April 2022 Grocery Challenge

Pinwheel

£400

Hello

Please may I join?  I haven't taken part in the grocery challenge for over 10 years but I'm hoping it will help me stick to my budget as it used to.  There will be 4 of us for most of this month, 2 adults and 2 teenagers as well as our dog and I would like £400 please.  I could do with reducing this but I will see how I get on.  Our month runs from tomorrow.

Thank you

Smoosh

I'm going to stick with £200 for now. That's for 2 adults, a dog and a cat. It includes cleaning products, toiletries and cat litter. It doesn't include alcohol (I don't really drink) or takeaways. 

We may be welcoming a new furry family member in the next week so I may up the budget by £20, but we'll see how it goes for now!

Our month runs from 25th-25th.

otb666

I will try for 600 failed last month we went £25 over,3 adults, 1 tortoise We have agreed to no takeaways this month so hopefully better this month. Already spent 139 on butchers and Asda but they had the coffee we like on offer So bought 3 will last us the month.

atrixa

Please put me down for £135.

My month runs from 25th March to 26th April so I've already spent £75.98 on a big Mr T order for my meal plan. This is for a single active female, doesn't include eating out, alcohol or sports nutrition.

Smoosh

I have quite a few spends to declare already!

We needed some bits over the weekend, so OH spent £3 on 4 litres of fizzy drink, then £3.38 on butter and more fizzy drink, £1.49 on coffee pods and £1.59 on milk.

Yesterday I spent 75p on a loaf of bread (YS - 21p) and 4 pain au chocolat (YS - 54p).

Today we did the weekly shop. First shop we spent £16.30 on 6 litres of fizzy drink, 1 litre of juice, lemon juice, 4 pints of milk, 10 coffee pods, a box of cereal bars, 50 food bags, 200 cotton pads, 750g fries, a garlic baguette, 4 cheese rolls, a bag of grated mozzarella, 2 salmon fillets and 500g yoghurt.

Next shop we spent £14.85 on 4 litres of fizzy drink, a Chinese curry (YS - £1.03), a gnocchi ready meal (YS - 51p), 2 beef curries with rice (YS - 99p each), lemon and herb chicken (YS - 36p), vegetable chow mein (YS - £1), 2 packs of filled pasta, a vegan "duck" wrap (YS - 29p), 400g melon (YS - 16p), fresh custard (YS - 20p), 4 chocolate hot cross buns (YS - 19p), Quorn meatballs, a breakfast sub (YS - 29p), a pack of lemon slice cakes (YS - 24p), 2 raspberry croissants (YS - 10p each), 2 regular croissants (YS - 10p for the pack) and 2 dulce de leche pastries (YS - 10p for the pack).

Pretty happy with our haul! As much as possible has gone in the freezer.

Breakfasts: OH will have the breakfast sub, then pastries or yoghurt with honey and granola/muesli for the rest of the week. I'll have pastries or toast. 

Lunches: OH has got lots of yellow sticker stuff (2x chinese curry with rice, 2 beef curries, gnocchi, cottage pie, vegan duck wrap, filled pasta and enough chicken to make 2 sandwiches), so he can take his pick from those. I've got chow mein, potato skins, filled pasta or soup.

Snacks: cake slices, melon, crisps, cereal bars.

Dinners (meal plan starting yesterday):
1. Out for dinner with friends
2. Pasta with sauce made from things in the fridge that need using (roasted peppers, tomatoes, olives and goats cheese)
3. Burgers (beef for OH, YS veggie for me) in cheesy rolls with fries
4. Filled pasta in a herb butter with garlic bread
5. Veggie meatball sub casserole (https://www.thecountrycook.net/meatball-sub-casserole/)  with sweetcorn
6. Pie for me (YS vegan steak), salmon for OH with mash (YS potatoes) and peas
7. Thai red curry with broccoli, mushrooms (YS) and Quorn chicken, served with noodles.

We have spent £41.36/£200 so far, which is not a very good start!

ragz_2

Count me in please, I played along at home last month and was under a tenner over my £400 budget, which was down from an average of £500. Though we have a LOT of stocks in. This month has 3 teens at home for school holidays, so they will be eating more (although they often only eat two meals a day on non school days as they get up so late!). We will get FSM vouchers, to make up for not having lunches at school.

£450 for April please

I will include the FSM vouchers in that, so I will only be spending £360 (unless I give them to my sister, which I did with the half term ones). Budget doesn't include alcohol (that comes from our £50 each spending budget) or cat food (separate budget). Does include basic toiletries and cleaning products. Still have a lot in the store cupboard and need to use/rotate it and I want to defrost the chest freezer before we get rid of the tall freezer (£6+ a month in electricity to store mostly bread - not worth it!) so will be eating down the stocks in there too. 

Cheery_Daff

Can I join you all please? I've been reading along for a while but never properly jumped in. Spent an average of £238 a month this year, just for two adults, but we now have a very well stocked storecupboard which I'm going to make an effort to use.

We've also been taking part in some research, and have some supermarket vouchers as part of that.

Can you put me down for £150 for the month please?

Going to try to aim for less, because we can also use the vouchers (but we've had vouchers all the other months too!) Got to use up that storecupboard though.

That budget includes toiletries, household, cleaning etc as well as booze. 

We tend to shop in @ldi, but the vouchers are for Mr M. Doesn't seem much point using them for stuff we can get cheaper in the normal place, so they tend to go more on stuff the other place doesn't do (and treats 🙄)

I've just started well by doing some batch cooking, so I now have 

4 x 2 portion bags of brown rice
4 x 2 portion bags of quinoa
2 x 2 portion bags of red lentil and pepper dhal 

all cooling ready for the freezer.

Also have a bit of rice and dhal leftover which I'll put in the fridge for the next couple of days 😊

Looking forward to taking inspiration from you all!

wannalot

Hello all

I lost control of my budget last month, and probably went over quite a bit. I’m determined to do better in April, as my budget is really tight at the moment. My energy supplier wrote to me last week telling me how much my direct debit had to increase, and it was a massive shock. I’m determined to make some savings to at least partially compensate. 

I’m also sick of spending money rather mindlessly, so I’m going to try to plan much better. With that in mind, can I take part with a budget of £160 please?. 

This is just for me, and doesn’t include eating out. And it won’t include takeaways either, since I am on a diet!

My month runs from 26/03 to 25/04, so I have already had a couple of big spends. My weekly shop last weekend was £41.90. That was from Lidl, and I got enough cold meat and cheese to see me through to the middle of the month. 

I also have a big delivery of meat coming tomorrow (mince, burgers and pork chops, enough for a few months). I ordered this last month and decided to split the cost over 3 months, so I’ll take £28.58 off of this month’s budget for that too. 

So I have £89.52 left for the month, which will be really challenging, but the freezer and fridge are full and I won’t do another biggish shop until mid-April, so I might be ok if i keep focused!

Thanks, Elsiepac for your work on this thread!

Bluegreen143

Can I go for £400 this calendar month?

This is for two adults and two small but somewhat picky kids (6 and 3). They get free school meals at school/nursery (four days a week for my 3yo, and she also gets free morning and afternoon snack provided). And yet this month I spent £400 on food and treats alone. 

So my aim is to spend the same this month but get it to stretch to cover toiletries, cleaning stuff etc. 

I do my bigger shop on a Monday, but I do a shop on a Friday too (starting shopping twice a week to reduce waste of fresh stuff and it is helping). So there are four Mondays but five Fridays this month. Really want to keep within budget 🤞🏼 

Can’t believe I used to spend about £200 a month when DD was a baby and now it’s at least double 😯

QueenJess

Lost track in March again, but I know I will have gone way over. However, the cupboards and freezer are full.

Looking for a more frugal April, so am going to go for

£300 for the month.

That covers 2 adults and 2 tiny children that eat almost as much as the adults! Includes all food, cleaning stuff, toiletries etc. Eating out comes from another pot although it’s rare we do that and we never get takeaways.