April 2022 Grocery Challenge

Bluegreen143

Today’s planned meals:

B - kids had porridge, I had cereal

L - pesto pasta for me with raw veg and maybe some toasted pine nuts 

S - made Monkey up a little tub of raw crunchy veg, handful of cheap tortilla chips and grated cheese for school; for after school I’m thinking peanut butter toast & fruit 

D - butter chicken (with the griddled tikka chicken served separately from the sauce for the kids), rice, HM naans, broccoli 

SausageDogSandwich

Hiya, could I please join the challenge this month? There are 2 Adults, 3 children and two sausage dog children here 

My budget is £217 for the month please. 

This is from 1st April to 29th April and will cover all meals for everyone, excluding dog food as I buy it in bulk every 4 months, but includes dog treats, cleaning supplies and all food and drink.

I’ve been following this challenge for quite a few months and always try and stick within my budget in my budget book, but I know I sometimes let things slip through as “it doesn’t count” or something like that. I need to keep track of every penny spent, as like everyone else my bills have gone through the roof and I don’t have control over much other than my grocery bill. My husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm with keeping track of money so it will be great to chat to you all. 

Thank you for running the thread and hope it’s okay that I join. 

Smoosh

SausageDogSandwich said:

Hiya, could I please join the challenge this month? There are 2 Adults, 3 children and two sausage dog children here 

My budget is £217 for the month please. 

This is from 1st April to 29th April and will cover all meals for everyone, excluding dog food as I buy it in bulk every 4 months, but includes dog treats, cleaning supplies and all food and drink.

I’ve been following this challenge for quite a few months and always try and stick within my budget in my budget book, but I know I sometimes let things slip through as “it doesn’t count” or something like that. I need to keep track of every penny spent, as like everyone else my bills have gone through the roof and I don’t have control over much other than my grocery bill. My husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm with keeping track of money so it will be great to chat to you all. 

Thank you for running the thread and hope it’s okay that I join. 

Welcome! This is a great thread ☺️ I am a sausage dog mama too! 

Bluegreen143

@SausageDogSandwich I need tips from you! My budget is nearly double, I have one less child and no dogs… this is the month I tackle this as I’ve been spending FAR too much!

SausageDogSandwich

Smoosh said:

Welcome! This is a great thread ☺️ I am a sausage dog mama too! 

Thank you ☺️ What sort do you have? 

Bluegreen143 said:

@SausageDogSandwich I need tips from you! My budget is nearly double, I have one less child and no dogs… this is the month I tackle this as I’ve been spending FAR too much!

Good luck with your budget this month, you can do this 🙂🙂 I don’t feel like I have many great tips unfortunately! ..Apart from staying away from the shops means not spending. 
 Breakfast is almost always own brand cereal, lunch is cheese/egg/salad sandwich with fruit and cucumber/carrot sticks and usually Hm flapjack/muffin/cake. Dinner/Tea is a bit boring, always jackets with beans one day, a pasta dish once or twice a week with veg, then things like cottage pie, chilli, curry, sweet and sour, stir fry, stew and usually something from the freezer like pizza or fish fingers on Fridays 😅

We have cut down on meat massively as we could only afford the cheaper stuff anyway, using a lot more lentils and meat substitutes now. Buy fresh meat when ys and freeze. And eating more pasta/potato makes things cheaper. 

Luckily my children eat anything that is put in front of them. I also have unmanaged Crohn’s disease that I’ve been waiting for surgery for, when I’m having a flare up, which is a lot of the time now, I can only tolerate noodles/rice/white bread which also makes things bit cheaper 😅 

Did not mean to waffle on so long, sorry! 

Finally, tea tonight is chilli con carne made with lentils, chickpeas and red kidney beans with rice. Just the rice for me! 

Smoosh

SausageDogSandwich said:

Smoosh said:

Welcome! This is a great thread ☺️ I am a sausage dog mama too! 

Thank you ☺️ What sort do you have? 

Bluegreen143 said:

@SausageDogSandwich I need tips from you! My budget is nearly double, I have one less child and no dogs… this is the month I tackle this as I’ve been spending FAR too much!

Good luck with your budget this month, you can do this 🙂🙂 I don’t feel like I have many great tips unfortunately! ..Apart from staying away from the shops means not spending. 
 Breakfast is almost always own brand cereal, lunch is cheese/egg/salad sandwich with fruit and cucumber/carrot sticks and usually Hm flapjack/muffin/cake. Dinner/Tea is a bit boring, always jackets with beans one day, a pasta dish once or twice a week with veg, then things like cottage pie, chilli, curry, sweet and sour, stir fry, stew and usually something from the freezer like pizza or fish fingers on Fridays 😅

We have cut down on meat massively as we could only afford the cheaper stuff anyway, using a lot more lentils and meat substitutes now. Buy fresh meat when ys and freeze. And eating more pasta/potato makes things cheaper. 

Luckily my children eat anything that is put in front of them. I also have unmanaged Crohn’s disease that I’ve been waiting for surgery for, when I’m having a flare up, which is a lot of the time now, I can only tolerate noodles/rice/white bread which also makes things bit cheaper 😅 

Did not mean to waffle on so long, sorry! 

Finally, tea tonight is chilli con carne made with lentils, chickpeas and red kidney beans with rice. Just the rice for me! 

We have a miniature long haired red boy ☺️ How about you?


In grocery related news, we are doing well today - everything we've eaten so far has been YS 😂 Tonight's dinner will be veggie meatball sub casserole as there's cream cheese that needs using up. Followed by a crumble from the freezer (can't remember what fruit it is!) with the YS custard we picked up yesterday 😋

Love reading everyone's meal plans, it's very motivational ☺️

atrixa

£11.55 spent in Mr S this morning as I wanted some spices from the world food aisle. I got a Berry Fruit Salad for my breakfast for a change and it was £2.25! Bit of buyers remorse there. The only fruit I buy normally is bananas as they're cheap. I prefer berries, really but they're eye-wateringly expensive. I might try growing some of my own next year.

Running total now £87.53/£135.

joedenise

@atrixa - have you tried frozen berries?  You can get quite a big bag of mixed berries for a couple of pounds which will do for quite a few meals, especially with a dollop of yoghurt, cream or ice cream.

_Moving_On_Up_

Hi all!

Can I please be put down for £435 for the month please.

This is for all food, groceries, alcohol and takeaways for 2 adults and 2 kids and also food for our dog who is raw fed

Thanks 

Pinwheel

Hello

I just did my first shop of the month at L*dl and spent £43.14.  I can't get everything I need in there so I will be spending more in the next few days.  I also used a £10 voucher on my L*dl plus app which was good.

Have a good evening