August 2012 Grocery Challenge

Pearla*Merle

Hello! Can I play too? :j

I've been lurking for an age, but now the boyfriend and I have officially moved in together, so we really need to keep on top of groceries thanks to my virtual lack of income from being a self-employed artist (and suffering working tax credit cuts, alas!). We've been living with family for the past while, so it's been a bit hard to be in control of the groceries (and therefore join in!) as our lot have been bought along with everyone else's (Mr Merle's mum works for Sainsbobs so 10% discount - yay - but now we'll be waving that goodbye, booooo... so actually, must be extra vigilant!)

I'm going to aim for £250 this month. It's only the two of us, but with the new flat we're going to have to do some major freezer stocking & replenishing the store cupboard of essential items. We've got quite a stock of foodstuffs already though (we tend to bulk buy/take advantage of offers - which can sometimes cause havoc when living in a small 1 bed flat, but hey ho!), so with any luck we can work our way through some of that over the next month and keep the spending down. I'd rather be down at the £180-200 mark, but we'll see how it goes!

So glad to be joining you all at last! Have loved the recipes and hints & tips that appear throughout the thread, shall have to dig out some of my own to share

Caterina

I am going to attempt another NSD today, as I am going to spend the day cleaning the house, tonight DH is back from his week away and I would love to let him find a neat and tidy home. It is also bucketing down with rain so no inclination to go out and shop - I need eggs but they will have to wait till tomorrow.

Yesterday I spent £6.40 in my outing, as planned, well I was just out of budget, thought the buffet vege restaurant was still at £4.50 but it has recently gone up to £4.95, still a magnificent bargain for three types of rice, two salads, three fritters/pakoras, sauce and 4 different curries. Tap water for drink, then we treated ourselves to a Starbucks as a pudding, I had double espresso with whipped cream and caramel sauce, but because I have a Gold Starbucks card - from the time I used to use it all the time! - I only paid for a single espresso (£1.45). Going to adjust my signature to reflect the spend.

Have a good day all

GreenFairy

Spent a fortune (for me) yesterday too....haven't had two minutes to update my spreadsheet, so not sure how much exactly. Probably hit the €100 mark anyway, by the time I get to the veg man tomorrow. Mr T shop, health store shop and Asian market bulk shop done.

Am running out of far too many bulk buy items all at once. I could do with a sack of bread flour, but also am needing a box of loo roll. Both are 5 months worth. Cow share happens next month...

On the plus side, NSD today.

sonastin

Completely overshot July's budget by an amount I'm not prepared to admit to. Partly due to trying to plan for camping holiday with OH not offering any guidance as to what he'd be prepared to consume on said holiday and partly due to a visit from M-I-L and her sister which needed an emergency shop at the end of the month to get stuff to feed them.

Brought loads home from campsite and have lots left from MIL's visit so hopefully the overspend in July will translate into an underspend in August - haven't wasted much yet and don't plan to if possible. Nevertheless, I need to bring the spend back down from the budgeted amount because OH & I need to make some big savings in the next couple of months. Therefore, please put me down for a target of £180 for August please.

quintwins

nsd today so far i'm up to £18.07 out of £50 so not doing great, was hoping not to go shopping til next thur but hubbsy went abit made on the milk and bread, will hold out aslong as possible, i have a loaf on the freezer and sme uht aswell as some part baked rolls and pitta breads, and baps.

Honey_Bear

I'm a bit cross with myself because 3 days into August I have already spent 42% of my budget! Crazy. However, for that OH chose the fish he wanted to stock the freezer with from the fish market, and I've bought everything needed to have a group of friends around for dinner tonight. We'll be living on the leftovers for at least a fortnight, hopefully. Otherwise my first month as part of the Grocery Challenge will be a big fat failure!

Coxy11

My Dad is visiting today so I went with him to Sainsbods to get some goodies for lunch. Spent £13.35 on bacon x 2, fresh bread, fresh doughnuts:o, rtc bourbons and wa!kers crisps plus veg and potatoes for tea. Will cook all the potatoes - roasties for tea plus mash to freeze as we are off on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks :j

DR pork chops with ys cream and mustard sauce for tea.

Still have a whole pack of bacon left so will have sarnies for breakfast before setting off for the airport.

My total includes a mammoth £49+ transfer over to my second purse for items used this week (total slightly skewed as needed dog food and dishwasher tablets totalling £20+)

Have been uber-organised and arranged a MrT delivery for the afternoon we get back (flying overnight from US so won't feel like food shopping). This plus what I already have in the freezer/CAZCO should keep us going for most of the rest of August.

Have a good couple of weeks peeps and keep those purses shut! I look forward to catching up with all your news when I return.

Kitchenbunny

Afternoon! Thanks for the tip on doubling up vouchers on frozen food - that is something I will be doing (once the freezers have been defrosted ). I'll keep them (got until the end of the year for one of them) and use them a little later in the year.

Well, spent £1.45 today on mushrooms and some garlic granules. Thought I'd experiment with garlic granules as opposed to fresh garlic or frozen to see if the taste was vastly different. I'm going to keep an open mind. We'll be having pizzas tonight made from part-baked baguettes. You know, in spite of being given the recipe last month for baguettes I feel scared to attempt it in case it fails majorly. I must get around to trying it! :a

Welcome to the newbies - hope you can make a difference with your budgets and I can assure you (from my own experience ) the recipes at the beginning of this thread every month are really good meals

K xx

Bluegreen143

Hi everyone, wish I could say no spend day today (as planned) :rotfl:

I went to Mr M on way home from work as OH texted to say he needed cough syrup and to pick up some vodka so we could have a couple of drinks as we're not going out (different budget). Pepsi was on offer for 89p each so I got two as he drinks a lot of the stuff. Also got YS all-butter ready-rolled puff pastry for £1.10 (half price) and an individual YS steak pie, also half price at 33p, both for the freezer.

OH had already been to the shop to get a big bag of kettle chips, cocoa pops(?!), 2 bottles of coke and a prawn sandwich plus kitchen rolls and two bottles of coke (can you tell he's got a cold and felt like a treat?!) - £8.45, but I'm taking £1.49 off for the prawn sandwich as we always buy ready made sandwiches/meals out/takeaways from our personal budgets as they're treats. Actually I'm paying for the sandwich for him as I feel sorry for him but at least it's not messing up my spreadsheet :rotfl:! Total stands at £14.17 at the moment.

On a positive note, we've both still been putting £150 each into the joint account for groceries like normal, on the 31st, before the new money went in, I showed OH that we still had over £200 in there because we've reduced spending on groceries and switched gas and electric as well. We're using the buffer in that account to change to euros when we go away in September so it motivates BOTH of us to save on groceries :j

russetred

Just back from Mr T and PG tips the delicate one 80 pack has a SEL for 10p. Picked up a few hoping its not too weak.