March 2018 Grocery Challenge

purpleybat

oh dear, I went over budget.
I can't really complain too much, now my sister is staying during the week (and some weekends) I didn't really know how much extra to add. esp as for march it was only 3 weeks and not the full month.
anyhooo I finished on £221.33 so £21.33 over budget but not too bad.
onwards and upwards

Mrs_Cheshire

Adding another £12.84 to March, closer to my normal target of £400 which I'm not too bothered about. It's been a tricky month. Onto April now as I won't be shopping tomorrow.

PipneyJane

cw18 wrote: »

As of 26th, my spends for the month stood at £89.89 out of £100 (and annual spend to £287.06 out of £1200).


Since then I've had a good haul of freebies, and had one small spend (I actually pay for the 'freebies' and then claim the money back, but as I have enough in the bank to cover it I class them as free from time of purchase - done though an app on my phone).

27th - I needed to cover some mileage on foot (time on feet training for the London Marathon, having done 14 miles as my return commute for work the day before!), so I did an 8 mile walk to visit 3 supermarkets to collect 3 freebies
Asd@ - 200g piece of Brie (worth £1.95)
Morris0ns - 350g squeezy bottle of honey with stevia (price dropped from £5 to £3.35, am being rebated the £3.35)
Tesc0 - tin of something with alcohol, which will be donated to my OH as I don't drink (worth £1.80, although was on a multi-buy offer so could have been got cheaper per tin if someone wanted more)

29th - more freebies and some spending
Tesc0 - £1.40 on a 1kg pot of natural yoghurt, then another freebie tin of something alcoholic (worth £1.80, also on multibuy) and a freebie box of 4 stockpots (worth £1.69)

Takes monthly spends to £91.29/£100, and annual spends to £288.46/£1200



Just need to start searching recipes to see if I can find something using Brie now. It's not a cheese I'm mad keen on - can eat a small amount on crackers once in a while, but 200g is more than a bit much for me. And apparently OH isn't keen on it either, but his 200g freebie is also in my fridge

I am in awe of you and your marathon training.

Regarding Brie, a couple of thoughts:-

1) It goes really well with bacon and cranberry sauce, so you may want to consider making toasties with it. (Think of it as a home made panini.) Fry the bacon first and chop smallish, spread cranberry sauce on the bread and layer with thinly sliced Brie and the cooked bacon. Then toast until the cheese is melted and the bread browned. If you don’t have a toastie-maker, then I’d fry the sandwiches in butter. (Aparently this mix works well in baguettes, untoasted.)

2). Do you like baked Camembert? I’d make fake-baked-Camembert by cramming ramekin dishes with lumps of the Brie, mixing in some slivers of garlic and sprigs of rosemary, dolloping over olive oil and wrapping the whole thing in foil, then baking at 180C for 30 minutes. (I’m basing my timings on this recipe by Raymond Blanc https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/raymond_blancs_baked_89165 )

3). Somewhere I have a cauliflower cheese recipe that uses Brie. I have never made it and I’m not sure what recipe book it’s in but it’s worth a try.

HTH

- Pip

K9sandFelines

I had an Ocado delivery last night, and although the money hasn't left my bank yet as of a.m. this morning, i am classing it still as this month as it was delivered last night. I remembered to add my bag deposit back to the amount spent. I have a few receipts still to add that are in my work pocket somewhere, which totals about a tenner; so i am over by about £30 this month. However, last month i was under by about a £100 so i think i'll definitely still hit the yearly target.
I am hoping April will be alot less spendy, but i am not holding my breath as i may have later Easter bits to buy (if there are on sale at a decent price anywhere), and i have mine and DD2s birthday also.

Need2bthrifty

I thought I had done my last shop a couple of days ago when I went to @sda for some milk, bread, passata, olives, lettuce and wraps which came to £4.14 taking my total to £59.30 then noticed L!dl had also reduced some of their veg to 0.19p and couldn’t resist the shallots, carrots and potatoes so another 0.57p spent there today bringing my monthly spend to £59.87/£60.00……phew.

I’ll pop on over to April where I need to give myself a bigger monthly budget this time as my store cupboard is starting to look a bit bare.

K9sandFelines

K9sandFelines wrote: »

I have a few receipts still to add that are in my work pocket somewhere, which totals about a tenner; so i am over by about £30 this month.

Receipts came to £18.71 including today's small shop for peppers, mushrooms, spring onions, lettuce, pears, pure fruit juice, plant milk, bread, croissants, hot cross bun loaf and pittas.

Off to add to total ...

Merlin's_Beard

Declaring at £112.47, must do better next month...!

Slightly helped by my first shop of April being completely stymied by the car not starting, though, so I'm waiting for my little battery pack to charge so I can get going.

JingsMyBucket

Hi folks! I’m catching up on the thread as I’ve away in the U.K. and returned just Wednesday night. MadamMim2013 I hope you’re feeling a bit better now. Please seek help to deal with the potential PTSD. Don’t discount any feelings you may have about it.

thriftwizard wrote: »

In other news, thanks mainly to the Grocery Challenge, we've ended the month with all the household accounts looking healthy for the first time in many years;... I'm not going to get complacent, there's many a slip, but I can't help being a little bit chuffed.

That is wonderful! You should definitely be proud.

cw18 wrote: »

Just need to start searching recipes to see if I can find something using Brie now. It's not a cheese I'm mad keen on - can eat a small amount on crackers once in a while, but 200g is more than a bit much for me. And apparently OH isn't keen on it either, but his 200g freebie is also in my fridge

You can also freeze Brie. Cut it into portions you’d use for snacking and wrap them tightly for the freezer.

YorksLass wrote: »

Ended up with 26 NSDs and £15.82 left in my purse. :j

Brava! That must be a record.

I’ll properly update my spends tomorrow. I need to break out the receipts and calculators.

selloptape

Feel happy with this months spend - £292.42 is way under where I thought I'd be. Hope I can carry this on in April - I've got guests for a week and my son won't be spending as much time at his dads so it may be tough.

Well done everyone! x

Itisme_2

I posted at the start of March but since then I hadn't been tracking as I go along, but kept lots of receipts, so total for March (at least an estimate with receipts I could find) is:

£232.62

That's:
£6.70, £6.55, £8.95, £4.95, £10, £5.10, £9.25, £5.52, £24.35 at Sainsbury's
£10.50, £5.25, £20, £17.95, £13.11, £27.69, £6.35, £7, £5.25, £8.75, £8.25 at Tesco

Target was £200 so I went over - but I tried tracking it which is good!