August 2016 Grocery Challenge

HB2020

Hi
I've done my first weekly shop in August. I spent £55.33/£220.
I am going to a local supermarket for an eye test on Tuesday. I will do a top up shop from this supermarjet as I need to buy natural yoghurt and some fresh fruit.

HD2020

Gipsy_Danger

Spent £2.40 in greggs today, and 4.59 in morrisons.

Next weeks shopping money starts again on Wednesday But should have enough food in to last till the weekend then I'll do a food shop to take on holiday with us.

Dh is home for the summer now so have 2 adults to feed instead of 1 and he's a bit picky/fussy about certain things

LelleUK

Managed 4 NSD :T

Got a craving for chocolate and spent £6.14 in the local shop. Not all for me :rotfl:

Do people include takeaways? We're planning on a chinese tomorrow

Matody

Today spent some money @ MrT, homebargins & poundland so have spent 13.25, leaves me 208.44 for the month.

I cooked my two chickens yesterday and made one of the recipes from the rubber chicken thread (spicy pasta bake) it was a hit, although I'm using up the white pasta and perfer wholemeal so can't wait for the white to all be gone!

Still have lots of chicken left, so will read more of the thread on this, for inspiration!

tumptyteapot

Wysiwyg49 wrote: »

I found a few online - there's a monthly one on netmums, a weekly one by SkintDad, and a £9 per person per week (!!) on Jack Monroe's blog (cooking on a bootstrap). But quite often they only cover evening meals and I use them for ideas rather than following to the letter...so I think the other reply is more useful - start with what you've got, then add minimum stuff to make more meals that you know your family will like.

I ALWAYS find I spend more on additions than on main ingredients though. Fruit juice, biscuits, brands we like.

This week I did a plan then ordered via click and collect from Sainsbobs. Worked well as no in-shop temptation .

Yep, I need to plan for 3 meals a day, neither of us like cereal but I'm happy to have something like egg fried rice for breakfast. The netmums one looks like evening meals only although it does have a list of ideas for breakfast and lunches.
I couldn't find any meal plans on Skint Dad (good recipes though) or on Jack Monroe's site - just articles about living on very little. I did find this though - http://www.thriftylesley.com/meal-plans/
which has 3 meals a day planned.

freyasmum

Well, we were last sitting at about 90-100 for the month so far (spending diary not updated yet, so not 100% at the moment. However, we won't need to go a proper shop till Wednesday/Thursday. We have dinner sorted until Friday

Also, £14 or £16 of that was the sausages we buy, which were on offer for a third off so we got a few packs. So, although we went over, we've got food in the freezer.

We bought a pack of peppers today for 90p so that we could make two dinners (Italian meatballs and chicken paella). This will see us through till Friday with evening meals. And I reckon we have breakfast and lunch things till then as well. We will need fruit though.

I did register with a weekly budget, I think that may need revising to monthly!

Wysiwyg49

Some links to the meal plans I mentioned earlier, sorry I was in a rush during lunch break:

Jack Monroe:
https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2015/11/11/feed-a-family-of-4-for-less-than-9week-me-for-the-daily-mirror/

Skint Dad:
http://skintdad.co.uk/week-shopping-list-meal-plan/

The Thrifty Lesley ones look good too! I've also saved some by Anneliese Giggins, she did a 4 week one and the meals and shopping lists are on goodtoknow recipes.

HTH

thriftwizard

My guesstimate of £150 so far was pretty accurate; it was actually £151.89, adding saved receipts to the sum I know I spent at the market - i.e. what I took with me minus what I had left afterwards! To which I now need to add £4.39 on redbush tea and £12.76 on some ordinary tea, rice, noodles & soy sauce to see us through, pending the trip to the oriental grocers. Which will probably happen early next week.

Our little town doesn't run to an inexpensive supermarket, hence the OTT prices for basic stuff. And the traffic mayhem in a packed-out tourist area, close to lots of campsites, tourist attractions & a cross-channel ferry route, with the main road down to that closed for 4 months, means the likely fuel cost to take my van down to the nearest T8sco or L!dls. would cancel out any savings! (She's not the cheapest beastie to run, but does the job I need doing better than any other vehicle that I can afford.) The local market is wonderful for good fresh food at low prices, but the stalls don't offer much of a range of "foreign" stuff or non-perishables.

So - I need to go carefully for the rest of the month, and eke things out a bit...

Florence_J

Third NSD today. Am going to visit my family from tomorrow so my OH has been told to keep his receipts for any food he buys for the house whilst I'm away so I can add it up and pay him back. He has also been expressly told that chocolate cake and profiteroles do NOT count as a household expense and if he buys any of them they can come out of his own money

lynnejk

tumptyteapot wrote: »

Do you know of any good menu planning resources? I really struggle with it

There is a weekly menu thread on the boards. You will find it at
Meal plans WC 07/08/16
but I think it tends to be evening meals as well - but you could have a look. Have you had a browse through the recipes on the first page ???

DH has cereal or toast for breakfast and I have porridge.

DH takes packed lunch to work - rolls etc - and I usually have a sandwich/roll/something on toast/hm soup followed by some fruit.

So I don't have to 'meal plan' for those, only making sure the ingredients are on weekly shopping list. I always have things like B. Beans, cheese, eggs, sardines in stock and hm soup in the freezer anyway.

So I just do a monthly meal plan for main meals, trying to ring the changes as much as possible and heavily based on hm meals from batch-baking.

LelleUK wrote: »

Do people include takeaways? We're planning on a chinese tomorrow

It's entirely up to you what you include or not in your budget. I think most people count them in or run a separate budget to include them. We never have one so can't speak personally

Another NSD today :j
Hope you all have a super Tuesday
Lx