£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

quintwins

I have really dry skin so I do need a good moisturiser and a none drying soap/face wash, but that's doesn't mean an expensive one.

Best thing you can do for your skin after lots of water is spf every day (even in winter)

I just like those expensive moisturisers that smell lovely and completely disappear into your skin, I switch brands alot tho. I've used the lidl one before, the day cream isn't my fav, it doesn't sit well under makeup on my skin but the night cream is really good!

XSpender

I like Aldi facial care but since I only use face wash and moisturiser I can't comment on the rest

I struggle every month to come in on or under my food budget so feel free to ignore any of my comments :rotfl: This month (5 weeks) we spent £435 excluding takeaways and booze on food for 2 adults all week and a 7 year old breakfast and all weekend meals , toiletries, laundry and cleaning, food for a dog and bits like shoe laces and hair dye.

At the beginning of the year I could easily spend £600 - £700 month as I wasn't really careful about my spending. I aspire to £70/week including any takeaways but excluding booze so am still working on it.

What has helped me reduce my spending was splitting it into categories including food for meals, snacks, dog food, toiletries, cleaning, laundry, booze, takeaway, food bought or lunch at work so that I can see where I am spending too much. It highlighted for us we overspent on snacks/crisps and DH can spend £40 in a week at work if he doesn't take lunch in with him. My actual grocery shopping was at an acceptable level. Like you I shop at a mixture of Aldi and one of the big four.

Your meal plan looks like it contains some cheaper meals like omelette and dhal but I would imagine, for example, that the omelettes are served with salad or sides and the desert served with ice cream, cream or custard and that it may help you to calculate what each meal costs you to serve including all the sides. I did this for some of our meals and was shocked at what certain recipes cost to make so we still have them, just less often.

I would do the same for your breakfasts as well as the fresh fruit and seeds/nuts will make them not a cheap option. Very yummy though. This way you know exactly how much it costs to eat the way you want to and where savings can be made without changing the way you eat, maybe just some of the what you eat or the how often.

If you spent £559 this month I would suggest that £400 is not yet achievable, not until you know exactly what you buy and how much it costs. I would suggest you try and knock £5 or £10/week off and reduce it over a period of months as there is nothing as demoralising as to keep missing you target. Ask me how I know? :D

I do the Grocery Challenge on the Old Style thread every month. It helps keeps my focus and is a good source of ideas and recipes. Just don't get demoralised by some of the targets achieved by some of the regulars as I am sure they only count the milk bill in their total they are so low :rotfl:

As other posters have mentioned before A Girl Called Jack has some great recipes and the Sunshine Scones from Weezels old site are highly recommended.

Treadingonplaymobil

Good idea to split into categories XSpender, I'll do that too. It must be snacks, as we aren't doing anything fancy like nice salads with omelettes etc, they are genuinely cheap meals.

This weeks shop isn't a great representation due to treats for camping and a complete lack of household stuff required, but I currently have a basket full in MySupermarket (ready to print my list from for food shopping tonight, which will be mainly Aldi with Sainsbos top up of anything I can't get there). Total stands at around £72 (hard to be precise as doesn't do a good Aldi shopping basket for comparison) and will only get us through until Tuesday, which is divided roughly as follows:

£17 evening meals

£17 breakfasts (this surprises me, but does include a £6 big bottle of maple syrup for pancakes while camping. One DC has eggs every morning)

£26 snacks/treats (including fruit - some of which gets used for breakfasts too - and extra treats for camping. I would expect this to be much lower in a normal week but will be an interesting one to watch)

£11 baking ingredients (this includes butter, which gets used a lot for toast etc too, as well as usual flour/sugar etc)

Obviously if snacks are that high every week, we've found the culprit, but I'm sure they won't be.

Menu plan consists of toast/eggs/porridge/fruit and yoghurt for breakfasts, wraps with cheese, homemade veggie quiche and similar picnicky bits for lunch, and dinners are baked potatoes with cheese, macaroni cheese, soup and bread, picnic dinner, tinned mackerel puttanesca.

Treadingonplaymobil

Cleaning products etc - I use Method all surface cleaning spray for kitchen/bathroom as most others make me sneeze (open to cheaper non-allergenic suggestions!) and diluted zoflora for cleaning toilet and occasional proper cleans of kitchen floor etc. Splash of toilet cleaner down the toilet most days, occasional bleach to clean dishclothes (a bottle lasts a few weeks). Aldi own brand laundry powder, no softener, occasional stain remover but only every 6 months or so. Bottle of carpet shampoo every six months or so. No furtniture polish/window cleaner/air freshener/other random household cleaners as I am allergic to so many.

quintwins

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Good idea to split into categories XSpender, I'll do that too. It must be snacks, as we aren't doing anything fancy like nice salads with omelettes etc, they are genuinely cheap meals.

This weeks shop isn't a great representation due to treats for camping and a complete lack of household stuff required, but I currently have a basket full in MySupermarket (ready to print my list from for food shopping tonight, which will be mainly Aldi with Sainsbos top up of anything I can't get there). Total stands at around £72 (hard to be precise as doesn't do a good Aldi shopping basket for comparison) and will only get us through until Tuesday, which is divided roughly as follows:

£17 evening meals

£17 breakfasts (this surprises me, but does include a £6 big bottle of maple syrup for pancakes while camping. One DC has eggs every morning)

£26 snacks/treats (including fruit - some of which gets used for breakfasts too - and extra treats for camping. I would expect this to be much lower in a normal week but will be an interesting one to watch)

£11 baking ingredients (this includes butter, which gets used a lot for toast etc too, as well as usual flour/sugar etc)

Obviously if snacks are that high every week, we've found the culprit, but I'm sure they won't be.

Menu plan consists of toast/eggs/porridge/fruit and yoghurt for breakfasts, wraps with cheese, homemade veggie quiche and similar picnicky bits for lunch, and dinners are baked potatoes with cheese, macaroni cheese, soup and bread, picnic dinner, tinned mackerel puttanesca.

That doesn't sound too bad, if you did a similar shop every week without the maple syrup you would come in on budget. Butter is a big one for me, I did alot of reading about marge when I was losing weight and now I can't face eating it. Oh and lidl do a really nice maple syrup so I bet Aldi will have a similar one....I love maple syrup

Treadingonplaymobil

quintwins wrote: »

That doesn't sound too bad, if you did a similar shop every week without the maple syrup you would come in on budget. Butter is a big one for me, I did alot of reading about marge when I was losing weight and now I can't face eating it. Oh and lidl do a really nice maple syrup so I bet Aldi will have a similar one....I love maple syrup

Yeah, but this will only get me through until Tuesday! Today is Thursday...

Maybe it will come in miles under the mysupermarket estimate. Will report back!

quintwins

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Yeah, but this will only get me through until Tuesday! Today is Thursday...

Yeah but you won't be camping every week so you never know...the real question is will you go to the shop and really only spend £72.

Treadingonplaymobil

quintwins wrote: »

Yeah but you won't be camping every week so you never know...the real question is will you go to the shop and really only spend £72.

Good point. Well, it will be an interesting experiment. My diary is about to become a very boring round up of food shopping lists and menu plans :rotfl:

Treadingonplaymobil

Skincare: I must be the only person underwhelmed with The Ordinary. I didn't try loads of products though. The retinoid was ok, not amazing. Hated the moisturiser, really bobbly, and couldn't see a scrap of difference with the HA. On the other hand, I love NIOD (parent company) copper amino isolate (cheaper one, not the £130 job), my skin is visibly better when I use it consistently, and I believe the long term theory. I have however found a lovely moisturiser that suits me really well from a brand called Mizon which isn't too expensive, so I might try a couple more of their products next time I need to stock up.

edited to add: I am mid thirties, but look a bit older - have fine lines and some pigmentation. I blame the three DC and too much time outdoors without sunscreen in my younger days!

warby68

Right ladies, can you please stop with the skincare brands :rotfl:Its making me google and want to try new things when I was quite happy with my Liz Earle.

I'm MUCH older than you ToPM and moved to slightly better quality products a couple of years ago. I know this isn't an OTT brand price-wise and the products last but it is boring using the same stuff.

This isn't in my grocery shopping BTW.

Oh, and husband has started craftily using the moisturiser - I'm really not sure he's worth it although clearly he thinks he is. Just got to get him to use a tiny bit not a great dollop, and no its not just like aftersun !