July 2018 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

Just popping in to say I am running at £1288.55/£3000 annual budget or 42.95% at this point.

I just noticed my old annual budget is on the collective targets page. Please can you change it Elsiepac as it seems you have taken this over from Coxy for the moment.

My annual target should be £3000, not £3,500 please

XSpender

Not doing so well on my £50/week target as am up to £58 already and still need a pack lunch for DS, a carton of apple juice and DH may want some beers tonight after a full on day of DIY.

About £23 of this spend is on beer and wine and we have bought a months supply of dog treats and a box of soap powder which will last longer than this week.

Suffolk_lass

XSpender wrote: »

Not doing so well on my £50/week target as am up to £58 already and still need a pack lunch for DS, a carton of apple juice and DH may want some beers tonight after a full on day of DIY.

About £23 of this spend is on beer and wine and we have bought a months supply of dog treats and a box of soap powder which will last longer than this week.

Maybe separate out the store-cupboard things that are not this week's spend? I have a 13th month in my spreadsheet called stores and it goes up or down depending on the spend on consumables, month by month.

Highland_Fling

Good morning everyone.
well my new month officially starts today.
it has been so warm here. However I have not been buying soft drinks and have only been drinking water for the most part.
I can't believe how this small adjustment has brought down my totals on receipts in the last few months.
To be fair in this part of Scotland we are lucky to have very good quality water so there is no reason not to drink tap water.
I am trying to use up some things from freezer this month as some of the items have been in there longer than they should have been probably.
Although I only bought my new freezer a few months ago so perhaps they have not been in there as long as I think.
I must be more organized putting use by date on freezer goods and also organizing them in some way that I keep moving the shorter life span items to be more visible to me.
Might try to do that today with a few items. Not enough freezer space to do it with all the contents of freezer.
If today's weather temperatures are the same as yesterday I will be glad to have my head stuck in the freezer.:rotfl:

JingsMyBucket

Hi everyone. It's great to see returning posters and a quite a few new people signing up as well to join the challenge. Fingers crossed we all meet our budgets this month.

I'd like to join this month for €400 again, please. Even though I did well on the €300 budget last month, I'm bumping it back up this July for a few of reasons:

1.) Thursday is OH's birthday and I want to keep a bit of room there to get something a bit special. It won't cost a lot but I don't want to hamper us. I think I'll scour through recipes and try something new as a special birthday dinner.

2.) I'm going to do an Amazon order from the US site for a few items I seriously just can't find easily in Europe.

3.) OH and I are reworking our household budget structure so I'm not sure how we're going to handle groceries now. I think we may move (back) to a method of just having a pot of cash on the dining table that we use as grocery money. Or if anything, that'll be €100 to use for the outdoor markets and will pay for other things via cards then will reconcile with each other each week. We're trying to figure it out so I'm giving myself some room there.

thriftwizard wrote: »

But - why didn't I realise that kittens eat twice a much as adult cats? And that "kitten" food is more expensive? And that two kittens eat more than twice as much as one...? Not to mention that we now need new curtains in the living room. Ah well, they are very, very cute and a whole lot of fun...

This is really cute and made me smile and chuckle. Thanks for this!

XSpender wrote: »

Can I join again please? My DH has lost his job and we seriously need to cut back. Last month we ate out of the freezer a lot (or so we thought) and still spent £400:eek:

Good luck to your DH and hope he doesn't have to be without work for long. I read it on your board a few weeks ago and was really concerned.

JingsMyBucket

I had my first spends of the month this afternoon at our local outdoor market. I jumped to a few different vendor stalls.

€1.00 on a bouquet of mint.

€1.80 on a nice piece of runny cheese. I was shocked at how cheap it was!
€2.00 on half a dozen eggs. Based on the price of the cheese, I asked the vendor how much his farm fresh eggs were and jumped on that cost! If they're good, I'll return to him later in the week to get a full dozen.

€24.60 on avocados, peppers, tons of berries (€10 on that alone), cucumber, melon and some other stuff.

€8.60 on half a rotisserie chicken and half a rack of rotisserie pork ribs. This was a new rotisserie chicken vendor and wanted to try them. I don't usually like the seasoning that roti vendors use locally but just wanted to see. The ribs are meaty and delicious; I only had a wing from the chicken because I was full by the time I had that, two ribs, and my salad. I'll eat the rest today and tomorrow but so far so good. Hopefully I can find them easily again.

TOTAL SO FAR:
€38 / €400.00
0 / 12 NSD

I went to the market with the full intention to give myself permission to just buy what looked good and what I fancied. We just returned from vacation today and the last few days of it we've both been feeling rather BLEAH. It was really hot in both locations and our energy was sapped. We're glad to be back in our very naturally cool apartment. Thank goodness for that.

I'll take a brief stock of what we have to make a loose meal plan and will buy vegetables later this week according to that. I'd like to stick to about €25 for the rest of the week for veg, fruit, and yoghurt restocking. I'll update my sig.

YorksLass

I'm in again please with £140 for a 4-week July (1st to 28th), groceries only for me & DH, separate budgets for household, cleaning, toiletries etc.

[Deleted User]

Hi everyone, hope you are all well. Can I be put down for my usual £80 for the month. Have a lovely rest of w/e everyone. xx

thriftwizard

I spent another £26 at the market today, on meat (not now available on other days) and fruit & veg - scored 4 punnets of strawberries, 2 of blueberries and 2 of raspberries for £3 as they were packing down - puddings sorted! Should be OK for everything except bread for most of the week now...

Mrs_Cheshire

So far this month, I've got the spends from the bulk meat buy £36.99 and a small spend of £9.83 at Mr T's for bread, milk and other essentials.
Will need to get fruit and a few other essential bits tomorrow.