April 2018 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

Congratulations, PennyGrabber! And I pay £16.88 for a sack of Jumbo Oats from RealFoods online, but also have to fork out £4.95 for delivery, so it doesn't work out any cheaper than supermarket oats - but they are better oats! We're generally ordering other things from them too, having 2 pescatarians in the house.

Did manage an NSD today, and brought back purple sprouting broccoli, Red Russian kale, curly kale & leeks from the allotment to add into tonight's stir-fried veg and a huge vat of chicken soup slow-cooked up from the carcasses today. Some will be frozen for later reference, some will go down to my mother's later in the week, and some I'll just eat for my lunches.

Puddleglum

Squeaked in just under budget this week at £34.85 so I'm going to have to watch the pennies next week to come in on budget for the month. Tried a new supermarket and the bill was a bit higher than expected.

selloptape

Congrats Pennygrabber! Lovely news

Spends still quite low so far, although I am having to rejig this weeks meal plan - chicken that was meant for three meals isn't smelling right hate to waste but with chicken I think it's better safe than sorry. I won't be able to get back to the supermarket I bought it from within the next few days - wonder if it's worth contacting their customer services?

elsiepac

HUGE congratulations PG!!!

Hi everyone

Didn't realise I'd been quite so absent off here but seem to have not updated since my first shop!!

To be honest I've not done very well this month and I'm well over my allocated budget again. LUCKILY I had the extra money there, but it could have been better spent I'm sure; or could it? Who knows.
Basically I just failed to meal plan for the first three weeks and it really shows. This week I planned my recipes and bought to that plan.

Tonight I am planning next week's recipes, and getting my list ready for when I shop next. I may try and live out of the freezer and only buy fresh stuff - I have plenty but I did want to keep a few bits in there really.

I'm pretty skint though and don't get paid till 26th - next Thursday!
I'm finding it hard to cut down on spending - in all areas really. I quit smoking last year and I've cut down my alcohol intake by a huge amount - I was drinking LOADS and it didn't feel like I was, but looking back I see how I'd let it creep up. So That's one area I'm saving a huge amount of money on.
But everything else just seems so tight. It's not really, I earn a very good salary but I live alone and so have all of my bills plus debt I'm paying off. I don't go out loads - maybe 2 or 3 times a month if that, and one of those will be a cheapy cinema and meal trip with my mum where I spend less than £20.

Now I've written all this I'm thinking I need to go and spend a bit of time on the debt free forums again, try and regain some discipline to my budgeting. It's just every month I feel like I start well but then something comes along and derails me, an unexpected meal out with family, or a birthday I forgot to budget for, or one of my fossil hunts where I didn't allow extra fuel money, or just a lack of willpower and payday excitement.

OK, rant over, I'm going to sort this out - writing this has really helped!
I can't be bothered itemizing my spends on here like usual as I have so many I haven't put in - suffice to say here is my current overspend:

£339.51 / £200

I'm in shock. No more words right now. No blinkin wonder I'm skint :eek::eek::eek:

MadamMim2013

£15.52 in Wilkooos & saaaavers :rotfl:
That was for a restock on all meds and suchlike.. (They are included in my GB)
May have another spend later, discovered my two 4pts of milk are both out today:eek::eek: not happy..
Milkshakes and custard for tea :rotfl:

pamsdish

£27.62 in tosco, got a months supply of choc £16, couple of reduced loaves, I like the Burgen soya and linseed, on offer this week £1.50 but spotted 2 reduced to 90p, as I freeze anyway in the stock pile, couple of other bits and bobs too.

JingsMyBucket

Hi gang! I realized last night that I haven't posted in about 10 days! :eek: Things have been insane with work and this event I'm running. It's next week Thursday, Friday and Saturday and I feel like I'm in what I like to call "slow motion panic mode". You know, when you're panicking on the inside and all you can do is just stare at a wall or count rice grains or something to distract yourself.

Anyway, I've spent an additional €115.55 and had 5 NSDs in the past 10 days. I've been just buying whatever junk so my amounts have crept up a bit. I've updated my sig.

Totals so far:
€218.47 / €400.00
8 / 10 NSD

Some notable purchases the past few days: 54 rolls of toilet paper for €20 which should last us until July. I'm so glad I don't have to think about it again for a while! We also bought 3 packets of seeds to try growing stuff on our tiny shady patio. We got coriander, nasturtiums, and mesclun greens/lettuce. I also bought a basil plant from the grocery store that I'll try to keep going after using up its leaves for pesto.

I'll probably buy some snacks this weekend that I can take to the event which are easily portable. I can just snack on them while I'm running around fixing things. OH is going to London again this Sunday to Wednesday for work and he'll get some food items for us from Waitrose, M & S, and possibly Holland and Barrett. I'll give him my H & B loyalty card so he can use the £10 credit that's accumulated on there.

My freezer is still full but I'm low on fresh veg and we just have one banana and an orange left. OH literally just finished the last strawberries by whizzing them up with some yoghurt; he ate that as his dessert. I'll get more fruit tomorrow and I may just make a quiche to use up some of the frozen veg.

I'm on a short mental break to have a bit of fun reading all your posts before digging back into my work. It's going to be a long night. :beer:

JingsMyBucket

PennyGrabber wrote: »

Big healthy eating kick started this weekend, as my fella proposed on Friday. I'd quite like to be slimmer for my second wedding than the first - four stone to go...!

PG x

Congratulations PennyGrabber! What a good set of news!

thriftwizard

Aaaand an unexpected spend today; DD1 is a new-ish & still quite nervous driver, and really wanted to take her little car out for a run, having been under the weather for the last couple of weeks. So I agreed to go with her to L!dls in the next town up to the north, a 10-mile run with some challenging hills, not to mention interesting behaviour from other drivers, many of them racing to get to their Army base in time for their duty! So I bought some bits n' bobs that we were running low on, and spent - eek, lost the total, but it was just over £20 - on coffee, butter, mustard, cooking oil (has to be a certain type for OH) tomatoes and lettuce.

Don't ask; the lettuce was for the cockatiels! I usually only have to buy them lettuce about twice a year; normally they're happy with my mother's leftover salad bits, or dandelion leaves, or leaves from the vine at the bottom of the garden, or kale, but we're into the "Hungry Gap" now. We've run clean out of dandelions, the vine hasn't leafed up yet and there's only leeks left at the 'lottie!

Could have done with another NSD but the whole "plan" is up in the air at the moment, between the marathon, DS1's birthday and the imminent retirement of the market butchers. I may have to re-think it all, but it's possible than an Offspring will be moving out shortly, which, although we'll miss her greatly, will make life a tad - cheaper!

Itisme_2

Some more Tesco shops from last few days - £7.93, £5.99, £2.79.

Updated total: £131.44/£250.

Edit: Another £7.15 tonight, so now £138.59/£250.

Another edit: Sorry I didn't manage to keep track of it, but I tried.