May 2019 Grocery Challenge 28 July 2018 at 10:09PM edited 18 April 2019 at 9:09AM in Old Style MoneySaving 182 replies 19.9K views

elsiepac

My £200 is going to be £40 a week plus £40 stock (I ran some useful bits down last month but I'm also streamlining what I keep in "stock" as realised I have a lot of things I don't use too regularly so I'm paring it down). My £40 a week I will be trying to do the £30/£10 split that I first attempted last month and failed horribly! The idea being I aim for £30 for my main shop for the week on a Sunday usually, but by Friday I want treat stuff for the weekend, so by keeping a tenner specially for that, hopefully it'll stay more under control.

Had my first spend of £2.10 yesterday on some blueberries (a colleague actually got them for me and got his few bits as well but he bought a bag and charged it to me the cheeky wotsit, hence the additional 10p haha!)

Today I want to do my stock up shop but I don't actually need anything else as I have lunch made and I may be out for tea with friends - or at friends for tea, and if not, I have =stuff in to make something with.

In car news - it's gone to the big scrapyard in the sky (incidentally I used removemycar.com and I got £135 AND the scrapper collected it same day!) - I've been borrowing my dad's "spare" car which GUZZLES petrol!! BUT he's found me a good one - a Peugot 207 58 plate and he's haggled it from £1350 down to £950! Getting it checked for me at a garage this morning as we know there's a gear box issue but just want to check nothing else, so I could potentially have that later today, so I'm really excited! The gear box thing isn't a safety issue it's just noisy and will be a few hundred to sort at some point, so I can save for that once I've finished paying dad the rest back for the car! Thanks goodness for overtime as I was able to give him most of it already! I need to get better at saving, I just never seem to have enough to save! I know I do, just need to focus more I guess.


..............................£200 Budget
Date......Shop......Amount....Remaining
26 Apr....T3sc0.....£02.10....£197.90...(WEEK 1)

Vanlady

Hi everyone, May is almost here:p
Elsie please can you put me down for :
£280 and 18NSD (Sorry I can't seem to find font colours on my phone )
This is a reduced amount for me so should be interesting
Elsie, so glad you didn't have to wait too long for your car replacing.
Euronorris. ...so impressed by your YS meal, sounds yum. I'm quite jealous as I never seem to find any yellow labels except at xmas.
I have started to look at mysupermarket and compare prices though, such a huge difference sometimes!

Lauralozzle

Count me again this month! Still in April at the moment - May runs from 30th April - 30th May.

Budget still £300 although well under for April. We will need to visit the butchers at some point which costs a fortune so... also planning a BBQ end of the month so it should cover that also.

Suffolk_lass

Vanlady wrote: »

Hi everyone, May is almost here:p
Elsie please can you put me down for :
£280 and 18NSD (Sorry I can't seem to find font colours on my phone )
This is a reduced amount for me so should be interesting
Elsie, so glad you didn't have to wait too long for your car replacing.
Euronorris. ...so impressed by your YS meal, sounds yum. I'm quite jealous as I never seem to find any yellow labels except at xmas.
I have started to look at mysupermarket and compare prices though, such a huge difference sometimes!

There you go Vanlady - Elsiepac will definitely see this one

Suffolk_lass

Lauralozzle wrote: »

Count me again this month! Still in April at the moment - May runs from 30th April - 30th May.

Budget still £300 although well under for April. We will need to visit the butchers at some point which costs a fortune so... also planning a BBQ end of the month so it should cover that also.

Well done Lauralozzle :T - it's a real boost when you come in either below, or only just above your budget. And the fact that you are following, tracking and recording your progress is what this thread is all about

getmyacttogether2016

Morning all

I would like to join in for this month please.

£200.00, this is for 2 adults, 3 cats and 5 chickens (hoping for more chickens soon).

Thanks
GMAT

Suffolk_lass

ditty1234 wrote: »

Hi £250 for me.
I might be ready to start doing a wholesale type shop in the beginning of May as would like to build stock for summer through September (the low income monts for hourly teaching), but this has to come out of general food budget.
Is there a list of good places to buy quality bulk?
I know i have seen organic wholesalers, but have long forgotten where. I would like things like quality flour and stuff. I also need to restock things like organic henna hair colour and maybe other toiletries.

My stores have been built over time using offers in SM - so I check mysupermarket for the specific commodity and then where to go for it. I think it depends on what you want as to where you get it.

For quality flour I have looked for a local mill and had missed out on last year's harvest so I bought mine in two ways - boxes of 4x2.5kg standard SM bags and a 16kg sack - both from artisan mills I knew from my Waitflower days - Becheldre (in Wales) via Amazing (got a feeling they might be stopping, or selling) and Shipton, for wheatgerm (the good bits the millers used to keep for themselves) from Shipton Mill direct (in paper sacks too!) - I am pretty sure they also use Amazing Marketplace but this link shows they sell direct and I think that is better for them. I can vouch for the quality. I use old sweet jars to store it so there is no danger of mice or weevils in the bulk bags. They are also great for re-use; storing onions or potatoes (and other root veg) in the giant paper sacks too. Marriages are local and I could switch to them but I have been fortunate enough to be able to afford to go premium on flour - I avoid flour improvers for reasons I can't completely explain. I can't prove it but it seems it may be the thing that makes me bloat and feel lethargic in bread.

I have bought nuts and seeds in bulk (from World Foods which I now think is owned by Amazing) but I have found they were not fresh enough - you know that kind of oily film on the outside that forms? I will buy them in the local (independent) Health Food Shop or when on offer in the SM in future

In terms of organic I am a bit selective now - milk is always organic but provenance is more important. So having got the nice butcher man to explain the coding to me in Morries, I know what I am buying from their farms in the UK where welfare standards are akin to Waitflower. So not organic now, just less.

I hope this is helpful

Puddleglum

Hello!

Could I put myself down for £80 again in May please. It will be really tight and I'm still on the yellow sticker diet big time but I managed to achieve it in April and include a bottle of wine for the Easter weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to ease up a bit come June

cuddlymarm

Hi guys
I failed miserably in the April challenge but always looking forward.
I’m aiming to come in under £150 in May. I’m counting mine as a yearly challenge of £2000 for the year so hopefully I’ll claw back any losses by the end of the year.
Good luck for May everyone
Cuddles

candygirl

Due to a few hiccups recently in my life, i've fallen right off the OS wagon.So can you put me down for £120 for May please?
I'm doing WW , n had batch cooked loads of healthy soups, curries, chillis etc, bunged them in the freezer, then it broke down, so I had to bin most of it
Onwards n upwards anyway :rotfl: