September 2018 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

FrugalinShropshire wrote: »

Hello all, I am restarting the challenge on Monday and budget £180 for the rest of the month. We have plenty of food in the house as I got married last Tuesday and we got back from our ‘minimoon’ today. So I begin my budgeting as a married woman on Monday!

Ooh, Congratulations Mrs FrugalinShropshire! I love the minimoon name. I hope you succeed with budgeting. We fell into too many romantic dinners at home (costing lots) and almost trying to out-impress each other. Financially silly in retrospect!

FrugalinShropshire

Suffolk_lass wrote: »

Ooh, Congratulations Mrs FrugalinShropshire

Ooh I like that, I may have to change my name :T

fairy3

Congratulations on your marriage Frugalinshropshire. Update on last couple of days - spent £4.68 on top up bits - milk, fruit and garlic bread (YS) at 50p. Menu plan done until Thursday's proper shop.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone

selloptape

Congrats Mrs FrugalinShropshire!

I'm off to Mr Ts shortly with a very strict list Have meal planned to include some soup ingredients so hoping to break my habit of buying lunches at work, I spend around £60-100 a month on this so can be reduced right down if I'm just a little more organised.

[Deleted User]

Hi Elsie, hope you are feeling better. Can I be put down for my usual £80. This is for everything, toiletries, laundry liquid, take aways (wots that) etc., though I do make my own face n body oils, so do not include that. I have a separate drinks fund of £20, though hopefully not gonna spend much of this as i'm back doing my yoga (ma body is ma temple n all dat). My month is from 1-30 Sept and I've spent £8.22. I've been trying to live mostly out of stores. When I've run out of certain stuff, I've substituted, like making red lentil dip instead of buying houmous. To be honest, much nicer, n a fraction of the cost, instead of soy mince, i've used brown lentils, I think that's nicer too. Pleasantly surprised at Poundstretcher. They have tins of mixed beans @29p, which are really nice to fling in a salad and jars of peanut butter for 50p, so stocked up somewhat, Mary Berry's salad dressing, which sells for £3 in Sainsburys for 89p. Made a batch of Thai Green Butternut Squash Curry and have a few for the freezer for cba days and am gonna make another batch of 'Seitan' today, the last batch was so nice. I'm hoping to just spend £5 per week on veggies n salad stuff, starting 2 moz, n concentrate on using up stores (ahemm - well that is the plan). Welcome to the newbies and congrats to FrugalinShropshire. Have a lovely rest of week end everyone.

donnajt

donnajt wrote: »

ok I've been really brave and for first time ever I've written down income/outgoings, I am going to set budget for £400 or £100 on 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, see if I can manage, starting from huge advantage as kitchen is bulging with food .... it will be a real challenge as I'm doing slimming world and spend a fortune on fruit/veg throughout the week, tesco basket here, lidl basket there, I'm going to physically remove cards from purse, withdraw £100 each Monday and pay cash only .... wish me luck

Week 1 (3rd Sept) Update
Tesco £21.29
Spicentice £16.07
Thingies £15.17
Tesco £15.00
School Dinner £4
Tesco £16.00
= £83.53 / leaving roughly £17.50

Week 2 (10 Sept)
Iceland £35.35
Butchers Chicken £25 (grrr overspent by £9 as Iceland failed to deliver chicken :mad:)
School Dinner £10
Remaining = £29.65

Not sure if I should include school dinner money or not? what does everyone else do?

Also cant decide whether to stash the remaining cash from last week or just take less out of bank this week? what would you all recommend?

Overall pleased with myself the Spicentice and Thingies spends were not necessary so technically could have spent £25 less last week

Right need to get menu planning (probably only need fruit and veg/bread and milk top ups)

donnajt

FrugalinShropshire wrote: »

Hello all, I am restarting the challenge on Monday and budget £180 for the rest of the month. We have plenty of food in the house as I got married last Tuesday and we got back from our ‘minimoon’ today. So I begin my budgeting as a married woman on Monday!

Congratulations wishing you a lifetime or love and laughter x

[Deleted User]

donnajt wrote: »

Not sure if I should include school dinner money or not? what does everyone else do?

I would personally include it. Mine used to take packed lunch and are long grown, but it's your budget, so whatever feels right for you. Anything you a/c for means more money in the bank (so to speak).

donnajt wrote: »

Also cant decide whether to stash the remaining cash from last week or just take less out of bank this week? what would you all recommend?

What I do is put it into a bulk buy fund, so I can buy stuff when on offer, or dip in on tight months. Some people treat themselves and others have a takeaway/treat night at the end of the month, holiday fund. Whatever feels right. Well done for coming under.

Lauralozzle

Shopping trip today, and spent more than I would have liked, but the freezer is now very full and we have enough food to last for a good while. Next weeks shop should be significantly cheaper.

£33.15 spent in Aldi - brought x4 curry packets (katsu curry) as they don't always have them and we do really like them. So a bit of a stockpile that'll last a good while yet!

£31.66 in Morrisons - a lot of YS meat to be honest, and I treated myself to some YS salmon. I don't usually buy it as it's expensive, but I will treat myself when it's reduced.

Total spend is now £149.33/£250

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

Have dipped in and out of here over time but my grocery bill is creeping up towards £450 a month and I am getting into some really bad habits. buying convenience foods and ready made rubbish.

So its back to mealplanning and being sensible. DS1 goes off to residential college next month so I know this is going to make a difference to my food shopping but we are going to help him out financially so wont be any better off.

I need to work out how much I have spent this month already and check whats in the cupboards and freezer then make a plan.