April 2022 Grocery Challenge

Greying_Pilgrim

mumtoomany said:

Hi @Greying_Pilgrim, can I come and shop near you please. Just looked at Aldi website, scamp is £1.99 for 250 gms! 

Ah, I have to confess mumtoomany - the scampi I am referring to is not......wholetail scampi? is that the premium one?  Wh1tby seefoods do several versions, and HB sell one version for 99p.  

So I'm coming on to confess a frankly eye-watering spend of £19.84 - most of which was not actual food! 🙁£8.99 was actual edible things, eg bananas, mung beans, black eye beans, eggs, sandwich pickle (savers version), honey and squash.  The rest was split between medicines, vitamins and a couple of non-food-like items - actually stationery!  If things get tight, I may have to claw back the stationery costs from a refund that has turned up from my mobile phone provider, but as of today, the only cash I have is the grocery budget, so it got hammered 🙁 The beans were part of a long-running ktc promo that (some) MrM's are running.  2 x 1kg brick packs of pulses for £3.50, which is cheaper even that the local-ish world foods shop.  Our local MrM's doesn't have a world food section, so we were in a different town across the way, but made sure our trip involved getting 'all the things' to make the trip worthwhile.  The squash (drink) was a special offer in Her0n 2 x 1ltr bottles (d3l m0nt3) for £1.

For lunch we had HM soup for us/cheese sandwiches for LG, followed by a slice of HM cake each, as we had missed out on elevenses. 

I'm away to lie-down in a darkened room to contemplate mung bean recipes 28 ways...............

Greying X

GreenCat80

I wasn’t sure if I should join in as I failed so badly last month, but I’m here, I need to be as there is no room to blow it this month 😬

My budget is £550 for the month which has to cover 4 humans, and 3 cats. The cats and my sons pull ups are non negotiable so that leaves us about £15 per day to feed us and buy any cleaning stuff and toiletries etc. I’m aiming to come in under budget so I can clear my debts this month, if I can feed us for £10 per day I should be able to pay off my last debts. It sounds doable doesn’t it?!

Pinwheel

Hello

I have some spends to report.  £47.26 in total between C**p, W***rose, the refill shop and the local egg farm.  My budget covers all food, cleaning products (I make most of my own but not WU liquid or dishwasher tablets) dog food and alcohol.

I'm hoping I won't need to buy anything else until at least Wednesday 🤞.

Enjoy your weekends!

Soontobeoap

@ariarnia. Definitely doable. Especially if you put together a few meals with leftovers from the freezer. I am not the best one to advise as I am still trying to get my spending down but there are some amazing people on here who will help you work your magic on the food budget. 😉. Good luck.

kacie

GreenCat80 said:

I wasn’t sure if I should join in as I failed so badly last month, but I’m here, I need to be as there is no room to blow it this month 😬

My budget is £550 for the month which has to cover 4 humans, and 3 cats. The cats and my sons pull ups are non negotiable so that leaves us about £15 per day to feed us and buy any cleaning stuff and toiletries etc. I’m aiming to come in under budget so I can clear my debts this month, if I can feed us for £10 per day I should be able to pay off my last debts. It sounds doable doesn’t it?!

Can you write a list of meals all the family enjoy? See how many that is and work out shopping around that

ragz_2

Afternoon all. 
Yesterday spent £21.01 at MrT. £18 on Easter eggs (which I may take out of another budget if I can decide which one), cat treats (70p) and 4 big YeoValley whole milk cartons which were YS at 77p each. Froze 2, 1 in the fridge.

I had planned to do an online shop this weekend with MrA as I got the FSM vouchers and they work online there. But DH had to take DS1 to one of the towns so I tagged along and we did the food shopping in MrT and Aldo (made the 30 mile round trip feel more useful!). Discovered brown rice is 46p/kg more expensive in MrT than Aldo (after I bought a 2kg bag in MrT) so I really need to keep a price book as clearly my brain can't be trusted.
£14.57 in MrT (2 loaves of GF bread for DH plus tins that I couldn't trust to be in stock in Aldo but actually were). 
£60.11 in Aldo. 

£105.68/450.

K9sandFelines

I'm not sure what system to do this month, as I am having to do the 13th to the 12th of the following month, but I forgot this, and went and waited til April the 1st instead of starting on 13th of March.

My head has been all over the place.

I am now drawing cash out and using that only. Just because my income has fell drastically., and obviously everything has gone up.
I've been averaging £170 a month these past two months, so I'm gonna try and drop that even more to £160 a month; but theoretically I'm trying to get it much lower.

scotdebsV2

I need to get back to this Budget  for APRIL £450
this is for 2 adults and 2 teenagers I know this will seem very generous budget to some but I know we are spending WAY over that at the moment So if I can get close to that it will be a good start. First shop of the month today £80.26 at l@dl and £17.45 at m+s

&97.71/£450

GreenCat80

@scotdebsV2 I too feel like £450 should be a very generous budget, but its only £1.25 per meal per person, it is definitely possible but it’s not easy. Good luck ☺️

Greying_Pilgrim

Curry plate turned out to be Sweet potato Jalfrezi, lentil dhal & rice.  Dessert was some chopped red grapes (MrL 99p a punnet) with natural yoghurt.

Don't know if anyone is interested, but the sweet potato jalfrezi recipe was originally from the Meat Free Monday book.  I can't find the actual recipe online, but if you want to know what was 'in' the original recipe, then look HERE.  If you want to make it, and achieve a close approximation, then THIS recipe is really quite close (and based on the MFM recipe).  Just to add, I don't routinely add cauliflower to my version, and have never added mango (and it's still a delish curry), and I don't think I have added courgette (Molly's recipe) either.  But it certainly provides options.  I did put cauli in this version, simply because I had some small frozen pieces in the bottom of the bag to use up, so shoved them in.  If you are interested in making your own Jalfrezi spice, Molly's recipe has a version, or I use the JO version from his 'Ministry of Food' book - find HERE (scroll down to the second spice paste on the list).

I'm going to make a small amendment to next week's meal plan.  We were going to have veggie balls, sauce & pasta.  I'm subbing veggie burgers and chips instead.  Time's going to be tight on Friday, and I have everything but the baps, so they are on Thursday's shopping list now. 

Greying X