$120 Food Challenge : Week 1

This is the first week of this challenge. 'Challenge' is the most suitable word for it, because I seriously cannot see how I will be able to feed my family meat and veg for under $120.

Before shopping
Before I left the house I took the book's advice and did a stock take on my fridge, freezer and pantry and worked out what else I needed to buy to feed us. The only meat I needed to buy was some chicken because I already had meat in the freezer. I also intend to use up the crumbed fish and packaged pies that were in there, along with the eggs in the fridge - they will go into a quiche. Below is my shopping list. You will see I have a list for Woolies and a separate one for Aldi with the meals list on the right.

The bill
Below is a photo of my shopping bill. I don't like everything Aldi sells, so I still insist on buying certain items at Woolies even though they are more expensive. I don't buy from the butcher usually, so decided I wouldn't start doing that until I had shopped 'normally' and set a benchmark so I could gauge the challenge. I have refused to believe meat is cheaper at the butcher, so I will be monitoring this very closely as the challenge progresses. I had to rule out the non-food items like toilettries, cleaning products, pet food, etc so the figures on the sticky note are separated. As you can see I spent more than $120 this week...and the only meat I bought was chicken!!!

The meat
The only meat I needed this week was chicken. I prefer the breast and always buy it at Aldi. Today it cost me $15.30 and weighs about 1 and 3/4kg. I didn't look at the kilo price until I got home - it was $9.49 per kg. I just happened to notice that the butcher I pass every shopping day had chicken breast for $6.99 per kg. So as of next week I will buy it there.

Lunches
I usually buy ham for the kids sandwiches, but today the silverside was cheapest, so I bought that instead...I hope they like it. Bread this week cost $5.00 for 2 loaves of wholemeal. I bought it from the bakery section of Woolies - not the branded loaves. I also bought an 8 pack of flat bread for wraps. I will grate carrot and cheese for fillings when the sandwich meat runs out.

5 things I learned this week

• chicken breast is cheaper at the butcher
• buy the sandwich meat which is on special 
• non-food items really add to your weekly shopping bill
• make home made snacks for the kids lunch boxes instead of buying expensive processed snacks
• buy generic brands when you can...they are often cheaper

XD

See the Introduction to the Food Challenge.