February 2018 Grocery Challenge

purpleybat

K9sandFelines wrote: »

Forgot to add £1.50 ish (i didn't go) to shopping for the Lidl Tofu. Wanted to try Gyros, but there was none in our store.

i have those gyros in my freezer but haven't tried them yet.
you can tell they're in there, every time I open the freezer door the stink of garlic zooms out to greet me

ceb1995

Spent £29.60 on our last proper weekly shop before moving so we're on £116.80/ £180. Hopefully we can manage to be sensible with the bits we buy whilst we're between houses to stay under budget.

YorksLass

Trip into town on Friday as planned. In the market I bought x5 lovely birthday cards for a tad over £4 and they're now written out ready to go. Next up was food shopping in the market (a small leg of lamb for today, x2 pork pies, lunch tongue for sandwiches), onto Heron Foods, then Morries for a couple of items and finally the chippie for Friday's fish supper. Total spend (not including cards) was £19.97, so still have £41.67 left in budget with just a week to go. Looking good.

I didn't buy anything in Heron Foods as this was just an exploratory trip. There were quite a lot of bargains to be had so I might use them in the future but I'll have to wait until the freezer empties a bit first. Also, I have to be mindful that I can't carry as much as I used to and would have to lug it all home on the bus. Has the time come for me to invest in a shopping trolley, I wonder?

I don't think I'll need much shopping next week (the coming week's meal plan has been done), most likely some more milk and definitely a packet of dried peas. It will probably be a local shop at the C!op plus I can drop in at the PO with some funds for our holiday pot.

I've also got £60 in loyalty points to spend at some stage but I'm hanging on to that for now as I haven't decided yet what to spend it on. A nice problem to have!

Hang on in there everyone, the month is almost over.

lynnejk

YorksLass wrote: »

...... Also, I have to be mindful that I can't carry as much as I used to and would have to lug it all home on the bus. Has the time come for me to invest in a shopping trolley, I wonder? ...........

I my shopping trolley - one of the best things I've bought in recent years and I'm not elderly :rotfl: Being as I like to buy in bulk if something's on offer, and I bought a chiller bag to fit inside for warmer months, it's been a really useful purchase.

Bought mine on the amazing site - it's worth getting a good one with chunky wheels and a waterproof top cover
Lx

JingsMyBucket

Happy Sunday everyone! It’s nice and sunny over here and I’m enjoying the light streaming into the apartment. OH volunteered last night to go to the shop today for me so I asked this morning when he was leaving for the patisserie.

€15.35 at Delhaize: Greek yoghurt, Alpro yoghurt, discounted YS shredded carrots, and a large/bulk bottle of hand soap. (I could feel myself getting sick so definitely not skimping on the hand washing.)

Totals So Far:
€180.60 / €450
9 / 10 NSDs

I’ll update my sig after posting here. The fridge is full and I'll shuffle off to meal plan in a bit. In terms of planned shopping for the week, on Tuesday I need to buy my bulk shower gel (€14), yellow paper recycling bags (€2), and potato chips/snacks for the visiting teenagers who’ll arrive on Wednesday night. So, I'll estimate Tuesday’s purchases to equal about €18–€20. That should leave me roughly €25 for the last 4 days of February, if I go by my recently self-imposed limit of €225 instead of €450.

purpleybat

YorksLass wrote: »

I didn't buy anything in Heron Foods as this was just an exploratory trip. There were quite a lot of bargains to be had so I might use them in the future but I'll have to wait until the freezer empties a bit first. Also, I have to be mindful that I can't carry as much as I used to and would have to lug it all home on the bus. Has the time come for me to invest in a shopping trolley, I wonder?

I love my shopping trolley, bright pink thing with big purple flowers.
I got sick of trying to tap my oyster, wedge shopping upright and then dashing to a seat before the bus pulled away which often left me scrabbling around the floor after shopping had spilled.
my ex-husband bought me it for my 40th birthday and thought i'd gone mad when I asked for it, but I love that I can now walk home from the shops trundling along without strained shoulder muscles.
don't know about up north but here in the south I often see them in charity shops for a few pounds, in my opinion well worth the cash to try one out.

thriftwizard

I've been happily hauling a shopping trolley since I was in my mid-20s and living in the West End of London! It's a real arm & back saver, but also means you can do more in one trip, and thus save yourself the temptation to buy the little extras that always seem to creep into your basket if you go to a supermarket every day.

Over the last 3 days I've spent a total of around £40 of our money at the market & supermarket, not to mention some from the joint account I have with my mother on bits & bobs for her 92nd birthday party, but that doesn't count as part of our household budget. Looking at the calendar, we have ten days of February left to go, and only one weekend (which is when I do my main shopping) so I'm cautiously confident that this month I will manage to stick to budget.

However I've decided that the most sensible thing to do will be to add any surplus onto the Bulk-Buy purse; I suspect that some of the things I used to buy locally & count into the monthly budget now get bought online & thus come under that heading. I'm fairly sure that will go way over what I've allowed (and what we've spent on it in the past) so I'll use the rest of this year to work out what I should be allowing annually for this purpose. It does get a bit complicated with offspring coming & going unpredictably, but wouldn't life be dull without any of life's little challenges?!

supersaver1000

I bought a trolley bag that doubles as a rear pannier for my bike and use it for shopping and work.

Coxy11

Hi all,
Budgets updated to here
Been away this past week, so have just caught up!
Coxy

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, had a spend of £4.76 at McD's on ice creams after our day out, was going to pick up a box in L!dls but they had an empty freezer where the cones would usually be. Was still cheaper than buying from the ice cream van.
Then popped to Mr T's on the way home to get some fresh bread and some bananas for the rest of the week, and a couple of bottles of fizzy for me to drink ( I don't drink tea or coffee).
Managed to get some bargain reduced ys bits.
got a couple of packs of topside of beef, some roast turkey, roast turkey with stuffing, a pack of ham, some bits of ham, mini beef pasties, 5 chipolata's, some haslet slices, a pack of savoury eggs and some kids apple and chicken bites. Should have cost £32.50 if bought full price ( I wouldn't have bought it at that price), cost to me this afternoon £2.41.
I'm over the moon, as I've worked out that it will do 3 main meals for the 5 of us, dinner for the 3 kids twice, sandwiches for lunch 3 times for the 5 of us and once for the 3 kids, snacks for the kids twice and once for hubby.
I've also found out the kids like haslet, it cost 6p for around 9 slices, so didn't really matter if they didn't like it. Will definitely keep my eye on the reduced priced items again.