June 2018 Grocery Challenge

Tales17

Please put me down for £600 again this month, thanks x

K9sandFelines

Just declared £210 something; out of a projective £250 and a realistic monthly goal going off my yearly one, of £270 . So, i am going to knock it down another £10 for June. Please count me in for £240

turtlemonkey

I will be aiming for £110 (or less) again in June. Thanks!

FoxFace

Hi everyone, I'm back again after a long hiatus. Unfortunately DH's hours have been cut so we need to tighten our belts a LOT.

Can I please be put down for £60 per week for June please?

Just did a storecupboard inventory and it's looking okay... benefit of being vegan is lots of lentils, rice, pasta, nuts and grains are already on hand Just need the bits to make them all into full meals!

Going back to cash only shopping as my debit card is not my friend.

Fox
x

caronc

£37 spent today mainly on fruit & veg and fresh stuff. Total so far £37/£230

mylastpound

OMG! How come ive only just found out about my supermarket website which is a price comparison!!!. Just put my weekly shop into it and ASDA comes back at £43, id usually go Sainsbury, but they quoted £48!


Printed off my list and il be going Asda tomorrow Morning! i need to get with the times lol


Does anyone else use it?

Mrs_Cheshire

Been to Mr T's and Waitr*se today, only a few things in Mr T's that were on offer, spent £6.75 then did my main shop in Waitr*se as they sent me 4 money off vouchers £8 off £40 spends as well as 30p of fruit and 30p of veg, I actually did 2 smaller shops to get use of the vouchers, as they need using by the 10th.
I used the self scanners so I could make sure I was as near to £40 as possible, ended up spending £31.66 and £32.05.
Will need to buy a couple of fillings for sandwiches for pack ups next week but otherwise it should last until thursday next week when I plan to shop again.

FoxFace

Well I'm off to a good start

Just went to Mr T's for loo roll and bananas, but when I walked in there were two HUGE crates full of YS stuff, one for bread, one for fruit and veg

Got 3 loaves, some buns and some pittas to freeze and a decent amount of fruit and veg, which will be used for snacks and my menu plan for next week (which I haven't written up yet).

We got £19.61p of stuff for £4.49! :T add in the loo roll and bananas which were not reduced and my total for day 1 is £6.57p

PipneyJane

Good morning All

I see we’ve got a couple of new members. Welcome and good luck. Please don’t be too daunted by other people’s budgets. The challenge is about beating your own budget, not mine. My grocery challenge money is the general housekeeping kitty (£120), which looks low but it excludes the meat fund (£40/month contribution), the bulk fund (£40/month), Christmas Food Fund (£10/month) and the garden fund (£10/month), all of which just accumulate until needed. While I may buy YS sausages at MrTs if cheap enough, or their 57p cooking bacon, we buy the bulk of our meet at the butcher about once every 3-4 months and only the MrT spend will come out of the Grocery Challenge money. (The bulk fund is for those times when our favourite brand of toilet paper goes on sale a half price, so I’ll buy a year’s supply, or when we go mad in France and stock up on wine...)

We actually started June’s challenge early, on the 29th because I’d run out of cash, so after Tuesday night’s pub quiz, I dragged DH to MrT’s to raid the cashpoint and took out the housekeeping at that point. Naturally, since we were already there, checked out the condemned food counters. There’s never much in them at 11pm, but we still scored two peppered-and-grilled, cooked chicken breasts - more on them later - and some sliced turkey that formed the basis for Wednesday’s dinner of wraps to e eaten on our way to Wembley for a concert. £4.88 spent at that point.

The chicken breasts were good value in their marked-down state, since each was over 250g cooked weight, so probably 400g raw, and cost less than £2, but I wouldn’t bother with them at their full price. (Original price for the larger was £3.98.) We ate the smaller one for dinner last night and it was quite tasteless. Neither of us could figure out the spicing, it was so dull - think 20-year-old curry powder dull - and it didn’t taste much like chicken, either. I will probably use the second one in a highly spiced stir-fry, something with a sticky marinade/sauce to mask the lack of flavour.

Wednesday, saw DH raiding Lidl for supplies to make the aforementioned wraps (salad, tortillas, etc) plus some extra mature cheddar (£3.99 for 830g - bargain!) and fresh milk (£1.09), spending £10.09 in the process. While he was out and about, he visited the farm shop for veg, spending another £5.40.

Thursday, he was back at Lidl for mushrooms - which he’d forgotten on Wednesday - 85p.

Today, I’m off on a picnic afternoon tea with some girlfriends. My responsibility are the scones - which I’ll bake when I finish writing this post - the clotted cream and jam (homemade rose-hip jelly, of course). DH couldn’t find clotted cream in Lidl, so yesterday we popped into not-our-usual-branch-of-MrT’s and had a wander. This time, I bought with me the shopping list and checked the fridge and cupboards before we left home. £25.53 spent, which included £2.09 for the clotted cream, £3.50 for some eye-wash and £7.98 for 2x2kg packets of dried kidney beans (our local MrT’s has only had the 1kg packs in at £2.99 each). Found the cooking bacon (57p for 500g) and bought 2. We also checked out the condemned veg and found asparagus for 50p, a large box of fresh mushrooms for 42p, and lentil stuffed mushrooms for 62p (bought 2 packs). The plan for dinner immediately went from chicken-and-pasta to stuffed mushrooms with half that “spiced” chicken breast each.

Anyway, all of the above brings our total spend so far for June to £46.75/£120, leaving £73.25 for the rest of the month. Although I will pop into the farm shop today for some more eggs (£1.50), we shouldn’t need to do another shop for well over a week, since we’ve stocked up on most things. The only item left on the shopping list was freeze-dried instant coffee - MrT’s own-brand refil is the best value but they didn’t have one in stock.

- Pip (off to make scones and chocolate brownies now.)

supersaver1000

Not the greatest start to the first week, I'm starting to wonder if committing to save so much might be a step too far. I might be going into the overdraft a bit, but if I get a shift on and sell this tat soon there's a chance I could break even. Just need to keep calm and on an even keel