June 2018 Grocery Challenge

HornetSaver

Before posting the figure let me say - I've known for over a month that this week was going to be one of my most expensive weeks. I set myself a very generous June budget of £200 with that in mind.

Compared to an expected cost for the week of around £80 (it was admittedly a guess), the actual damage this week was £115.47. :eek:

Had my parents over for a few days to celebrate my mum's birthday (they were staying at a B&B as the bedrooms are in the process of being done up, but spent the days with me). But on top of the expected costs I ended up holding a BBQ for a much larger number of people than I've ever had over before.

Given the overspend, I was surprisingly quite frugal with the cost per person on the BBQ itself. Stuffed peppers are very cost-effective, it's surprising how far meat goes when you're making skewers, and on top of that there was the option of corn-on-the-cob (few took it up so I know what I'll be eating a lot of for the next few weeks) sausages (frozen, I had them anyway, just means I'll be making fewer meals with them than I would have, rather than being a direct cost), salad (small amounts of leftovers which didn't go to waste, amazed that that's the one thing I got right) and burgers (fewer than expected took those up so if I have another small BBQ that's a large chunk of the cost sorted out). But while I did have a BYOB policy some of the overspend was nonetheless on alcohol.

Having only today totted up the numbers and realised the scale of the overspend, you'll be unsurprised to discover that today is most definitely going to be a NSD regardless of what I do or don't have in the kitchen. :rotfl:

June was initially going to be a calendar month (with a lot of the costs of the following month front-loaded as I generally do the bulk of my spending over the weekend, with Friday and Saturday just happening to fall on 29th and 30th this month). In light of the overspend I'm going to convert it into a four week month and do July as a five-week month. That gives me a budget of just over £28 a week for my remaining three weeks compared to an expected £35 per week. Less than I wanted as this is meant to be a month of easing-in, but not quite as big a blow as it felt like when I realised how far over budget I had gone. Will claw back the remainder of the overspend by being stricter on myself in July than I had initially planned to be.

MadamMim2013

A NSD in regards to the GC, :j
Have made some small purchases last 2 days so will sort that out and add to total

FoxFace

Evening all

Small spend of £1.65p today as we had run out of bread and bananas (we go through tons of both here)... picked up a couple of YS loaves and a small bunch of bananas to last us to the weekend.

Total for this week is £27.43p... £32.57p to last until Sunday and nothing else really needed, so that's pretty cool. :cool:

Hope you all had a fab day
Fox
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pamsdish

Needed milk as sister on visit, 1 cup of tea, drank Pepsi otherwise, looks like egg custard for me tomorrow as I drink my coffee black, no tea, so 50p on milk and 95p on barbecue sauce. not even going to put it on my signature yet, add it next time.

Ginmonster

Hi there everyone. I've been away from the boards for a couple of months but it's time to get back on the OS wagon so can I join again this month with a budget of £100 please?

Looking forward to checking out Fox's recipe thread for some inspiration!

FoxFace

Morning all

I've just been sat working out next week's menu plan, as I usually go shopping on a Saturday... but I might pick some of it up today as I don't have much else on.

Menu plan looks something like this for next week:

-Aubergine & Sweet Potato Katsu curry
-"Haggis" pie, roast potatoes and veg (it is vegan, I promise!)
-HM Pizza
-Bean Burritos
-Baked Potatoes & Beans
-Mushroom carbonara
-Falafel burger & HM chips

I will try to get as much of the above posted in the recipe thread also, thank you all again for the support!

Also, I was supposed to be having avocado on toast for lunch today, but true to form the avocados have other ideas and are nowhere near ripe yet (even though I bought them YS'd almost a week ago!) So I am going to make some lentil and mushroom "sausage rolls" with some leftover mushroom mince and storecupboard ingredients... good job I have spare time today!

I'll update my spends this evening, have a lovely day everyone
Fox
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FoxFace

beenthere_donethat wrote: »

The aubergine and sweet potato Katsu curry sounds lovely, FF I will look forward to you posting your recipe for that one

Can I be perfectly honest and say I got the idea from one of Wagamama's veggie options (although they use egg to bind the breadcrumbs so is isn't actually vegan... my son had it on our last visit and said it was lovely). I still don't know how I'll approach it... most of my cooking is just making it up as I go

Just finished making my lentil & Mushroom rolls for lunch... gonna go write it up on the recipe thread because they smell divine :heart2:

pamsdish

Really, really hacked off, windows updated the other day, not on comp much yesterday due to sis`s visit, all my excel files deleted, no spends sheet, no incoming outgoing d/d`s sheet, and worst of all no fridge/freezer list. Looking in play store for a free app to use in future, any recommendations please.

Called in Morries picked up 16 tonic water, 9 Ariel, 6 for friends, 4 pumpkin rolls, 4 reduced geraniums, and a bottle of famous grouse, collected £5 voucher due, get another for todays spends, so my share comes to £33.80, plus yesterdays bits and nearly forgot bought 4 ben & jerry in co-op yesterday, so £42 to add to total spends.

caronc

£54 today stocking up of food for guests over the weekend and a family bbq on Sunday.

FoxFace

Logging today as I just got back from my big shop... I usually go on a Saturday, but I thought I'd get it over and done with so I can be lazy tomorrow

I won't give a breakdown because I have been absolutely everywhere :rotfl:

So my spends for today are £44.66p... £15.34p under my weekly £60 budget :T

Add that to last week's remainder of £32.57p and my total "petty cash" for June currently stands at £47.91p! I've decided to keep a rolling budget so that when I have a more expensive week, it's already covered :money:

Hope everyone is having a lovely Friday
Fox
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