March 2017 Grocery Challenge

Rachiedabbler70

Hi All
Caught up on everyone's posts to here - looks like all doing well. :)I'm still within my budget - about £30 left until the end of the month after doing this weeks shop and I have some HM freezer meals that will last into the following week as well. I got the Morrisons butchers pack for £10 - very good value and multiple meals can be made. 4 pork steak meals, 8 pork roast meals, made 4 portions of spag bol with the minced beef, 4 portions of stew and dumplings with the beef and finally 6 sausages were used on 4 sausage and egg muffins. 24 meat portions for £10!


Enough of my ramblings - £712.52/£3250 spent. I think I'm getting better at stretching food for more meals and my budget includes any food we eat out, toiletries and rabbit food. :j

freyasmum

Well so far this month, we are at £196.58/£310.

I've been awful at keeping up with the thread this month (6 pages to read through :eek:) - we've been fixing the garden up for most of it. But we're still under budget; with teeming cupboards and a full freezer.

I am not in the slightest bit green fingered, but I have sowed some cucumber and tomato seeds, so hopefully they'll come to something. My granny used to grow tomatoes and you could never buy anything that tastes anywhere near as good! So I'm excited at the thought of something that tastes as scrumptious.

JingsMyBucket wrote: »

Just a quick hello and a realization that feels good: isn't it funny when you get to the point of actually not wanting to spend money?

I totally agree.

I feel so much happier now than when I was working in town - I used to go out at lunchtime so I had something to do. And, without fail, ended up buying SOMETHING every day. Sometimes (reduced) food from M&S, other times nice little dresses in the sale. All money that was easily afforded, but that I didn't need to spend

t14cy_t

total spends of £31 over the last few days, so have £41 left for this month out of the £80 budget. still got room in the freezer for more bargains but am refraining atm!!! got a big bounty of ys goods from tesco yesterday. xx

pamsdish

Visiting rellies yesterday £8-40 in local Morries as I had forgotten I said I would bring the veg, and we got a pie and ice cream for dessert.
Will have to refuel car too,

Ginmonster

Morning all and a happy Monday to everyone!


I spent £5.72 on fruit at the greengrocer over the weekend which included some delicious raspberries that I had with yoghurt and oats this morning for my breakfast. Yum! I resisted buying duck eggs as we already have normal eggs in but the old me would definitely have bought them. This board is doing me good!


£73.39/£100

armchairexpert

I'm off to Costco tomorrow but I'm thinking I might approach it as next months' budget: we don't really need much bulk stuff, and my budget's too tight this month for treats, but I only get to go about twice a year. So I might go, but if I don't use anything this month it doesn't count. Am I kidding myself?

Relatedly, do any of you meal plan for a month at a time? I was thinking I might try that in April, but it's a bit intimidating. I'd love to know how you do it, if you do.

Matron_Midge

I'm declaring £373.49 for the month.
I've done really well this month although we had a week away and didn't count the food spends whilst we were there.
I am expecting April will be a relatively expensive month as I need to replenish dishwasher tabs, sack of potatoes, washing powder and baking supplies.
See you on the April thread.

Fruittea

Just a small shop for me bread, carrots and bean sprouts £1.95. All other meals planned in for this week. I know I've busted my target but I'm doing ok. Just needing to think things through a bit more.

zafiro1984

armchairexpert wrote: »

do any of you meal plan for a month at a time? I was thinking I might try that in April, but it's a bit intimidating. I'd love to know how you do it, if you do.

I do, I keep it very simple and also use it so I don't repeat too many of the same meals, it also means I can use up things from the fridge and if I'm pushed for time I can do something quickly. You will find your own way of doing things, what suits you best, but this is what I do and it suits us, I find it flexible, it fits in with our lifestyle/work, I have very little waste and not much stress in deciding what to put on the table on a daily basis.

I use an excel spreadsheet.
In our case (but other families will have differing criteria) I list each month 32 lunches, 32 dinners, 32 desserts, breakfast is always the same.
I then pick and choose something from each list to cook/eat each day, but I always check the fridge first to see what needs using up and work around that. I keep a fairly well stocked store cupboard so have plenty of other ingredients. Veg is mostly fresh or home grown and in the freezer, same with fruit. When a particular meal is used I delete it.
I cook from scratch, I batch cook as much as I can and put FR before the meal on the list to indicate it is already cooked and in the freezer. We don't eat much rice or pasta. I have some meals 'not used' by the end of the month.

Give planning a month a go, I spend a couple of hours doing it and sometimes even try out new recipes - keeps ideas fresh.

Franalamadingdong

Hi armchair, i have shopped at the end of one month, for the next, and billed myself for the stuff used for the items used in either month, i see no problem in it so long as it is billed somewhere!

I plan a month's worth of evening meals, not so much lunch or breakfast though, as there is just two of us, DS gets free school dinner as he is in year 1 and i will have whatever so it doesn't matter much. I've only done this for a couple of months, but i rather like it.

Popped to the shops today. I've kept DS's party food as separate in his party budget. Our grocery spends were £18.92. Party supplies were about the same again, picked up mother's day cards and a new clothes airer as ours lost a leg. Haha.

Total is £128.78/195 with £66.22 left over!