August 2015 Grocery Challenge

hazeldreams

Hi All.


So far I've spent a whopping £206.47/£380 of my grocery budget, but remember I literally had nothing in stores after eating everything out of freezer and stores in July. We have enough meat, fish and potatoes to last until the end of the month (and probably longer!) as well as loads of bread flour, frozen veg etc.. so I'm confident we can come in on budget or maybe even under!


I've been having fun batch cooking and bulk freezing portions, so am really going to try and stretch some meals into September too to be able to shave at least 10% off the grocery budget next month!


Wish me luck!

Billie-jo

Just added up and have now spent £63.36 so far.
Brought 2 packs of sausages as they were on offer these are now in the freezer and should last a while as we don't eat them often. Have 6 rashers of bacon that needs using so will do bacon, cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms tonight for a change.
Sorting out in the bedroom yesterday and found a 3kg bag of pasta that I had forgotten about Will be doing a few pasta dishes over the foreseeable future to use it up.

AimingForBetter

Hello everyone, sounds like you are all making good things happen on the stores and batch cooking front.

Have just added up receipts for the month so far, £150.51 spends including Morries today. DH been on holiday since Wednesday so a few more 'treats' purchased than normal but hey ho it's the summer holidays so trying not to worry.

Have stocked up on a few things so have the store cupboard stuff to last a while and freezer has plenty of meat and frozen veg. Need some eggs from farm shop and mince from butchers next week, other than that hope to just have to get fresh veg, salad, milk & bread during the rest of the month. It's going to be close again, so fingers crossed.

Must focus on meal planning, will try to get that done in the morning.

Have a lovely evening.
AFB

itmustgetbetter

Another £27.97 in Mr T, halfway there with half my budget left!!

lynnejk

Evening all :hello:


Managed another NSD here today :j


We had cheese, onion and potato bake for tea with b. beans and DH had some sausages - the rest frozen for other days.


Hope you all having a super weekend
Lx

t14cy_t

need to report spends with mr m of £10.79, most of it being YS, picked up lots of cooked chicken from the deli counter so going to de flesh it and use for pulled chicken in wraps. well under budget so far this month.....hoping it lasts!!

craigywv

ran out of milk so sent manchild for it 90p for todays buying total andddddddddddddddddddddddd he ddnt buy himself anything! well this morn I got up and emptyied my tins cupboard shame on me!22 tins of chopped tomatoes of which 18 tins .....hands aching opening them with s£$% tin opener ,4 tubs of passata all dater 2014 are now cooked down with purree and garlic and some sugar and herbs in the biggest pot I possess its like something from an army camp kitchen! anyway think there is approx. 25-30 dinners for us 3 be it made into spag bol or chilli waiting on it cooling and will bag and freeze it also will do some small bags for pizza toppngs ,happy I did it as cupboards are clean and in order,found so many tins of fruit dated 2013 will be making about 6 big crumbles to freeze also.did well on ys broccoli and carrots during week so spent an hour cutting,batons so have loads of dinners there too,shattered now boys out cleaning my car so I away for a sit down have a lovely day all xxx

miss_try_to_save

can I please join the august grocery challenge I would like to do £400 for the month to include everything for 3 people occasionally 5 and a cat so far I have spent £125/£400

cyantist

I've spent £27.18/£150 so far. I'm pleased but there's still plenty of time for things to go wrong and me overspend.

Breakfast this morning was eggs from my chickens and mushroom I found in the back garden, so completely free. Had with homemade bread which I've worked out costs about 25p a loaf including energy costs. I love my random garden and can't wait until I can grow more stuff in it and reduce my grocery bill even further.

Hope you're all enjoying the lovely weather.

Bluegreen143

Hi all, hope the GCing is going well!

Unfortunately my husband spent around around £12 on food on Friday (some was really needed, like rolls and flour, and some was treats but stuff we do usually get, like cola and crisps, and some was a bit random like hummous - we have all the ingredients in to make it!) and he got three bags, which is another 15p my toiletries/household budget.

Today I went to L*dls and got:

- free range 1.4kg chicken £4.67
- 2x courgettes 76p
- 6x bananas 64p
- mushroom punnet 89p
- apples x8 £1,79
- whole milk 4 pints 89p
- 350g mature cheddar £1.19
- salted butter 82p
- bagged salad £1
- peanut butter £1.18
- granulated sugar 49p
- easy bake yeast 65p
- choco rice cereal (for my husband's breakfasts!) £1.25
- 6 medium free range eggs 79p
- tinned tomatoes x4 £1.24
- tinned mackerel x2 £1.18
- own brand cola 2ltr x4 £1.56
- white chocolate bar 39p (off list but a cheap treat for DH)
TOTAL FOOD - £21.47

- wet cat food £2.49
TOTAL CAT £2.49

- bin bags £1.29
- toothpaste x2 £1.10
- toilet roll x9 £2.69
TOTAL TOILETRIES/HOUSEHOLD £4.99

So my up to date totals for the month are:

FOOD - £92.77 / £120
TOILETRIES/HOUSEHOLD - £12.90 / £15
CAT - £9.33 / £15

It's not looking good... one thing being back on the grocery challenge is making me realise is that although I'm frugal with the weekly food shop (usually done on Sundays), it's being a bit undermined by the Friday after work shop my husband's now in the habit of doing. The problem is he does anyway for beer (his own spending budget) then seems to pick up a lot of food too. A couple of weeks ago we just did the full weekly shop on a Friday together to make just one supermarket trip at the weekend and I think that might actually be the way to go.

On a positive note, I made the best-risen loaf I've ever made today! Had a slice to test it and it's a good tasty one too. Half brown and half white flour



Also made a massive jar of hot sauce which needs a week to two to mature but tasted pretty good (and fiery!) when I tried it. Much better than buying it, need to work out now if it was actually cheaper though...