June 2013 Grocery Challenge

hattifattener

Had quite a lovely shop today in my local butchers and greengrocers for the first time. Butcher was very helpful, answered questions etc.

Unfortunately the cost wasn't so nice. Not that either place was expensive, but just that I think I hadn't made the best choices on what to go for. I spent £9.11 on fruit and veg and £11.50 in the butcher, which is a lot more than the tenner I had set aside for today.

Total now is £162.55/£200

Never mind, it leaves me with plenty to do my £25 weekly shop with next weekend to round off the month because I've had a cheap week elsewhere, and I'm still twiddling with things after changing the way we shop, so I'm going to use this as a chance to tweak things even further and plan some money saving for next month.

* Going to try to do more veggie meals per week, as meat seems very expensive in relation to the rest of what we eat.
* Going to educate myself more on what's the cheapest cuts of meat, ways to pad it out and learning how much we really need per meal as I'm used to just going in to the supermarket and picking up 'a pack of chicken' not 200g of this, and a joint of that.
* Going to pay more attention to the vouchers I get through and use them if they will save me on things we need for our meal plan/tweak the meal plan to react to vouchers.
* Going to get back on the valued opinions for Sains vouchers and get back in the competitions/grabbit boards etc focussing on things like food, toiletries, cleaning products.
* Going to try to make more things from scratch, particularly bread, biscuits and cakes.

Joined my greengrocers loyalty scheme today though to get 20% off my 10th fiver spend, and got entered in the free raffle for £25 free veg, so fingers crossed that'll come our way one really tight month when we're praying for a miracle!

God I don't half waffle on.

lizalloareds

todays spends £49.49

£11.05 Ald*
£1.50 Mr A
£20.12 Mr T
£3.06 Lid*
£7 Ilnd
£5.87 Mr M
89p FF

Sweetie83

Just done last shop of the month and for first time in a little while I have managed to come under budget! Plus I have a good stock of bits and pieces including some raw mince frozen to defrost next month which aim to get 2 meals out of.

The start of this month I visited Lidl and bought lots of bargin non perishables which really helped and I have bulk bought meat and froze the rest for the month. I have used my vouchers but haven't gone without. I have used Iceland for a lot of branded things and helps that I work for Defence so have a 10% discount card to use there.

Thanks to Frugal Queen Blogspot I have had loads of inspiration and of course my dear friends on here. Thank you xxxx:D

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

NSD today - I was working so that's cheating slightly!

Tomorrow night we are having mussels, French fries, crusty bread and salad. Sunday we are having roasted gammon. Monday is cottage pie. So my shopping list for tomorrow is:

crusty bread
potatoes
broccoli/other green veg
carrots
milk
ham (for packed lunches)
fruit

Might try the market for the F&V - got to be cheaper than Sainsbobs

I see the July thread is up so I must nip over there to begin my admin.

Have a good evening all.
Coxy

Billie-jo

A1di this morning as couldn't go yesterday and spent £30.91 this included washing up liquid & laundry liquid as well as weekly food. Brought some ice cream filled wafers as will have grand kids here on Sunday. Had to force them in the freezer (the ice cream not the kids) :rotfl: as I had forgotten that I had brought 2 lots of chicken thighs using a voucher. I also brought some red peppers and tomatoes for soup but as DH doesn't like this soup some of it will have to be frozen I am going to struggle to get anything else in so will leave making it as long as possible.
For tea I made some spicy chilli beef and put it into some wraps, sprinkled with cheese and baked in oven.Slightly overcooked around the edges but they were lovely if a little spicy and there is enough mix left so yep its got to be fitted in somewhere. (I have 2 large freezers!!!!!) I cant face it tonight so just put it in fridge and will wrestle with it tomorrow. Just some extra fruit & veg to get tomorrow.

lizalloareds

another £1.96 in Mr S over budget now

Cowgirl13

I really want to start the Grocery challenge, but will wait until 1st July xx

Ciaerda

Have updated my signature really pleased should be within budget thanks guys

AimingForBetter

Morning everyone

June has not been a good month for a variety of reasons, have gone way over budget target (mainly DH picking up non essential items while getting milk etc) and funds are extremely limited.

We are trying to sort things out but next month's budget is considerably reduced and we will have to use the stores we have and buy absolute essentials only (must keep DH out of the shops!).

Have just updated sig and will be going over to July now.

See you over there.

AFB

Suffolk_lass

Just took delivery of a 16kg sack of flour for my stores and added it into my totals. Although I run a 13 month year for budgeting (13 is "stores") I'm still over 50% already and June doesn't finish until payday next week. I'm going to try not to shop this week and run everything down a bit, making do with garden produce and what we already have but may yet succumb to a fruit-bowl stock up.

SL