September 2017 Grocery Challenge

njk1012 · 3 September 2017 at 6:23PM

a spend of £2.21 today on reduced items this included, 3 loafs of bread, 2 packs of donuts, 5 packs of cooked chicken for sandwiches, a GF ready meal, 6 organic bananas and 2 packs of cherrys. Signature updated.

FurryBeastOz · 3 September 2017 at 8:20PM

Coxy could you change my annual budget to £3,500 please.

PipneyJane · 3 September 2017 at 8:33PM

Evening all

Today was our first spends of the month: £5.20 for desperately needed onions, carrots, potatoes and broccoli at the Farm Shop and £7.90 at Mr T's (yogurts, Sunday paper, a tortilla for lunch and something to nibble on before we got home - I was starving). That brings us to £13.10/£120 with £106.90 remaining.

I'm not happy about the spend in Mr T's. Yes, we needed yoghurt and the paper, but I could have planned lunch and made it from stores, rather than buy something, and I shouldn't have shopped while hungry. Oldest mistakes in the book. Still, live and learn...

Cassox · 3 September 2017 at 9:15PM

Hi I am a newbie to this. Don't know if I'm posting this in right thread. Due to mounting debts I am in a position of needing to be a lot more savvy with my shopping. My pet food unfortunately I cannot get below £20 due to certain prescriptive items so I need some help and guidance with making the best out of what's left.
My neares Aldi and Lidl are 6-8 miles away so are not always that easy to get to on a regular basis.
Anyway my budget has to cover not only food but all household and toiletry items so my starting budget was goibpng to be £30 but I think I have already failed miserably.
I shopped today at my local Morrisons. My bill came to £25.65 with very little to show. Still need to buy meat and salad.

Items
Pack if 9 toilet rolls. £2.80
Toilet wipes. £0.78
2 x washing up liquid. £1.00
2x pot noodle. £1.00
2x soups. £0.90
Fruit. £4.22
Yoghurts. £2.00
Choc mousse x6. £1.00
Tub Philadelphia. £1.00
Milk. £1.50
4 x tins tuna. £4.00. Should have been £3.50 was overcharged
Tin sweet corn. £0.38
Uncle beds rice. £1.00
Savers loaf. £0.36
Crisps. £1.00
Biscuits/bars. £2.09
Magazine. £0.67

I think this was a disaster. Please feel free to comment. Dissect etc

Thanks

Cherry_Burton · 3 September 2017 at 9:27PM

Hi

I was hoping for a NSD today but forgot to buy toilet roll from ALDI yesterday - Drat

£9.27/£100

MB

[Deleted User] · 4 September 2017 at 12:35AM

Cassox wrote: »

Hi I am a newbie to this. Don't know if I'm posting this in right thread. Due to mounting debts I am in a position of needing to be a lot more savvy with my shopping. Anyway my budget has to cover not only food but all household and toiletry items so my starting budget was goibpng to be £30 but I think I have already failed miserably.
I shopped today at my local Morrisons. My bill came to £25.65 with very little to show. Still need to buy meat and salad.
Items
Pack if 9 toilet rolls. £2.80
Toilet wipes. £0.78
2 x washing up liquid. £1.00
2x pot noodle. £1.00
2x soups. £0.90
Fruit. £4.22
Yoghurts. £2.00
Choc mousse x6. £1.00
Tub Philadelphia. £1.00
Milk. £1.50
4 x tins tuna. £4.00. Should have been £3.50 was overcharged
Tin sweet corn. £0.38
Uncle beds rice. £1.00
Savers loaf. £0.36
Crisps. £1.00
Biscuits/bars. £2.09
Magazine. £0.67
I think this was a disaster. Please feel free to comment. Dissect etc

Not a disaster, but more snacks than meals. As your needing to drastically cut spends, I would cut out non essentials. Go through your cupboards/freezer & stocktake, then write a meal plan, using as much as you can from stores, just buying the odd thing to complete the meal. Uncle Bens ready cooked rice works out very expensive, you could always batch cook some rice and freeze, for convenience, swap Philadelphia for Morrisons savers cream cheese, way cheaper and tastes the same from what I can remember, biscuits, I buy the odd pack, normally 25/30p. I always start my shop at the fruit & veg market. I usually stock up for the week for under £10 on salad, veg and fruit, then maybe some freezer bits, veggie sausages, veggie mince/burgers etc., for lazy days, but really not more than £5 worth. You can make & freeze soup, which costs pennies. Lentils are good to add to mince, soup etc to bulk out. Once you have a good store cupboard, you will be surprised at how you can make so many things, for so little. Morrisons do vinegar for 22p, I use this for cleaning, mostly. Does the mirrors, windows and surfaces really well, they also do 1 ltr of savers disinfectant for 30p, good for cleaning the loo with savers salt. The salt can also be used as an exfoliator for your skin too. Just because you do things on a budget, doesn't mean its inferior. Anyway, just a few ideas, hope it helps.

armchairexpert · 4 September 2017 at 5:20AM

First shop of the week came to $284, total disaster. And that's without buying bread flour which will be another $20 or so I think, and we'll need coffee soon, another $15. Combination of factors: we had run out of lots of pantry basics like balsamic vinegar and baking paper and whatnot; I bought 1kg of cheap salmon fillets for a meal on Saturday but we forgot to defrost them so I went out and bought another 1/2kg of fresh ones which were far more expensive; I went a bit overboard on snacks because I shopped while hungry, but that's only about $10 - I don't really know what happened, tbh! Meal plan is a little bit more extravagant than usual, because of nice bacon for Father's Day and also it's been cold and miserable and I fancied some red meat, but...eh, I'll claw it back.

Meal plan:
Sunday lamb roast
Monday frittatta with bacon, potato, spinach, olives, roast red capsicum
Tuesday Might make the leftover lamb leg into a stew? Or laksa. Haven't decided.
Wednesday Cuban pork with black beans and rice
Thursday Tuna pasta
Friday Slow cooker lasagne

That leaves me with a meal's worth of chicken pieces, some tofu and 1kg of salmon fillets. I'm off to Costco Friday so will hopefully get enough meat to add to that and ride out the month.

pipkin71 · 4 September 2017 at 7:32AM

Cassox wrote: »

Items
Pack if 9 toilet rolls. £2.80
Toilet wipes. £0.78
2 x washing up liquid. £1.00
2x pot noodle. £1.00
2x soups. £0.90
Fruit. £4.22
Yoghurts. £2.00
Choc mousse x6. £1.00
Tub Philadelphia. £1.00
Milk. £1.50
4 x tins tuna. £4.00. Should have been £3.50 was overcharged
Tin sweet corn. £0.38
Uncle beds rice. £1.00
Savers loaf. £0.36
Crisps. £1.00
Biscuits/bars. £2.09
Magazine. £0.67

I think this was a disaster. Please feel free to comment. Dissect etc

Thanks

Hi Cassox

There doesn't appear to be much in way of meals on your shopping - more snack foods than anything. If you didn't buy the biscuits, bars, crisps and chocolate mousse, that would give you another £4.09 towards other needed items.

Then, instead of £2.00 for yoghurt, what about buying natural yoghurt instead? Much cheaper. Buying a bag of easy cook rice would work out cheaper in the long run compared to Uncle Bens.

Pot noodles aren't really a meal but if you like noodles, what about the instant noodles that are about 20p per packet? With a scrambled egg added, along with sweetcorn and chopped onion, it can be quite filling, plus cheaper.

Swap the Philadelphia to a store own brand. You will save money there as well.

With regards the magazine, it's tough when money is tight and you need something to enjoy but ask yourself if it's something you could go without for a short while, until circumstances change.

Good luck with it all and keep popping back on for support. You will soon start to see where you can make real savings on your grocery budget

Ginmonster · 4 September 2017 at 10:25AM

Went to Costco yesterday and I'm going to have to guess the amount we spent on food as hubby has already lost the receipt and we bought other things like gifts, wrapping paper, dishwasher tabs etc. that I don't count in this budget. Food-wise I got houmous, halloumi, natural yoghurt, bananas, cherry toms and a giant tub of marmite. Hubby also got some diet pepsi so I'm going to guestimate at £25. I resisted buying a huge box of macaroni cheese bites which would have filled the freezer back up to capacity. *pats self on back*

£25/£100

chocoholic_chick · 4 September 2017 at 2:08PM

I can't believe I'm back here already to report more spends

£3.50 today in Tesco's on grapes and a bag of baking potatoes

£35.04 in Asda at the weekend, £12 of this was on beer for OH, the rest I can't remember as I've lost the receipt

I've got my meal plan for the rest of the week sorted and I don't think I need anything else (famous last words!)

Total spends now £91.50

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September 2017 Grocery Challenge

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