October 2016 Grocery Challenge

XSpender · 2 October 2016 at 7:44AM

Another spend of £26.26 to report from Mr T last night. £8.00 on beer for DH, £1.00 on lettuce to replace the one I got in my last shop that has become frozen in the fridge, £5.00 on ice lollies for the month (the only desert we buy), £4.55 on snacks as DH bought some beef jerky he thought was 99p and it went through as £2.65:eek: and the rest on fruit, cheese and potatoes.

My total is now £103.45 which is just over the £100 I am aiming for and over the £80 stretch budget. The challenge now is to not spend anything on food between today and next weekend.

Meal plan is:

Roast chicken dinner
Enchiladas, wedges and salad
Taco Tuesday - veggie and chickpea filling
Curried rice with mangetout (lean in 15)
Jacket potatoes, baked beans and cheese
Chicken and potato hash with spinach and egg (lean in 15)

Lauralozzle · 2 October 2016 at 11:21AM

Yesterday was a NSD! Hopefully today will be too as Tom is doing overtime. I imagine spends will happen at some point though this week as we need salad/sandwich stuff.

BeTheChange · 2 October 2016 at 11:43AM

My spend so far this month is £43.11/£250. The meals are sorted for the week but I may need to get a few lunchbox bits midweek as some items have been snaffled as snacks and I will need more bread for sandwiches.

I am doing a weekly online shop and so far I am finding this a much better way to control my spending and meal planning. Before I used to do a big shop at the beginning of the month and then do top ups but I found that I was wasting food and spending a lot on impromptu meals.

Weekly planning and shopping seems less onerous and gives me much greater flexibility. I can swap the meals around in the week and anything that doesn't get used (DD may decide to go to her dads or a friends for tea) get's rolled in to the next week and I just remove a meal from that weeks shop. Also now that DS is at Uni I find when I cook a meal I can often freeze a couple of portions thus stretching things further.

mrs_Badger · 2 October 2016 at 12:26PM

£55 spent today in Lidls and Co-op for the week. Loads of veg, nuts, dog tins, fish, in Lidl, and then GF bread and soya milk in co-op.

ScotinLondon · 2 October 2016 at 12:48PM

Fresh fruit & veg from aldi & local grocers, eggs, milk and black beans from Morrs - total £24.62 spent yesterday. All good for the coming week and a bit.

Have a good rest of the day all.

SIL

LesP50 · 2 October 2016 at 3:21PM

No spend yesterday but 4.07 in Ald1 today, that should be everything until the end of the week.

Sayschezza · 2 October 2016 at 5:02PM

BeTheChange wrote: »

I am doing a weekly online shop and so far I am finding this a much better way to control my spending and meal planning. Before I used to do a big shop at the beginning of the month and then do top ups but I found that I was wasting food and spending a lot on impromptu meals.

Weekly planning and shopping seems less onerous and gives me much greater flexibility. I can swap the meals around in the week and anything that doesn't get used (DD may decide to go to her dads or a friends for tea) get's rolled in to the next week and I just remove a meal from that weeks shop. Also now that DS is at Uni I find when I cook a meal I can often freeze a couple of portions thus stretching things further.

This is how I used to do it in the old days before freezers. Think this is maybe the way to go as with only 2 of us in the house its easy to buy too much when shopping for the month.

mrs_motivated · 2 October 2016 at 6:42PM

Hi everyone,

Can you please put me down for £420 this month. It's for 4 adults, dinners, breakfasts and packed lunches and also includes cleaning products etc.

I went off track a little in September so I'm hoping to much better this month. I went shopping today and spent £81/420

Good luck everyone

Slowly57 · 2 October 2016 at 7:20PM

£27.00 in M+S - YS minced beef included - that made 3 hearty cottage pies with veg; some bread that did lunch, side for tea and will get used up for supper; YS fruity chicken curry meal; 2 jars of sauce that will do another 4 meals; sandwich stuff for next week and 3 sorts of fruit for lunches/breakfast next week. I think I can prolly go without a spend for a good while now - freezer and fridge full to bursting.

Not ordering from farm this week (a first!).

Hope everyone is feeling positive - big love for anyone feeling wobbly xx

freyasmum · 2 October 2016 at 8:24PM

Well I ended up not updating very much through September. We've just been so busy, but we have been keeping the spending diary up! We are at £841.74/£3650. Definitely ahead of the budget, but that does include today's shop of £49.56 for the week.

I genuinely think that it was the berries that were pushing our budget up. At some points we had up to 6 cartons in the fridge and OH was taking loads to work. I totally agree with him when he's happy to spend the money because we are eating well - lots of fresh meat and veggies, with plenty of fruit - and he doesn't want to skimp and eat unhealthily. However, if we keep spending at the rate we have the past two months, we'll be spending £4753 rather than £3650 :eek: I'd rather use the extra £1k for a holiday!

We spent £49.56 this afternoon in Aldi and ended up with the rest of the components to make 1 batch bolognese, 1 batch spanish chicken, 1 nice big shepherd's pie with swede topping, 1 lot Italian meatballs and 1 toad in the hole. Which will give us enough for 28 main meals.

And obviously things for packed lunches and fruit for snacks. We didn't purchase any berries. The last few lot just haven't lasted either, which was an awful waste.

We still have plenty of gammon steaks, chicken, 4 steaks, 2 wagyu burgers, 2 smoked haddock fillets, 1 fish in sauce, 3 portions chicken fried rice, 1 ratatouille and plenty of veggies and frozen fruits.

I am still planning to make some crab apple jelly with my daughter. We just need to pick the apples first!

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October 2016 Grocery Challenge

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