October 2017 Grocery Challenge

YORKSHIRELASS

I am a bit late to the party but I need to join, and possibly need some help. We are a family of four, DH, myself and two sons who are 19 and 16. I used to easily feed us all for £60 a week but over the past year it has just gone up and up.

DH and DS1 both work outdoors and have big appetites - the boys are very flexible when it comes to food but a meal isnt a meal for DH if there isnt a good helping of meat in there and we can easily get through 600-800g of meat in one sitting. I am averaging £90 a week on food at the moment and this month we have a few other bills so I could really do to cut it down.

So, I am planning my menu now and making a list. Will report back on how I get on!

zafiro1984

I haven't spent a penny on food since last Monday - I can't believe I've done no top ups. Just spent 10.95 at sainsbury's and now I need to get some fruit and vegetables, must make a list and stick with it.

MissRikkiC

I will be updating my totals shortly but pleased to say that we stuck to the meal plan last week with the exception of Saturday where DH pretty much rolled over and died because I'd said no to an Indian take out... (we had fish pie and sausage casserole cooked and ready?!) So eventually gave In! That came from our own pocket money so doesn't count towards the food shopping budget.

We have annual leave for a few days this week so went food shopping this morning, stuck to a list and spent £29.01 but that will last us now for the week until Monday. I have ran the freezer and cupboards down to such a sorry state of affairs and still only buying missing ingredients for each meal so couldn't have been that bad to begin with!

Hope you're all having a good Monday!

Merlin's_Beard

£10.10, so total up to £26.21/£100

It feels like I've spent a lot of money on not much, but hopefully that sees me to next monday, which is half way through the month so maybe I'm doing better than I thought.

MissRikkiC

Grocery spends currently stands at £83.12/£150? (Maybe...... ive forgotten!)

NewShadow

NewShadow wrote: »

Total spends so far this month = £85.48 on food/drink + £7.60 for 'Social' stuff.

Blah! an unexpected £5 today - on my tea club at work. It's roughly every 6 weeks but then the £5 gets me unlimited tea and coffee at work so well worth it.

Makes the new total = £90.48 on food/drink + £7.60 for 'Social' stuff.

Plan
Breakfast
Banana and fruit porridge

Lunches
Soup-n-sarnie - [strike]Saturday/Sunday[/strike]
Vegi Omelettes - [strike]Mon[/strike]/Thurs
Free-lunch at work - Tuesday
Turkey, rice and veg - Wednesday
Eat-up day - Friday

Dinner
Beef Stew - [strike]Saturday/Sunday/Monday[/strike]
Pasta bake - Tuesday/Wednesday
Turkey dinner - Thursday
Eat-up day - Friday

Snacks
7 flapjacks

chocoholic_chick

Evening all! Just had a quick read through and catch up on how everyones doing

Small spend of £6.65 for me today on some bananas, milk, a couple of bottles of squash and a pack of 48 weetabix. Total for the month is now £90.94. Hoping to not have to spend too much more before the weekend when I plan on doing a meal plan and stock take

lynnejk

Evening folks

First spends of the month over the weekend.

Al*i = £20.56, mainly dairy, fruit and veggies
Morrys = £41.98, including eight portions of fish and liver.

and butcher = £43.69 (comes out of bulk buy).

So plenty of food in fridge atm and in the middle of bulk cooking.

Have made beef bourgignon in s c and that will be portioned tomorrow after taking out two portions for dinner - hoping for another eight.

Liver cooked, added bacon and tomatoes, and made onion gravy. One portion scoffed today with mash and beans and two portions frozen.

Five pounds of mince fried off. Some for chilli, some for bolognese and the rest mince and gravy will be cooked tomorrow, portioned and frozen (peppers and onions already prepped in fridge).

I have sliced and cooked two aubergines, which have been frozen to make moussaka (cooked lamb mince in freezer already) and some bakes later.

Don't mind the cooking but wish I had a washing-up genie :rotfl:

Small order from Mr T coming tomorrow - mainly stock cupboard and freezer staples but already had seven grocery NSDs this month :j

Hope you all having a great week
Lx

elsiepac

Just wanted to say I love reading everyone's progress and meal plans and little stories! Keeps me motivated!

I feel good to be back on track this month - as in tracking properly, checking in regularly and frequently, and have stopped a really bad habit (smoking!) that I got back into for just over 3 months over the summer - I seem to do it every year then have to go through the pain of quitting again because I don't want to smoke! Anyway, I've stopped for about a month again now, luckily nipped it in the bud before it really set in too badly, but I feel ill thinking about how much money I wasted needlessly!

I'm back on track with FlyLady too, part of which (for me) includes on a Tuesday taking an inventory of the fridge, getting everything out one shelf at a time and wiping them down, chucking away anything that I might have missed and which therefore gone off (rare for me but when I buy too much sadly this sometimes happens), then sitting down to make a meal plan based around what I have in, then off the back of that a shopping list. Also, if my spreadsheets for my finances (budget tracker) are not quite up to date then I have to update them too. Then I am fully prepared to go shopping on Thursday!

When I get this system right, it works REALLY well.

This week, I am out with work on Thursday night annoyingly, but am being fed as well so it doesn't really impact me too much. I have booked Friday off work (anticipating a hangover although I want to try and be sensible, however my boss is a big drinker and the night out is a booze cruise around Bristol Harbour!!) so I plan to do my shopping then instead.

I need to dip into my week 4 money (which starts Thursday) though, as need lady things that I had run out of!! Irritating as I'm so organised and usually have 3 spares of everything!!)

Ginmonster

First spend of the month was on Sunday but as I sent hubby out to get the bits we needed while I did some tidying I've only just found out how much he spent as it's shown up on the bank statement today.


I've got plenty of veg to use up over the next few days and enough bananas to keep the boy going until Friday so I shouldn't need to do any more shopping until then.

£19.82 / £100