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.

£2.50 cat food
£1.50 frozen chips.

Netmums have a really good recipe section, I’ve been looking at it all afternoon and I’ve seen a few things I want to try.

Now up to £135 since 26th. Chicken chasseur for dinner which takes me back to my youth!

froglet chasseur very 80s..I still love it now but the chicken needs to be cooked on the bone & classic French cookery book I used in college... the leftovers is nice with some soft cheese mixed in a bit of milk & made into a pasta bake.

Leftovers and broccoli pesto pasta was for dinner.

I’m still trying to postpone the big shop but not sure how long I can do that for.

I could probably do spaghetti and tomato sauce with bacon tomorrow night.
DH could have tomato sauce with spaghetti, no bacon.

Afternoon all need to catch up on here!
So meal planner for week was carbonara last night
Slow cooked beef and veg
Beef baguettes with wedges and slaw
Bratwurst and frittata
Tuna bake and salad
Gammon, egg and chips
Plus a freezer surprise.
It’s my food shop from this weekend so hopefully going with my friend to Doncaster market on Tuesday to get my meat .. it’s great quality and not expensive. Will post again when caught up properly it’s my evenings reading 🙂

Right....added up my spends for the last 10 days...so far £140... there's loads left that I wouldn't need to really buy anything apart from milk / nice bread till Monday
It shows that I do overspend on stuff by I would say £50 a week.
The next few days are,
W salmon fishcakes wedges & peas
T Lamb chops for DH turkey & courgette burgers for me.
F pasta with prawns & tomato & garlic bread
S Chinese style chicken with vegetable rice
S roast beef & veggies
M battered cod & new potatoes

£3.50 litre of evoo
75p garlic bread.

Think that’s £8 this week on top of my waitrose shop which is £23 a week.

So £31 this week. So far.

fluffy how do you keep your Waitrose shop so low?

I order 3 weeks food and they send me vouchers regularly because of my waitrose card.

If something’s short dated you get it free.

I make loads from scratch like curry pastes, bread, sauces, pates, Vegan cakes, onion bhajis. Things like that.

Don’t forget, I’m only feeding two adults and with your dd’s Your feeding 4 now.

We have big meals so there’s not much snacking except me having fruit.

Thanks fluffy I was thinking of reducing my weekly shops to fortnightly. I also need to get back to cooking from scratch. There’s been far too much indulgence over the last couple of years.

Don’t forget that jacket potatoes, cheese and beans is perfectly acceptable as a main meal.

Just spent £2.10 on bananas and blackberries (which were reduced from 2.20 to a pound!) so I’m technically over budget by just under £2 but I can live with it

It’s amazing how much less I’ve spent than usual over the past 2 weeks, think I’ve probably been overspending by £25 a week on average.

I’m now sitting outside school eating my blackberries as I’m early and thinking about next week’s dinners.

Potato’s 87p
Fresh chillies 29p (freezing these)
Smoked paprika 80p
Eggs £2.

I had 15% back as my halifax accounts doing morrisons cashback.

I still need a big bag of turmeric, ground coriander.

Today spent £18 in Lidl and £8 in co op on reduced bits inc a large chicken which will do dinner and lots of lunches. Today spend since 1st is £107 and cupboards are stuffed. Written a meal plan that takes us to next Friday using lots of the ingredients/freezer stuff. But I've got to start the fodmap diet once I've used this all up as my IBS is terrible at the moment.

Well it’s my shop weekend finally, I’m doing a carboot Sunday morn so will probs go shopping in the afternoon. Picked up a reduced 3cheese boule in Tesco 80p from 1.69 and a pack on Cadbury hero yoghurts for 59p (ds will probs demolish those by Sunday). Am actually quite excited to see how low I can get the bill!!

We had a chicken and chorizo traybake for dinner which was delicious.

4 ingredients
Chicken, red onions, baby potatoes and chorizo.
Spray with oil and roast.

Tomorrow is turkey mince lasagne with homemade dough balls.

Just meal planned for the week and wrote my shopping list for tomorrow. Priced up on Tesco online and came to just under £52. Need to get it for £48 in Lidl to stay on track for £50 a week average! This will be week 3 of 4 and doing alright so far I think. But I haven’t had to buy anything like toilet rolls or laundry stuff, plus I’ve been using up things in the cupboard. Gonna keep it going for June though and will be interesting to see what happens.

We have had some lovely cheap meals this week.

Traybake on Friday
Homemade pizza on Saturday
Lasagne which I made with turkey mince and half bag lentils which really bulked it up.

I also made a macaroni cheese and have enough mince left for another meal. Dh made focaccia for them to gorge on. I obviously didn’t have any as I’m on sw🙄🙄🙄

I did a good shop at Lidl but had to nip to Tesco as well.

Plan for week is
Macaroni cheese
Spaghetti bolognaise
Chicken burgers and chips and salad
Turkey mince tacos

Did my food shop yesterday aft. Spent 23 in Morrisons and 28 in farmfoods so 51 all together.
It included a 100wash persil non bio (9.99) which will last us months!! And a 12 pack of sports drinks (3.50) for ds which will last 2 weeks. I got 3 packs of cooked chicken chunks reduced to 69 p each which will do for pack up and meals.
Doner meat reduced to 69 p which will do wraps.
2packs of vegetable nuggets reduced to 50p. They have gone in freezer.
Meal planner is:
Bratwurst, jacket potato & green/yellow beans
Mixed meat wraps, with salad and wedges
Tuna bake, salad and g bread
Pork dinner
Pork stir fry
Scampi, chips and peas.

Shop came in at £52.81. So I’ve only got £45 to spend next week to stay on track. Should be ok if I’m strict!

Up to £191 but includes eurovision food and booze. Trying to keep it under £300 up to 25th

T£1.19 yesterday, bread and eggs

Now on £191 since 26th but spend for Eurovision party including booze

If anyone likes mixed kebabs.. if you see Morrison’s doner meat reduced.. get it. Fried it off for 5 mins with mushrooms and onions in garlic butter then served with salad and wrap. Was amazing and much less calories and grease than takeaway.
DH important footy match last night so tea out which means last nights tea (tuna bake) will roll on for this eve. Tiny spend yesterday as heron selling six Alpen bars for a quid.

39p lidl
£7 aldi
£3 sains
£4 Morrison
£2.50 Iceland.

So £16 plus the base cost £23 from the waitrose shop.