April 2018 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the congrats posts

I have struggled in April with my budget. What with the school hols, my hol and illness (falling down the stairs and taking 10 days to recover), I just haven't been able to focus on the GC as much as usual. Haven't spent since Saturday though, and not planning on spending until Sunday now, unless my mum wants to visit a sm when she's up on Saturday. Then, hope to keep it to under £20 each for the two remaining Saturdays in April.

PG x

PipneyJane

PipneyJane wrote: »

I!!!8217;ve got 3 spends to declare, starting with £13.48 in MrT!!!8217;s mid-week, which includes £6 spent on tins of chopped tomatoes. They had their 4-6 monthly, 4 cans for £1 offer on, so I stocked up. We use 6-8 cans a month and are just finishing off the last purchase. I!!!8217;d have bought them in March but DH argued that they weren!!!8217;t the same, only backing down when took a tin out of our pantry and showed him the label.

The second shop was £8.99 in Costco where we bought a tray of Chicken Enchiladas for dinner. (We popped in on the way home, getting back just in time for DH to watch the Liverpool-Manchester City match.)

Final shop was Lidl, yesterday, where we spent £8.03 mainly on Bratwurst, bacon - still have yet to find any Lidl cooking bacon - and the largest aubergines we could find. The aubergines were 49p each. I use them as low calorie padding for minced beef meals (microwave for 10 minutes, scoop out the pulp, chop and add to your chilli/Bolognese, etc). They!!!8217;re currently being zapped and will make their way into the freezer shortly.

Anyway, the above brings our current spend to £38.74/£120, leaving £81.26 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

Good evening all

I!!!8217;ve got 7 spends to declare, including hitting the motherlode of YS cheese at MrT!!!8217;s! Cathedral City Mature Cheddar for 92p a 450g pack. I didn!!!8217;t take it all - there were maybe 10 packets - just two packets (one is now in the freezer). Nearly a kilo of cheese for less than £2. :money: The rest of our shopping was a mixture of trips to the farm shop for eggs and veg, and random supermarket spends, which add up to £35.67.

The above brings our total spend to £74.41/£120, leaving £45.59 for the remainder of the calendar month. The freezer is looking a little bare - I need to visit the butcher at some point soon (separate budget) - but we don!!!8217;t have a lot on the main shopping list, so it should stretch to the end of the month.

Apologies, I!!!8217;m several days behind on reading the thread, so I!!!8217;m bound to have missed some news. I hope everyone who was poorly is feeling better and that life is looking up for all of you.

- Pip

PS: Congratulations PennyGrabber!

cw18

Got a really bad case of the munchies yesterday evening, so went for a wander around the local shops looking for something

Ended up spending £4.96, taking my total spend for the month to £109.36 / £100

A1di - 46p on 2 reduced to clear wholemeals loaves (23p instead of 47p each, dated today). I had 4 slices for toast this morning, and (after finishing off my yoghurt with muesli tomorrow) the rest is enough to have toast every morning I'm at home for the rest of the month (away for 3 breakfasts). Eating from stocks the last couple of weeks means I actually have freezer space to be able to do this

Icel@nd - 50p on 2 steak slices dated yesterday (rtc, should have been £1) also in freezer, £1.50 on 400g extra lean mince dated tomorrow (rtc, should have been £3) that I'm going to use to make a meal for one day with at least another 4 portions for the freezer, and £1.50 on 2 litres of raspberry ripple ice-cream to try and curb the munchies for a few days.

P0undstretcher - £1 on a large bag of salt & vinegar flavour savouries (which I plan to take to London with me - need the carbs )

pamsdish

Another £21.13 in Aldi, wanted salad makings, few bits for the dog, had to buy a bag of compost as so far behind anything was needed.

frugalish

Morning all! (Although, at 04.42am I'm hoping to go back to sleep before proper morning!! :eek:)

A few spends yesterday - I don't have the exact totals (I'm in bed and not getting up yet! ) but there was approximately £16 in Mr T and £6.60 in H&B on 2 for 1 lavender oil in their penny sale for my laundry gloop.

The Mr T spend included 3 for 2 on their £4 chickens, so three chickens in the freezer for £8, which I'm pleased with! We don't have roast chicken enough... But we will for the rest of this month!

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to find sustainable cotton buds (either wooden or cardboard)? I'm down to my very last one of the nasty plastic ones, and every time I use one I think of the fact it's going to outlive me by hundreds of years! :eek::eek::eek:

Hope you all slept better than me I'll update my sig in the "proper" morning!
Have a good day all!

elsiepac

frugalish wrote: »

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to find sustainable cotton buds (either wooden or cardboard)? I'm down to my very last one of the nasty plastic ones, and every time I use one I think of the fact it's going to outlive me by hundreds of years! :eek::eek::eek:

I woke up briefly at 4am too! Weird!

Re cotton buds, Ocado/Waitrose do waitrose own brand baby cotton buds which are paper not plastic.

pamsdish

Another £10.20 needed tonic water and some y.s. items.

Matron_Midge

Declaring for April at £557.85/£400.
Sounds like a massive overspend but I'm only £14 over on my annual budget and we have just had a break in Scotland where I provided several meals for 16 people. I'm reasonably happy but will need a frugal May to get me back to my happy place.
See you on the May thread!

elsiepac

Hi all

Just to let you know the new GC will be going up tonight - apologies for the slight delay those of you who start early.

JingsMyBucket

frugalish wrote: »

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to find sustainable cotton buds (either wooden or cardboard)? I'm down to my very last one of the nasty plastic ones, and every time I use one I think of the fact it's going to outlive me by hundreds of years! :eek::eek::eek:

I was going to suggest this one http://www.boots.com/johnsons-baby-cotton-buds-1-x-200-drum-10002499 from Johnson & Johnson. They're called Q-Tips in the US (same parent company). Then I realized the ones in the UK are made of plastic while the American ones are made from paper. And then I remembered why I usually buy a huge amount whenever I go back home to New York each summer! I prefer the American ones as the sticks are paper and the cotton on the ends is much thicker and more generous.

Here are the American ones: https://www.target.com/bp/q-tips