July 2018 Grocery Challenge

JingsMyBucket

Howdy. Tuesday was a NSD and today/Wednesday I went to Lidl to pick up a few things in British and Irish week. I bought some cheddar cheese but decided to skip the oat cakes at the last minute. From the packaging they look like Nairn's and I don't really like their kind. I also picked up stop light peppers, bananas, zucchini, a couple of vegetarian Spanish tortilla for OH and a couple other items.

The total came to €15.75. I was also supposed to buy a family pack of salmon filets but they were skinless, and I much prefer to eat crispy fatty salmon skin. I'll head to Delhaize in the morning to get some salmon instead along with some puff pastry to make a zucchini and blue cheese tart for our dinner tomorrow.

TOTAL SO FAR:
€310.20 / €400.00
12 / 12 NSD

After Thursday's purchases, I'm going to try my darnedest not to buy anything until Sunday. I'd rather close out the month under and use up more items in our fridge and cupboards.

For August, I think I'll ratchet my budget back down to €300. I'd like to keep it in line. Have you ever heard of that time management theory that whatever quantity of time you allocate to a task, you'll end up filling it no matter what? So, whether you allocated 15 minutes to do a task vs 2 hours, somehow you'll make it stretch to fit that time. I'm approaching my budget the same way in August. I'll shrink it back down and just try to make do.

pamsdish

Moguline wrote: »

I don't think there is such a thing as non-full fat tahini - it's just that there is a light and a dark variety. Light is made from raw sesame seeds, dark is made from roasted ones.

:A
That explains the low carb count thanks, anything labelled with "light/lite" is usually pumped full of sugar, and why I had passed it over before, didn`t read the label or notice it referred to colour.

Highland_Fling

Good evening everyone
well I still haven't been to the shops. To be honest I have been poorly for the last couple of days so have put off going out. I am running very low on toilet paper, milk, butter etc. So will have to visit shop tomorrow as I can't get along without these essentials.
I seem to be well within budget this month but still have a few days to go.

selloptape

Slightly blown my budget. And running low on a lot of essentials. Just going to try and hold tight over the weekend x

Throwaway1

Hello all, first time poster on here. I'm not sure if it's allowed to mention about cashback apps that are specific to grocery shopping? (I won't post referral links as I'm certain they won't be allowed). If not, I apologise and please point me in the right direction!



I use a mixture of 3 cashback apps which I check daily for freebies. ClickSnap (from Quidco) and CheckoutSmart are run by the same company and Shopmium is a seperate app that works in a slightly different way. Between them they often have 2 or 3 freebies a week and I use those to treat myself to things that I wouldn't otherwise buy. For example, CheckoutSmart had a 6 pack of juice drinks free from Co-op on Monday and then CheckoutSmart AND ClickSnap had a free pack of stroopwaffels from Morrisons on Tuesday. When it is free on both I do two seperate transactions and claim both back. As my husband has an account too, we get double the freebies which means we now have 4 free packs of stroopwaffels!! We pretty much only ever buy the freebies although they are money off other things on there too but I don't want to be suckered into paying for anything that I wasn't going to buy, even if it is half price, as that's not money saving. You do have to pay upfront but the cashback is paid almost immediately on ClickSnap and Shopmium but on CheckoutSmart there is a 5% penalty unless you save your cashback up until it totals £20 and then withdraw it. Between all 3 apps I've had around £120 of freebies in about 8 months (£240 if you include the husbands as we always buy 2 of everything, if it's something we don't need or like we buy it and put it in the foodbank as it is still free).

Doom_and_Gloom

£7.92 since last post for July.

Spinach 260g, 1kg carrots, lettuce, cucumber, 1,025g sweet potatoes, rice cake, strawberry jam, lemonade, milk, double Gloucester and bread.

For dinner I'm having the last of what was made on Wednesday.
For dinner OH is having the tortellino he got.

£167.37/£155.
£12.37 over.

Noticing a lot of price rises.
Not done for the month yet as we go start to end for easier budgeting. Already quite a bit over though did buy loads of loose tea which was over 10% of what our budget is so don't think we are doing too bad given that. The tea will last so may claw back the money next month.

K9sandFelines

Todays spends £2.19 in work - chocolate for DDs, YS burger buns and sugar
Yesterday in Morrisons i spent 9.02 on mostly fruit and veg, milk and bread and B and M 69p on choc chips for baking.

£11.90 total

Horwich_7

Good Morning
I am wanting to start the grocery challenge as we need to get our food shopping under control.
I’ve just had surgery on my foot and I’m going to go onto half pay in the next month.
I’ve lurked for so long but now need to do this.
How do I start?
What are your tips?
Do you have a separate shopping pot so you know exactly what you have to spend etc?
Annie x

MadamMim2013

I've come to wail quietly that I am now waaay over budget and it's not the end of the month yet for me!! :eek:
A few odd days have thrown me and I've been far from organised, though I did run down the fridge and cupboard stores a little.
Currently at £349.19.. Think I may have to up my monthly amount just a smidge to be realistic!

pamsdish

£9.32 in Lidl, wanted some veg few other bits should require nothing else now this month, freezers still full thanks to salads over hot weather, loads and loads of blackberries crammed in, will declare on Tuesday though as popping town tomorrow.