August 2013 Grocery Challenge

ditsykitchen

Bornagainshopaholic wrote: »

Hello all, well my first month of this grocery challenge didn't turn out too badly! I've a few days left, but I don't actually need to buy any more food of any description.

I'm £4.82 over of spending the whole £200, which I'm pleased with. I would have been in budget but yesterday I spotted some spices that I've been trying to find for ages so I stocked up. I also went slightly over my £100 entertainment budget by £3.49, but then I did drink a lot of wine earlier this month!

I still have so much food in the fridge, freezer and cupboards, that I really think £200 was perhaps a little too generous, and I intend to aim for £190 in September. I'll eke it down a tenner a month until I find the amount that's most frugal, but not a hardship.

This process has forced me to be more inventive in the kitchen, and I've discovered some absolutely amazing recipes (Spicy Chickpea and Potato Fry Up being the winner, along with Carrot, Chickpea and Almond Pilaf - I've had a lot of tins of chickpeas to use up..).

Looking forward to September's challenge now!

Well done :T
That's a great result!

Puddickle

Thank you :-)

This month has been such an eye opener. We've managed to gain the extra cash despite me having a night out, my hubby going paintballing, and a bank holiday weekend away camping!

Usually - months that involve all those things would involve a lot of 'Oh my, we've run out of money!!' and 'oh no we've gone over the overdraft' type conversations by this point!

We are LOVING this way instead. We're still planning treats - and have two lots of car tax to pay out next month... but we should be able to afford to just pay them... not put them on a credit card.

Ridiculously excited by this :-)

We've been doing the payment a day thing as well - we log in on our phone and transfer a minimal amount to the savings accounts everyday. This has helped so much - as it forces you to look at your accounts everyday and be much more aware of what goes in and out.

Well done everyone else - especially those newbies like me! In 3-4 years time I hope to be frequenting these boards as a know-it-all scrimper (been there, done that, cleared my debts) but a long long journey ahead... and I start maternity leave in just 10 weeks, so our incomings and outgoings will change.

See you all in September!

ditsykitchen

Spent £2 at the c00p on organic milk & cloudy lemonade. I've updated my signature. That should definitely be it until Monday, so that's a very slight underspend woohoo!

NickJW

So...still have had a few spends - totally £4.44

Still pleased because I'm going to definitely come under budget.

Meals this week have been/will be:

Monday (I cooked): Curried turkey mince, potatoes and peas (was nice - like a Keema, and made good use of my spice stockpile!)
Tuesday (housemate cooked): Roast M+S chicken with potato rostis with a selection of their salads (olives/beetroot dip/coleslaw + regular tomato/lettuce/cucumber salad)
Wednesday (housemate cooked): Pork lion chops with apple cider chutney gravy and garlic new potatoes with runner beans.
Thursday (housemate will cook): Pork pie (not sure why he bought this), with the rest of the salads from Tuesday, potato rostis and piccalilli
Friday (I'll cook): Chilli con carne with rice
Saturday (I'll cook): Pasta with turkey mince meatballs in a tomato/red wine sauce

I'm here till the bitter end!

xx_Jo_xx

xx_Jo_xx wrote: »

£49.47 left

£7.53 at l!dl

£41.94 left in budget

ETA: :eek: another £8.86 spend I forgot about! In the coop :-)

£33.08 left in budget.... _pale_

lizalloareds

over budget again:( will move to the September challenge now

Cheapskate

Well done Puddickle, what a brilliant achievement! Well done, too, to everyone else who's kept under budget!

I've gone over again, and that's not counting what we spent whilst away, so declaring August at £512. Not pleased with myself, so going over to September and starting again!

A xo

K9sandFelines

K9sandFelines wrote: »

I do try to only stick to offers that we need, so three for two on Quorn, offer on fruit juice - 2 litres for a pound and cartons for school, crisps for school, fruit we'd ran out of and some frozen veggies and vegetarian bits and a few treats. So think I did well, as there was alot more i could have added. Total was £65. I probably won't use some til Sep so maybe my spends will be less then too. It's hard but I'll try to meal plan and only stick to what I need, unless it's unmissable. I also spent about £7 on milk, ys cherries, ys blueberries and sandwich thins. So about £25-30 over budget now although that should be it apart from fizzy water tomorrow from Mr M.

Spent £5,10 not £7.00 odd as first though, can't remember if this was added to my sig or not so just going to put a plus sign now as lost track.

Yesterday was a NSD as spent most of morning with DD2 and afternoon in Minor Injury unit, as she fell over onto her foot whilst playing out and turns out its a suspected fracture. Her foot is in a cast and she is on crutches.Waiting for a phone call today re further appointments.

Had another spend on YS milk roll, two bottles of sparkling water and two tins of chopped tomatoes, think this was Weds. £1.50 odd

I also need apples and bananas as low on fruit at the mo, only got half a punnet of blueberries and strawberries and a few clementines, and DD2 won't eat any of those.

Sequeena

Yesterday was a bad day and was the real turning point for us. It wasn't a ridiculous spend, £23.26 in total and included some whoopsies but it was a 'snack' shop really. There was no proper ingredients aside from olive oil :mad: I'm really pulling it in now, even OH has realised which is great. He spends like there's no tomorrow (the latest was 2 motorized ride ons for our son - why?!). I'm still unsure of how much we've spent in total because OH has bought lots and not kept the receipt. I'll keep posting because I don't want to give up but September will be our first 'proper' GC month (not for another week unfortunately!).

So we're at an estimated £202.63/£250 with 1 week to go but you can guarantee we've already overspend because of OH.

joedenise

Had a £36ish shop yesterday and have ended up at £295.61 - nearly £50 over budget but happy with that for my first month of doing the challenge. My budget was really a stab in the dark about how much I could get it down to having been spending an average of over £400 a month:eek: which I think is probably too high for just 2 of us - although it does include all food, toiletries, household cleaners & alcohol. Although yesterday's shop includes food for the coming week before we go off on holiday so perhaps shouldn't all be included for August - but I decided to add it all on as it was spent in August.

I won't be taking part for September as will be away for most of the monthbut will be back to join in again for October.

Denise