October 2017 Grocery Challenge

Merlin's_Beard

So final count for October... £104.83/£100. Definite oops! I know I shouldn't shop when I'm tired and hungry and susceptible to ys deals for stuff I wasn't going to buy anyway, but I struggled to find any time when I wasn't towards the end of this month.

Better luck next time, I guess

CattyCatX

Too early for me to say what the final October spend will be - need to wait and see what the next few days bring but I've got at least 3 dinners in the freezer. :jI know so far I'm on £352 though :( But a massive £170 :eek:of that was for eating out with my friend when he visited and buying him new food in etc, so if you take that away then I'm on £182 of my £200 budget, and I did also buy a new duvet this month (which we have needed already!) and had £20 in unexpected travel costs.
I'm frustrated cos the excess has had to come out of my savings but also pleased in a way that the numbers show me that without my friend visiting I would probably have come in on budget or only slightly over, so feel better about next month as I won't have to buy a duvet.... but will have to get some xmas stuff (presents, decorations, food) but I now feel more confident that it will be possible to fit that within the £200 I have available!
Thanks so much to everyone here for being so welcoming and also making me feel better about complaining about my friend's visit! I felt so mean but you have all cheered me up! It was lovely to see him, just expensive
Thanks again everyone, don't know where I'd be without this forum!

Ginmonster

I'm catching up on a week's worth of posts now - so busy at the moment!

So sorry to hear about your MIL Chocoholic Chick and your mum's illness Thriftwizard. Hope you're getting lots of support and hugs.

I'm declaring as hubby went shopping yesterday and bought the last bits we will need to get to the end of the month. He's not been able to confirm how much he spent exactly but given what he came back with I'm assuming he got pretty near to the remainder of the budget for the month so I'm assuming it's all spent. There were the usual random extras that happen when he goes shopping like 8 cans of beer - they were on offer. We have about a dozen bottles of beer in the house already and we don't tend to drink loads of the stuff. *sigh*

See you all the November thread!

elsiepac

Had a little bonus for my grocery budget last night...
Lost 3 pounds in my first week of Slimming World and also won the raffle! So I have all the ingredients to make a pumpkin curry, a pack of 4 jacket potatoes, a funny pumpkin carving kit plus a pack of slow cooker bags - I hadn't heard of these, but apparently you put them in and the food goes in them and when you take it out it means the slow cooker is clean so you don't need to wash it up or take up space in the dishwasher! I will look forward to trialling these - there are 5 in the pack I won!

caronc

£16 today bringing Oct to £141/£200. This should be my final GC spend this month.

CRANKY40

CattyCatX wrote: »

a massive £170 :eek:of that was for eating out with my friend when he visited and buying him new food in etc

He'd be an ex-friend by now if I were you so you're obviously a nicer person than me....

elsiepac wrote: »

a pack of slow cooker bags - I hadn't heard of these, but apparently you put them in and the food goes in them and when you take it out it means the slow cooker is clean so you don't need to wash it up or take up space in the dishwasher!

They are useful if you are a one person household as instead of making vast quantities of one slow cooked meal you can put 2 or 3 different meals in your slow cooker at once.

[Deleted User]

Had a few spends - I don't need anything else, maybe some plant milk, but I should be alright. Will not declare, as month does not end 'till Tuesday. Spent surprisingly little this month, pantry and cupboards are emptying, but freezer is rammed as a result of cooking up stores. Today I spent £8.85 on

2 x punnets of strawberries
3 x courgettes
4kg onions
Tomatoes
2 x tomato puree
1 x vegan cheese
1 x vegan mince

Have updated sig - have a lovely w/e everyone.

YorksLass

Belated condolences chocoholic_chick, look after yourself. (((Hugs)))

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Sorry - I know slightly off topic - but just interested in thoughts. Quick visit to $ainsbxrys this morning and used the self service checkout. As has happened before, instead of getting my nectar till spit coupon, I didn't get anything - it wasn't out of paper completely but my coupon jammed/was just a jumbled mess of screwed up unreadable text.

Sorry, not a fan of self service checkouts myself although I know some people find them useful if they have just one or two items or are in a hurry. I'd rather be served by a real person; after all, I'm giving them my custom so don't expect to DIY! And judging by the numbers of staff usually hovering round the s/s checkouts, I'm guessing they go wrong quite often.

On the subject of Sainsbobs coupons, I don't think they're quite as generous as they used to be ... but see below ... and not entirely convinced they're tailored to customers' normal buying habits.

Week 4 finished at a total spend of £37.21, so just under the weekly budget, and with x5 NSDs. Into Week 5 with £85.87 left! :j

The postie recently brought some MOCs from Sainsbobs and at first I hadn't planned on using them as each one required a minimum £50 spend. After thinking long and hard, I decided to use one (for £7.50) and did an online order for delivery to stock up on bulky/heavy long-life items like flour, sugar, teabags, various tins, oats, toilet rolls, tissues etc. And of course I checked to see what was on promotion first! In the end, the bill came to £51.45. I also got x2 free sample sachets of Bisto chicken gravy plus another coupon for 500 extra loyalty points worth £2.50 and x3 freebies. These were a 2ltr bottle of a fizzy drink (not an item we often buy), a 170ml pot of Greek yogurt and a 120gm bag of "fancy" crisps. I say "fancy" 'cos we only ever buy plain ones, but these are soured cream & black pepper flavour rice & pea chips. Not something we'd ever buy, especially as they retail at £2.25 a bag! :eek: I'll be interested to see what they taste like.

DH went to market this morning and spent another £21.25, so the monthly budget balance now stands at £13.07. Given this was a 5-week month for us, I'm happy with that. Also, the large delivery order will give us a very good start to November. I shouldn't think we'll be needing anything else this month but not declaring just yet.

Well done to those managing to come in on/under budget :beer: and commiserations to those who went off track.

debtfreeforlife

And I'm over budget Yesterday was a horrid day at work and so it needed to end with gin and pizza and I pretty much decided as I'd gone over I might as well also buy chocolate. Am at £225.07.

NewShadow

NewShadow wrote: »

£116 on food/drink + £55 for 'Social' stuff

No spends since the last time I posted and tomorrow is my last shop of the month.

I only need bread and some veggies so I'm planning on spending less than a £10 and will declare on Sunday when I get back.

This was my budget setting month and I've already counted a meat delivery for next month out of this month's budget... so I think next month - November - I'm going to be looking at a maximum of £150 for everything but will still break it down into social and food to help me see where it's going.

Planning ahead is a friends birthday - I'm taking her to lunch, maybe lunch with a different friend - we take it in turns, and possibly a trip to the cinema.

I also need to factor in vet's visits and putting aside some money for the work's christmas parties - sounds doable...