February 2017 Grocery Challenge

JensFeet

NSD#12 today.
Shopping for L!dl washing powder offer over the weekend but don't think we need any food items.

Hope everyone has a great weekend x

elsiepac

I've gone over. Not surprised! The only things I may need before next Thursday, which is my last day of February budget, is white onions and garlic. Stupidly didn't realise I'm down to a couple of cloves of garlic (ooh I love the stuff!) and onion-wise I have NO white (gasp!) and only 2 puny red ones! I use onion ALL THE TIME!!
Veg shop today in Aldi specifically choosing cheaper veg and with the intention of tiding me over till payday.

I have been doing loads of reading of wartime (rationing) recipes, and I am going to make carrot roll which I'm quite excited about - essentially seasoned mashed potato surrounding a carrot and oat centre, baked in a big roll.
I also want to make Lord Woolton's Pie, and I wanted to do the pastry version, then realised I have no marg so can't. So it will be a potato topped one like a shepherds pie.

Also bought new yeast as my old stuff had expired (forgot about bread making for like a year, used old yeast, and essentially got a biscuit instead of my beautiful and thrifty foccacia lol). Also wholemeal strong flour. Hoping to make a nice loaf and maybe some rolls this weekend.

Jeez... I'm on £198.20 out of £160. Why do I always end up around £200!! It's ridiculously high!

March is exactly 4 weeks for me, and I'm going to aim low. I do need to buy nutritional yeast, and the cheapest way per pot is to buy in bulk on Amazon, but that means shelling out about £17 which is a lot in one go!! I may try and factor this in though as I use it a lot and it is very healthy with lots of vitamins!

On the upside my spends for alcohol at home have drastically gone down - this is a conscious effort as I was drinking way too much wine for my liking! At the moment I am down to under half what I was spending each month towards the end of last year. I am hoping to reduce this more. I've bought some posh hot chocolates which are vegan - ridiculously expensive for hot chocolate but not compared to the wine! (Wh1ttards if you're interested) and I'm going to try having a hot chocolate on a work night instead of a glass of wine. I'm down to one glass of wine a night now which is so much less than I was on, but I'd like to replace at least a couple of those a week with non alcoholic. That will be a tough habit to break though I think as I really appreciate my one measured glass and enjoy it very much!



Date.......Shop......Amount.....Remaining form £160 Budget
26 Jan.....T35c0.....£33.49.....£126.51 (Main Grocery Shop - some stuff wasn't there)
28 Jan.....T35c0.....£22.75.....£103.76 (Extra Shop - off plan. REGAIN CONTROL!)
28 Jan.....H&B.......£23.53.....£80.23 (Fake Meat things - frozen - not really necessary!)
30 Jan.....T35c0.....£10.20.....£70.03 (Things that weren't there on grocery shop)
1 Feb......T35c0.....£01.65.....£68.38 (Crisps and choc - sigh)
3 Feb......T35c0.....£20.48.....£47.90 (Main grocery shop)
4 Feb......T35c0.....£24.07.....£23.83 (NOT NEEDED stuff - got my cold and felt sorry for myself)
5 Feb......T35c0.....£01.69.....£22.14 (Loaf of bread and a cucumber!)
8 Feb......T35c0.....£09.02.....£13.12 (Small proper shop)
8 Feb......H&B.......£02.89.....£10.23 (T0furkey slices)
11 Feb.....T35c0.....£19.62....-£9.39 (Proper shop including soap, shower gel etc)
12 Feb....T35c0.....£02.40....-£11.79 (lemons, spring onions and red onions)
13 Feb.....H&B.......£05.48....-£17.27 (Tofurkey slices I'm so addicted! plus my expensive toothpaste)
13 Feb.....T35c0.....£12.50....-£29.77 (loo roll and lunch bits like salad etc, £4.50 was for TWO lunches for my boyfriend! :eek:)
17 Feb.....A1d1......£8.43....-£38.20 (veg, flour and yeast - love A1d1)

Suffolk_lass

elsiepac wrote: »

March is exactly 4 weeks for me, and I'm going to aim low. I do need to buy nutritional yeast, and the cheapest way per pot is to buy in bulk on Amazon, but that means shelling out about £17 which is a lot in one go!! I may try and factor this in though as I use it a lot and it is very healthy with lots of vitamins!

I believe Nutritional yeast is the same as Elsenham, which is on offer at Holland and Barretts at the moment

SL

medsdemon

Morning all. I'm afraid I have totally lost count of spends, been so busy with work etc and working all day today too . I think I'm still just in budget but can't be perfectly sure and I'm sure if I have spends this week It'll take me Well over. Never mind, I'll try and be careful this week and keep it to a minimum and try again in March which will be short as I'm on holiday in the last week. Can't wait for that, I'm needing a break from the norm.


Actually just looked at my total and its less than I thought, so I might be okay

Willowx

I've been to the butcher's and green grocers this morning, £15.25 and £8.12. Got some topside and sausages. Also some rather nice looking oranges, coxes apples, beets, bananas, sweet potato, red onions, and carrots. Still not decided if I'll stop at the baker's when I go to the library.

Lauralozzle

Update

Takeaway pizza and Asda spend now I'm at £172.27/£300 I'm pretty pleased with how this is looking. Should be well within budget

PipneyJane

Afternoon all. Hope all the sickies are feeling better.

I thought I was doing well. We'd only spent £34.76 out of the £50 budget. Then I went to Lidly on Thursday night. I needed chocolate for a desert for a friend's party on Friday night and theirs is the cheapest. Texted my hubby when I left work - is there anything else we need? He responded, "What about Salmon Wellington?" (Aka salmon en croute but one will feed 4.). We'd bought two before Christmas and hadn't been able to find them since.

I nearly texted him back, saying "we don't have a hope. We've been looking since New Year's and they don't keep them in stock" but, for some reason, the message didn't send. Naturally, what did I find? They had two. £3.99 each. Both are now residing in my freezer. In the end, I spent £9.97 in Lidly, bringing our total spend on groceries, so far this month, to £44.73.

That leaves me with £5.27 for the rest of the month. We definitely need onions, mushrooms and yoghurt. We are running dangerously low on washing powder BUT, in an emergency, I could use the value biological stuff I have stored under the sink for burnt pots. It's years old. (My hubby gets ecxema so we avoid bio powders.)

I really shouldn't grumble. We've survived this month living off items in the freezer and pantry. Virtually every meal contains something that has come from the store cupboard and there's plenty in reserve. But that's the point of my £50 challenge. It's to remind me of how I coped, in a month when I really only had £20 to live off. My job situation is precarious - I'm on a short term contract - so I need the comfort of knowing that I can do this for real, when I need to.

ScotinLondon

Not posted for a long time. RL busy and am now back to studying. Need to pass this time round.

However, have been keeping a track of spend and to date £119.36 spent. Still lots left in fridge & freezer to last to end of week.

We both been ill so not been cooking much. It's mostly cooking for during the week and two of us on the weekend, but still lots left.

Hope all are well.

SIL

Florence_J

Oh dear,

Am £18.27 over budget with still about a week to go.

£12 of that was spent on plughole unblocker, sponges, toilet blob and deodrant and shower gel for the boy, so it could be worse, but it feels a little like I have lost my way now that I have increased the budget which is bad.

The freezer needs defrosting and the cupboards were crazily full so I am going to be running them down for the next couple of weeks.

zafiro1984

Totally blew it today, spent £66.74 which takes me well over budget. Needed bread, milk, cheese, fruit, vegetables etc etc. I shall view it as an early March spend - I really must get things under control!!!