April 2024 Grocery Challenge

Mrs_Cheshire

Top up shop to last a few days yesterday in L!dl - spent £29.26. Quite pleased as I got 4 bags of food. I've managed to get 2 bags from ol!o the last couple of days. One was a bag of loose pastries along with 2 batons (which were quickly turned into garlic bread to go with our evening meal). The pastries have been bagged up into suitable family sized portions and I'll freeze some.  The other was some frozen produce (sausage rolls, chicken slices, minced beef & onion pies) enough for 5 meals for the 5 of us. They have been bagged and put in the freezer. 

Just working on the meal plan for the week. It'll loosely be 
Chinese marinated chicken drumsticks with vegetable rice
sausage pizza puff pastry (puff pastry sheet with pizza sauce, chopped cooked sausages, vegetables and grated cheese, I usually use pesto for an base but don't have any and have pizza sauce to use up). I'll served with fried new potatoes and some salad veg. 
pies with mash
chicken pasta bake 
bacon, egg, hash browns and beans
fish and new potatoes with veg. 

This should use quite a bit from the freezer and stores and mean we only need to buy some veg and maybe a jar of pasta sauce alongside the usual dairy products, bread, fruit etc this week. 

  

ancientmum

I have been away for a few days, the holiday was full board so the only thing left to pay was my drinks bill, paid out of the holiday budget.  Back home I spent £13.77 at Sains, £2.50 at Aldi and £2.00 at the veg stall.  I'm hoping that is all for now until next month as I'm going to see family at the weekend and there is food in the freezer.  It is unusual for me to be away so much and it is lovely to be getting about, seeing friends and family, although the travel budget is taking a bit of a bashing, it is what it's there for.

Soontobeoap

Glad you are enjoying getting out and meeting people @ ancientmum.


I am holding my hands up to more spends today. I feel guilty but in my defence out of the £20.90 spent in Sainsburys £12.00 was spent on Kenko coffee on offer (i have read that prices are going to increasr again soon so got a couple in) and £4.75 on their home brand non bio washing powder. (Aldis is a slightly lower price but doesnt smell as nice)

£37.59 spent at Aldi. I went in with a small list but they had an offer of 70 fairy dishwasher tablets for £9 75 and a large smoked ham joint (which I will cut in half to roast for us) for £6.69

£2.00spent in poundland on my favourite shampoo and conditioner.

I am signing off for April. It has been catastrophic but I do have a lot in freezer and cupboards and May WILL BE BETTER!

I am averaging £242.08 a month and am working towards averaging £200.00 a month for the 2 of us, including all meat, bulk buys , toiletrys and cleaning stuff. 

Finstickle

Hi all,

Realised I haven't posted at all this month!  With the Easter holidays and some sickness in the house, my normal routines have been all over the place.

I planned in a CostCo visit this month so allowed an extra £200 on top of last month's £500 -

Target of £700 for April.

I won't go through all the various spends, but I have now been to CostCo this month and Musclefood last month, meaning cupboards and freezers are full, will be bale to focus more on fresh food over the next few months, as well as maybe some specialist items as we are trying to eat more sugar free at the moment.

Currently at £613/£700 with just over a week to go.

LotsOfTea

I've spent an extra £19.46 over the last couple of days in the refill shop and Aldi. I really noticed how much things have gone up when I saw that in Aldi their "special" pesto which used to be 99p only about 2 years ago is now £1.85.  It's nearly twice the price and there's so many examples of things like that isn't there?

Anyhow, I'm up to £235.36/£250 for the month but I should be fine as the most ill need is a bit of fruit between now and the end of the month.

Angelica123

Currently at £208/£250. I have had a holiday which has taken out a week of grocery. Used Hello Fresh a lot this month which isn't the greatest

navelorange1

I’ve spent £15.71 on my weekly shop yesterday bringing my total for the month to £74.31/£80. I may or may not need some potatoes/oats but looks like I will be under budget! My cat is having her dental today and the new estimate is £415-650 so I will be finishing the month in the negative despite my food budget. Oh well, I guess! Just feeling grateful that I can afford it with savings. I’m planning to make Riverford’s Orange, Chocolate and Olive Oil torte today so that should give me something to look forward to each day this week!

debtfreewannabe321

Hi all, well Thursday we start our new month so we have bought all we will for the month now. I have just gone through DP & my account and tallied up ALL spends including lots of little one by DP (total fail this month on keeping control of our little spends)and I had also added in cleaning products/ toiletries etc this month whereas before I was budgeting separately for that.
well...I will the numbers speak for themselves here....

APRIL FOOD BUDGET TOTAL: £675.12/ 500

That is a huge overspend even with holidays, adding in toiletries and cleaning stuff. Grateful I had the money and haven't had to use my EF but must do better next month!!

thriftwizard

DFW321, I feel your pain! I'm only roughly on track because I'm ignoring a huge takeaway receipt (Saturday night, the birthday/wedding anniversary, 11 of us) and a couple of "extras" like running up to W8rose & buying a second chicken for Sunday lunch when it became apparent (on Saturday evening!) that DS2, DDiL2 & DGS could join us. it was all so last-minute I didn't really have a chance to plan & cater in advance, as I normally do; I'm counting it all as "Entertainments" but otherwise I'd be about £200 over by now!

thriftwizard

Should have added - hardly anything has been spent on Entertainments since Christmas. So at £50 per month, which is what we've always allowed, that's covered it. (Phew...!)