May 2017 Grocery Challenge

Doom_and_Gloom

£2.10 spent today. OH needed milk and I wanted a cucumber as I snack on them. He bought some chocolate buns that were reduced for himself as well.

£143.74/£155.
£11.26 left.

armchairexpert

Declaring at $964/$900, which I'm counting as a win because my budget was ambitious and presumed that Mr Expert would be away for the last week of the month. Which he then wasn't. That's the lowest monthly spend I've managed yet, so pom poms for me!

FurryBeastOz

Ok. Unemployed. Belt tightening begins.

Wysiwyg49

Final total for May is a whopping £479 :eek: but I have included an extra week on top of my first estimate I think. Don't think I have been that extravagant so not sure why it's so high!!

Was near an Asda on Sat so went there, spent £59.71 which was really good and included a pack of 8 chicken breast fillets which were a great price and very good quality.

Meal plan for this week:
Sat: chicken casserole and new potatoes
Sun: spag bol
Mon: Hairy Bikers spanish chicken and savoury rice (surprisingly, this was a great success with whole family)
Tues: Ratatouille hot pot (it went down well last week)
Wed: Bean chilli
Thurs: baked potatoes with various toppings (beans / cheese / tuna)
Fri: HM pizzas to use up random bits and pieces

Hoping to do better in June! See you all there. Sorry to hear about FurryBeastOz's employment woes, DH has just finished his job after over 10 years so I'm preparing to tighten belts too...not sure what is round the corner.

allmannerofthings

I have failed abjectly. This was my first month in the challenge, I didn't know what we spend so guessed at £400 and thought I'd reduce it to £240. I did indeed get our groceries down to not much more than that (£264.20) but the treats and takeaways ran away with themselves. Our total for the month was £465.71 for 2 adults, which is utterly ridiculous but not that far off my estimate. I feel I did reduce our grocery spend in May though, and we definitely wasted less food, so I think even this large sum may be a reduction on what I spent before.

Writing everything down was invaluable, if alarming!

Supermarket £221.30
Top ups from local shops £43.98
Treats from local shops (chocolate, crisps, fizzy drinks, ice creams) £34.39
Meals out £26.70 (one lunch on a day out, plus one time I took my grown up son to lunch)
Takeaways - total £139.34, breakdown as follows:
Indian x 1 £21
Fish and Chips x 4 £56.65
McDonalds x 9 £61.69

Total spend £465.71

I am just gobsmacked at how much we spent on junk, in particular 9 McDonalds and all those treats. I think our supermarket spend and top ups weren't bad, although room for improvement. I've realised that when I set my target at £240, I was just thinking of cutting down to £60 a week at the supermarket, and not taking all the other possible food spends into account.

When I look back over the month, we actually ate out less than usual as we often have lunches out or visit coffee shops on the weekend but we've been working on the house, hence a large amount of McDonalds, as my husband will pop out and get one so we can carry on working. One of the fish and chips was a dinner with our son and his girlfriend and the Nandos was me taking my son out for lunch, so I'm happy with those (I didn't include the cost of their food, only ours, in my totals). I'm happy to spend on a weekly takeaway but fourteen in a month!!

I did quite well using things up/not wasting, but will intensify my efforts (took my eye off some tangerines and a melon that I had to throw away last night, grr, and just found two avocados that have been hanging about for ages that I forgot. Hoping they'll be okay, will use them asap).

This has been such a helpful exercise and I'm joining in again for June. I'm going to think about my target and allow an amount for takeaways and for the occasional coffee and panini at the weekend in my total figure and try to keep within those.

Onwards and upwards! Oh actually, onwards and downwards.... :rotfl:

ancientmum

I have gone over a bit this month, £183.44/180. However I have got enough teabags to last until Christmas! I hope that things get better for everyone who is going through hard times. See you over on the June board.
x

chocolatebum

Oh my goodness, thankfully made it to the end of a crazy month, adding up my receipts and card purchases i seem to have made it in under budget at £802.48/£850 :eek::eek: it still seemed an extortionate amount to spend but at least the month has gone and hopefully next month will be less

[Deleted User]

Ginmonster wrote: »

I work in Manchester city centre and every other person in the supermarket today was buying flowers to lay down in St Ann's Square in tribute to the victims of the attack on Monday. I decided against buying flowers but I am going to donate the surplus of my budget this month to the fund for the victims and their families so I'm declaring now at £67.86/£100. See you in June.

That's a lovely thing to do.

FurryBeastOz wrote: »

Way over this month, and couldn't be worse. I'm going to be unemployed come Tuesday with little chance of getting a new job. No reference likely.

Wishing you the best of luck with everything.

mhagster wrote: »

Good rnorning from chilly Melbourne. Well I think I'm under in my first months grocery challenge ! ( my husband has recently died which is why she'd sent it)

Well done for coming under, it took me ages to ever come under. Sorry to hear of your loss.

I've had some mini spends and have been updating my sig. My alcohol budget (ahem) is over, due to Arsenal playing in the cup final, but hey. I will be getting some bits tomorrow, but will make sure I don't go over.

XSpender

Declaring an overspend of £573.79/£500, averaging £114.78/week which is a significant reduction per week over the last 3 months. My total includes a 3 course meal for 7 and a cake and party tea for DS.

What has really blown my budget is the £163.49 we have spent on beer, wine and a bottle of gin. Only 1 bottle of wine and some cider were for entertaining so the rest is us! This is way too much to spend and drink so we are actively cutting this down and I am budgeting for it separately from June.

I feel like I have done much better on our food spends, have used up stuff in the freezer, meal planned, made DH's lunch, eaten less takeaways and cooked from scratch more.

In June I am monitoring how much we spend on snack foods like crisps as I believe we spend too much here and we could both do to lose a few pounds!

See you over on June's thread

[Deleted User]

I would like to declare at £62 exactly, which is £18 under, which will go in2 my overflow pot. See you in June everyone. I was going to deduct the overspend on alcohol, but I really have drastically reduced my alcohol intake, so I will leave as is for the moment. See you in June.