April 2018 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

Hello everyone,

I'm still in March, although not posting much - life is getting in the way atm, but would like to state my usual £100for April. Even though two weeks are Easter holidays, I am confident I can keep to this, as I'll have longer to cook and will be able to use up more of the stocks.

See you on the 1st!, and thanks to all who run and post on the thread.

PG x

indigowarrior

Today is the start of my payment month so budget has reset. First spend £36.27. Went to the food warehouse and stocked up on food. I should have enough to last me at least two weeks. We will see.

YorksLass

Thanks elsiepac for setting up the new thread for April and also to Coxy and lynnejk.

I'm still on the March thread for another week but I'll be in again please for April. £140 for 2 adults, groceries only, to run from April 2nd to 29th.

Puddleglum

Can I come back into the fold with £35
per week please? It all went a bit haywire last month so April is going to have to be really focused!

indigowarrior

Yesterday spent £2.11 at Tesco. Which means I have spent £38.28 so far.

elsiepac

Hi everyone

lynnejk will no longer be able to look after the recipes for us - she's done an absolutely amazing job over the years and I wanted to say a big thank you to her for all her hard work!
For now, I will try and take this role over, but I may rethink this in future - I'll see how I go as I am fairly busy in real life with a very demanding full time job and a small animal rescue to look after - as well as leading fossil hunts and doing all the associated work with that!
So I may call for volunteers in future - we'll see how it goes.

___

I just wanted to share a tip I have for online grocery shopping - I do an Ocad0 order some months to stock up on cleaning products and some other bits that are convenient to get from them, and I'll try and time it when things are offer, so I regularly get my cleaning stuff at 1/3 off or 3 for 2. This helps me justify the relatively large spend as I'm using the stuff anyway so may as well get it on offer!
Before I place my order I ALWAYS do a quick Live Chat and ask if there are any discount codes for me. EVERY SINGLE TIME so far it has yielded me a code that I haven't been emailed or that isn't immediately obvious (to me anyway) on the site. This time I had my order sat there waiting for tomorrow at £48 odd. I asked, and was given a code for £10 off £50 spend! So effectively have just got myself £10 of stuff for free (which was great as I needed batteries at £7!!)
So it's worth doing.

So my Ocad0 order this month is now around £51.63 - that's my guesstimate including bag allowance but I must remember to dig out some old bags to give them back and get a refund on.
That's another thing - they'll give you 5p per bag you give them - FROM ANYWHERE - up to 99 bags. One time I had a really old bag full of old bags, and the driver couldn't be bothered to count them so he put them through as 99 bags earning me £4.95 back. It's worth doing!

Anyway - sorry for massive post! I'm aiming for £28 this week on fresh stuff and a few tins to replenish my cupboard, plus my Alpr0 chocolate milk. I've meal planned loosely and I'm pretty well covered this week.

Breakfasts are my usual savoury oats
Lunches are soups from the freezer plus a small-ish salad - realised I have 11 soup portions in there so some need eating but that's fine as it means an easy week which is useful as it's my on call week for work and that gets busy!
Dinners are a tofu and veg stew I made last night - 3 portions of that in the fridge. Will be doing a Quorn vegan cumberland sausage and mushroom casserole tonight which will do 3-4 portions, not sure yet until I throw it together!! And I have a bag of "Pulled Oumph" in the freezer which is a vegan pulled pork-alike, which I'll probably do one night just with veggies and maybe a jacket potato as I have a couple that need using.

So I only need to buy salad stuff, top up with fresh veg accompaniments, and get a few tins of beans, a bag of oats and a couple of chocolate milks, so it should be achievable this week!

Doing list now and going round shops later OR tomorrow, haven't decided yet.


...............................£200 Budget
Date.......Shop......Amount....Remaining
25 Mar.....Ocad0.....£51.63....£148.37(STOCK)

NewShadow

Blegh. Time to try this again.

New plan - I want to buy a house in a couple of years but have no credit history so... Now I have a credit card :eek:

It's not a very good credit card - as I understand - sub-prime, but it's the best they'd give me with no credit history to speak of so now the game is to use it regularly in a 'sensible' way for the couple of years between now and applying for a mortgage.

With that in mind - here I am!

I'm aiming to put my weekly grocery spend (of around £20) on the card and pay it off in full on payday each month.

I want to use this challenge to keep track of that spend and to make sure I've got the cash on one side ready for when the payment is due.

I'm mentally allocating £25 per week so for April's 5 week month I'm going for £125

Wish me luck

RedFraggle

£300
again for me this month please. Doubt I'll hit it this month but will try again before going back up.
Thanks

indigowarrior

Another £2.50 spend which brings my total up to £40.78. Not good at all. Still got 28 days left before my next payday.

Ginmonster

Can I be in for £200 this month please? I'm still in march but I'll start here on the 1st. I'm going higher than my usual budget as I have the two week Easter hols and lots of visitors over the month so this a more realistic target this month. I'll be back to normal again in may.

Good luck everyone!