Anyone want to join me on a cheap food month challenge?

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We are spending about £300 a month on groceries (including cleaning/toiletries etc). Want to keep it under £200 for the next 4 weeks if possible. Only 3 of us and I’ve just done a big bulk cook for DS (4) so mainly just me and DH. To cover all meals except we are invited to 2 BBQs in May so won’t need food for those.

notreally I might get some of that and make him try it then, thanks

Nice one fluffy!

Got 2 meal’s worth of pulled pork into the freezer for a meal and a lunch later in the month tonight too, so that’s made me a bit happier about by £3.50 overspend this week! —although I am running low on cheese....

Spent £36 in Lidl and £1.50 in co op. Forgot toilet rolls though so will need to get them tomorrow. The cupboards, freezer and fridge are jam packed so have meal planned around using it up.

Today - mushy peas curry (4 portions went in the freezer)
Wednesday - chilli con carne
Thursday - spaghetti Bolognese
Friday - egg fried rice
Saturday - homity pie
Sunday - Roast dinner
Monday - homemade pizzas and chips.

Lunches for me are jacket potatoes/leftovers/salad and couscous.

Also on slimming world 😁

Iceland cheddars nice. Sometimes cheese is cheaper on the deli counter.

I buy big blocks of Waitrose smart price and freeze it in smaller blocks.

we are trying to get ours down too. We spend about 350 on 5 of us. Used to be more like 200 a year or so ago. I spent £49 in asda today, no meat and no veg, so that didnt feel great...

£15 aldi. £6 of that was cat food and dw tabs. The tabs will last 100 washes broken in half.

So, £85 so far.

Still to buy;
Organic soya milk
Powdered coriander and turmeric.

£5.51 in co op on reduced grapes, sugar snap peas, stir fry veg, toilet roll. £11 on a sack of 25kg potatoes from the greengrocer.

Currently at £55. Plenty of food in the house though.

90p on milk this morning.

That’s it so far this month.

Can I join in please?
I have tesco delivery coming tonight estimated inc delivery charge at 46.19. This is for 2 adults 1 child and includes packed lunches, deserts of yoghurt. A couple non food items also.

Had to buy 30p carton of chop tom to go with meatballs for dinner tonight as run out. Delivery not until after dinner time.

Haven't got meal plan for each day but dinners I will be able to make after delivery will be.

Roast gammon potato and veg
Pasta bolognaise and veg
Pasta and meatballs and veg
Bacon lardons and pasta and veg
Sausages with jacket spuds and veg
Chicken in breadcrumbs chips and beans
Gammon slices with brown rice and veg
Pie, jackets and veg
Another sausages meal
Stew beef potatoes and veg

I'd like to join this please. Am fairly good with food spending but could do better and sometimes slip up badly!

Meals for this week are:

Today vegetable risotto
Thursday spaghetti, pesto and tomatoes
Friday pizza with some bases I got from shit corner for 40p
Saturday sweet and sour
Sunday toad in the hole with veg
Monday katsu curry
Tuesday freezer surprise!

roast you sound like me. I’m usually quite frugal and we don’t have any food waste but if I’m not careful the bill creeps up!

£3.50 in Lidl today on kitchen roll for toddler group growing cress Tommorrow. Also picked up bin bags as they were so cheap and cheese. The cheese I buy in Tesco is £2.70 and the Lidl equivalent seemed to be £1.89!

Wish I could shop there all the time but I just don't have the time.

Ps fluffy - do dw tablets really work broken in half?

Marking my place. We desperately need to cut down our food spending! I dread to think what we spend for us three (17mo DD and husband). We have our anniversary and my birthday this month so eating out next week for anniversary and doing a big meal for my birthday that will bring up the total a bit but the rest of the time I want to be more frugal. It doesn't help that we have intolerances and allergies to think about though as that makes some basics more expensive.
We have aldi, lidl and asda all nearby so going to try do the food shop mostly at those three but can only get a few bits from morrisons and tesco so we need to try not go to those too often as they are more expensive!

Yes, unless it’s a really greasy wash going through Silver.

queen I sympathise on food intolerances the list of what I can't eat grows longer every month. I stick to alot of rice or potato based meals. I try not to buy alternatives except milk as they are generally overpriced. I also cook mostly vegan which is pretty frugal and doesn't upset my stomach.

For those making pizza my dds love 'crust pizza' which is the ends of the bread with tomato puree, mixed herbs and grated cheese. V frugal as otherwise these don't get eaten. 😁

Ooh I use vegan recipes too. Especially cakes. I’m making vegan brownies to watch the royal wedding with toasted almonds.

Tescos website does a vegan Victoria sponge which turns out well.

Well we were out for tea last night as it was a party so already budgeted for. Only bought bread and milk as extras so far (2.00) so managing to stay well under budget this week. Ds is away Friday to Monday so only me and DH, going to try and use up some of the things that have been kicking around the freezer/cupboards for ages!

nocuts I'm a vegetarian and my daughter has allergies to milk and egg, so we've been vegan for nearly a year now (only showed properly once we started weaning her!), I'm also intolerant to gluten.

I try not to buy GF bread but I do buy pasta as we love a good pasta dish, that's not too expensive. It's the fake dairy that gets us really. We need to cut down on the "cheese"! DD loves the stuff but even with limiting it we go through a couple of packs a week. I love yoghurt and have it most mornings but I hate soya yoghurt, so can't go super cheap on that (koko plain yoghurt is my usual one). We also buy fake meat products more when we're not organised, so I need to get organised and limit that to once or twice a week again! Funnily enough when we meal plan we barely have any unless we really crave a soy bolognaise!

DH is off next week so we're going to sort out our menu plan and try get some bits in the freezer next week.

queen morrisons do nice cheese for £3 nice block size too, aldi and lidl cathedral city lookie likey is about 1.50 so might be worth a look.

My shopping is done more that enough for a week at the cost of £69 including 2 bottles of wine.
Menu planned as
F. Chicken chasseur veggies & wedges
S. Pork / lamb steak new potatoes.
S. Curry out after footie.
M. Fish goujons chips & mushy peas
T. Steak n chips.
W. Chicken pasta bake (left over chasseur)
T. Crofters pie & veggies.
F. Cajun chicken roast with jackets

Lunches for the workers are jackets soups or beans on toast plus whatever chilli is living in the freezer.
Now to keep DH from the supermarket

Good weekend everyone.x

Aldi's fake cathedral city type cheese is indeed absolutely lovely, I think it's £1.59 a block and it's all we buy now.

I’m also trying to keep costs down, I recently made frittata for the first time, I was dubious as I hate omelette but had eggs to use up, it was surprisingly not too eggy, I now make it once a week to use up all the bits in the fridge such as spinach, sweet potato, peppers etc

Up to £103 now sine 26th but house full of food...nothing tomorrow and small top-up Saturday. Spag bol for tmoz already prepared so no cooking for me after work yippee!

Ratty, I can't make a frittata that doesn't taste like cardboard. My omelette on the other hand is food from the gods!!