April Grocery Challenge

mentaljessie

My little boy will only eat the gourmet gold tins ( he has peridontal disease and his gums bleed, mouth sore etc) these cost me a fortune at £3.48 for 12 85g tins but he eats them and he would starve himself if he didn't eat them i tried previously to wean him on to tins but he wasn't having it. Only trouble is now he has to be supervised when eating it or his sisters will pinch it. I do try new brands but for the time being he's happy with what he's got.

Curry_Queen

DaisyNelson wrote:

I agree you shouldn't make the moggies suffer. I buy mine Hill's Science diet. I buy the 10 kg bag, online and get free delivery. This is obviously an expensive food, but none of it ever goes to waste.

Hi Daisy

I also feed my cats Hills diets (and occasionally James WellBeloved for variety) and get free delivery online, but I don't agree that it's expensive compared to feeding tinned meat.

I worked out that it rougly costs me £1.75 a week to feed my 2 adult cats with Hills diet. Now if I was feeding them say Whiskas (400g tin @ approx 50p each) plus extra biscuits for their teeth, it would end up costing me roughly £5 a week for both of them, and you can double that cost if you use the foil packs!

So, not only is Hill's a hell of a lot cheaper to feed, but is also a much healthier option for most cats

loobyloo1980

I tried doing the March challenge but kind of went by the wayside when other half did a lot of overtime and so things weren't quite as tight on the pocket. But we are now in week 2 of 3 flat wage weeks so need to get back on budget after relaxing a little (didn't do too badly, just overspent last week on alcohol and fresh meat at market).

So my April budget is £45 a week for 2 adults and 2 kids (inc. nappies & baby sundries).

Will get off to a good start really as I have a freezer full of meat from last months pennies :-))

Shopping this week will be tiny.

loobyloo1980

katiepops wrote:

Omega, have you tried the Tesco's own brand nappies in the purple packs? They do the massive packs (effectively 2 packs in 1 with 50+ nappies in each pack) at 2 for £14. We've been using them for ages (for Ethan, not for us! ) - they are so much better than Pampers or Huggies in my opinion.

The one thing I do really like about them compared to Pampers or Huggies is that the tapes are really stretchy, so unlike Pampers where you are going up a size every time the little one puts on a pound, these ones fit for ages because of the tapes.

Kate

I use these nappies too - definately agree they are more stretchy. sainsburys ones are ok too - lovely duck pattern that my boy adores. Morrisons are good too, but I don't get out there much.

moggins

Quandry - due to a bit of disorganisation I had to take the cash to pay the chimney sweep out of my grocery money (which I keep in cash in a second purse), that has left me with £110 for the rest of the month.

Now do I see if I can go the rest of the month on £110 or do I take what is owed to me from the savings account where the sweeps money should have come from?

Janeryan

See if you can get by-if not you know you have the chimmney sweep money there to fall back on-if you don't use it you could put it in your PIN money!

crazyhazy

well my april challenge started last pay day the 18th March and our aim was to £120 for the month for food/cleaning stuff. This is for 2 adults and includes most of our lunches to take to work. So far with 2 weeks to go we have spent £86.68 which is a bit more then I had hoped at this stage but we do have lots of stuff in the freezer so will probably only need to do small shops between now and next pay day. So, am hopeful we will still come in under £120, am planning to reduce this a little next month and see how we get on, any extra left is going straight into my pin money challenge, which is going really well.

wisewoman

Hi!

Don't know if I'm putting this in the right place, but I'd like to share one of my favourite money-saving recipes: stovies. Potatoes, onions, leftover roast beef and gravy, or a tin of corned beef...and one tbsp of olive oil. Slice 2-4 onions; cut the rough parts off the potatoes, then slice with skins on, if they're not really thick; put the olive oil in your biggest pot at a low heat, add the onions, stir, add the potatoes,stir. Check after a few minutes, stir some more, and only if really necessary add the tiniest amount of water. After about an hour of slow cooking, add your beef,chopped up, or stay vegetarian. Stir. Serve a lovely big dollop with baked beans, or an oatcake, and a glass of milk. Delicious Scottish fare, adaptable for 4 to 24, and with lidl's pots at just over £1 for 7.5 kgs this week, and corned beef at 2 for a £1 at farmfoods, you're serving food of the gods, at economy prices. Enjoy.

moneywasternomore!

DaisyNelson wrote:

I agree you shouldn't make the moggies suffer. I buy mine Hill's Science diet. I buy the 10 kg bag, online and get free delivery.

Our moggies also have science Diet but - being new to this money-saving lark - we buy from the vets down the road. Which site do you use, and do they do the obesity-control for the very fat cat. Of course, we would have to have one barrel and one racing snake.........

Swattie

wisewoman wrote:

Hi!

Don't know if I'm putting this in the right place, but I'd like to share one of my favourite money-saving recipes: stovies. Potatoes, onions, leftover roast beef and gravy, or a tin of corned beef...and one tbsp of olive oil. Slice 2-4 onions; cut the rough parts off the potatoes, then slice with skins on, if they're not really thick; put the olive oil in your biggest pot at a low heat, add the onions, stir, add the potatoes,stir. Check after a few minutes, stir some more, and only if really necessary add the tiniest amount of water. After about an hour of slow cooking, add your beef,chopped up, or stay vegetarian. Stir. Serve a lovely big dollop with baked beans, or an oatcake, and a glass of milk. Delicious Scottish fare, adaptable for 4 to 24, and with lidl's pots at just over £1 for 7.5 kgs this week, and corned beef at 2 for a £1 at farmfoods, you're serving food of the gods, at economy prices. Enjoy.

I have a similar corned-beef recipe - but add cooked carrots and an egg, shape them into flat rounds (burger shaped), coat in flour, and fry them - we call them rissoles. Makes enough for 2-3 meals.

Serve with any veg.