May 2017 Grocery Challenge

spendaholic

Managed to claw back a little this week - £62.54 against my £75 budget, £231.67 so far, leaving £68.33 to go, and only one more shop for May.

[Deleted User]

Baked my first batch of Twink's hobnobs last night. They are delicious. Highly recommended, so easy to make and gone down a storm with the family. Thanks again, Suffolklass! Still at £185.45 / £230. Off to check the red lentil recipes to save a bit more.

caronc

£24 shop today mainly f&v and fresh stuff bringing total so far this month to £116/£150

elsiepac

Coriander and salad leaves bought as a top up on Weds.
Never bought shower gel last week LOL - have been using hand soap all this time!!
Last night did my last "big shop" of the month - shower gel in Mr T and a1di for tinned toms, wraps, big bag of peppers and a cucumber.

I still have frozen meals and now have the fixings of:
"cream" of tomato soup
mushroom and lentil pasta sauce
and "summer harvest" tortilla soup

Combined with the fresh stuff I have remaining, stuff for veggie sticks for my work snack, plus my frozen meals, I have plenty to get me through. I am slightly over, and I may yet need more leaves or other small item, but this is still the best month I've had yet this year!



................................£150 Budget
Date.......Shop......Amount.....Remaining
27 Apr.....Wa1tr0se..£80.19.....£69.81
28 Apr.....H&B.......£00.08.....£69.73
28 Apr.....Tesc0.....£29.45.....£40.28
3 May......Co-0p.....£01.29.....£38.99
3 May......Tesc0.....£00.80.....£38.19
4 May......A1d1......£16.45.....£21.74
4 May......Tesc0.....£05.00.....£16.74
11 May.....A1di......£07.05.....£09.69
11 May.....Tesc0.....£04.00.....£05.69
13 May.....A1di......£01.28.....£04.41
17 May.....A1di......£01.84.....£02.57
18 May.....A1di......£03.11....-£00.54
18 May.....Tesc0.....£01.00....-£01.54



Date....Fresh/Frozen..Cupboard/Dry Goods..Cleaning/Toiletries..Treats..Bags
27 Apr..£24.14........£11.24..............£28.01...............£16.80..-
28 Apr..-.............£00.08..............-....................-.......-
28 Apr..£20.36........£09.04..............-....................-.......£00.05
3 May...£01.29........-...................-....................-.......-
3 May...£00.75........-...................-....................-.......£00.05
4 May...£16.45........-...................-....................-.......-
4 May...£01.66........£03.34..............-....................-.......-
11 May..£07.05........-...................-....................-.......-
11 May..£03.00........£01.00..............-....................-.......-
12 May..£00.69........-...................£00.59...............-.......-
17 May..£01.84........-...................-....................-.......-
18 May..£02.43........£00.68..............-....................-.......-
18 May..-.............-...................£01.00...............-.......-

XSpender

Mr T delivery this morning puts me on £429.24/£500 with 11 days to go.

I had a poor substitution choice this morning on cheese so will nip to Mr S to get that, some value sandwich bags which I couldn't find on line, a pie I forgot to add to my shopping and some fly spray as I have had a fly zipping around for the last few days and it is driving me mad.

I should only need a couple of top ups for fruit, GF bread and milk before the end of month as I did a meal plan until the end of the month yesterday and had a slightly bigger delivery to cover the major items and the GF stuff I wanted.

I might just come in under target

purpleybat

shopped yesterday at lidles and it came in at £28.35. this leaves me £21.03 for next weeks shop!
think i'll be over budget for the first time this year. I have definitely noticed prices creeping up and now can't wait for my veggies to start growing so can scoff them instead of buying them.
also I think next month i'll have to plan in many more bean and root veggie based meals, earmark time to sort bread-maker rather than buying a loaf when I realise I've run out, and making more 'peelings soup' for lunches.
I don't buy much meat generally and I don't throw food away so i'm thinking I must be buying lots of snacky type junk that tends to be pricy.

YorksLass

Week 3 is now over and spends this week came to £31.08, with 5 NSDs. Week 4 began today, a market shop totalling £17.62 (no sm shopping).

£14.90 left in monthly budget of £160 with 6 days to go before the end of May's GC. I'm happy with that; by the end of the challenge I should have an empty fridge (barring the opened jars of pickles, chutneys etc) and will have used up a few things from the freezer and cupboards too.

Today I've made bread for the weekend and have used up a tin of chickpeas to make humous; that's my TV snack for tomorrow with breadsticks (DH has his cashews) and, although a bit chunkier than shop-bought, it's delicious,easy to make and considerably cheaper! No chickpeas left now but next time I see them on offer (drat, I think I've just missed a promo ) I'll be stocking up.

Signature updated.

Doom_and_Gloom

Spent £27.40 since I last posted on this thread

Hoping what we have left will last us. It should but it doesn't always work out like it should.

£126.19/£155.
£28.81 left.

mcculloch29

I started on April 20th with a budget of £140, and have spent £59.61 in my month. I'm going to carry on to the end of the month with this. I spent some £15 of the almost £60 on buffet type food for a take your own food and drink night out and for a buffet lunch with my daughter. I'd expected to feed the entire family so that kept it down from the £25 or so I'd projected to spend.

However I had shopped just before starting and have two reasonably stocked freezers, if I hadn't done that I suspect it would have been £100 at least.

In addition to that I got sent some protein bars to review by Amazon which have provided a week's worth of breakfasts so far. It's helped! All my cleaning stuff with the exception of some laundry gel has been from supplies I already had in. I stretched the laundry gel by using unloved shampoo and shower gel. I have bars of soap and washing soda, but no borax substitute, making my own laundry gloop is planned.

I've only bought biscuits twice this month and the only bread I've bought has been the 39p Danish loaf from Aldi, I can't make that one.

I still have some treats to look forward to, as I got some drinks as a birthday present, and have bought cocoa and honey to go with the coconut oil I had in store to make my own luxury chocolate.

I must get some syrup, block marge and dessicated coconut to make both Twink's Hobnobs and Anzac biscuits, both of which I love.
I haven't eaten a lot of red meat this month, and veggie/fish dishes have featured quite heavily.
Not declaring yet, carrying on to the end of the month to see how we go.

thriftwizard

Oh no! I've got everything in a tangle... I'd clearly added last week's shopping to my bulk-buy purse instead of the monthly tally... I can't remember how much it was, so can't "remove" it & put it into the right "column" as it were. I've spent £80 today, which I know would take me perilously close to my target with another week's shopping yet to buy, but it bought me no more than £60 would have last month... have erased the whole lot by mistake now! Will backtrack on this thread & see if I can work it all out correctly...

ETA: Phew! On adding up the declared spends & receipts so far, I'm actually a little ahead of the game, with just under £100 left. I've dropped the Bulk Buying total by last week's declared spend, which still leaves it a little higher than I'd like at this stage of the year, but - it's manageable. What a silly muddle!

That'll teach me to jump on here and add things whenever I have a spare 30 seconds...