm sure I used to see 3 for £10!).

Then we drove home, now, we are extremely lucky in that we have an Ald1 at the top of our road...however we still end up going to Tesc0s most of the time as the car park is less mental etc. As it was only 9.15pm we popped in to see if there were any deals on chicken-picked up the 1.8kg of chicken breasts for around £10, maybe a few pennies less and some other bits that we needed to a total of £14.20. 'Need' some pop, but are well stocked on OJ and Vimto (life is oddly weird without this!).

We shouldn't need to pop into the shops at all for at least another week, I held off in getting lamb mince and some other bits, just because we wouldn't be eating it this week and I can't justify having it take up space in the squished freezer. So total for the week is £65.09 out of £72 for the week (£290 for the month).

Just need to get some bathroom cleaner spray, which of course I forgot to put on my list! I was annoyed that I had convinced myself to go to the big Mr Ts, as a dozen free-range eggs were £2.25 and they are £1.89 in Ald1. I almost always get eggs from Ald1s, need to make some egg muffins for breakfast.. It makes me hopeful and frustrated that there are more savings to be had, because I create a barrier (more parking, less chance of killing someone in the Mr T's carpark, Ald1s too busy etc) when in reality, we just need to go there after 7/8pm in the evening and its relatively calmer. Lesson learnt for next week..

£11.22 in Aldi, needed milk as sister visiting, I don`t take milk in my coffee so use soya milk if any needed, but sister doesn`t "get on" with soya, also stocked up on lemons while in Super 6, I like 2 slices in hot water first drink so go through them, just freeze in slices, couple of other bits and bobs.

Curious to see what people do for their lunches- do you have a separate budget for this, which you offset with lunches from home where possible?

My budget only covers the food cooked at home, some months I end up taking a lot of leftovers/lunches from home and other months there are leaving lunches/reunion lunches/holiday lunches, which come out of my lunch budget.. I only recently put all 'food' categories under a food budget and was shocked when I combined home groceries, lunches, eating out. It's a flipping scary number

TooClumsy wrote: »

Curious to see what people do for their lunches- do you have a separate budget for this, which you offset with lunches from home where possible?

My budget only covers the food cooked at home, some months I end up taking a lot of leftovers/lunches from home and other months there are leaving lunches/reunion lunches/holiday lunches, which come out of my lunch budget.. I only recently put all 'food' categories under a food budget and was shocked when I combined home groceries, lunches, eating out. It's a flipping scary number

I include all food and drink eaten at home and out and about in my monthly budget of £400 for 2 adults and 3 kids (8,6,2).
I was finding it all too easy to say well we'll just pick up some sandwiches/picnic bits while we're out or we're home late, let's get a takeaway. This makes me think about it more and plan for nights when we might get home late. I'm trying to utilise my slow cooker more and plan so we have nibbly bits ready for picnics, either from leftovers or that I cook whilst the oven/cooker is on in the evening.

50.56 left
6.26 spent today, aldi - various items including ingredients for soup for an evening group I go to, my turn for the food.