August 2019 Grocery Challenge

dan958

£49.00/£80 in total for the month. Will have 1 more shop next weekend, so I should be within my budget.

[Deleted User]

Just nipped to Lidl for a specific item plus milk and if I remembered (which I did) chilli flakes. Of course I bought more so £14.80 spent. Did get what I went for.

zafiro1984

Daughter went to the local Tesco for custard powder - she had to get tinned, so much more expensive than making it yourself.

PipneyJane

Evening All

I have a few spends to declare. We did our big shop for the month yesterday at MrT’s. £62.06 spent, which qualified us for the 10p/litre off fuel voucher. Items purchased included 6 tins of chopped tomatoes* at 28p each - OMG, yes, we actually ran out of tomatoes last week - pasta, pilchards, fresh milk, breakfast cereal, long-life skimmed milk (for when we run out of fresh), and yoghurt. I immediately froze half the fresh milk, when we got home.

We also went to the local Farm Shop, where I bought a dozen eggs, potatoes, carrots, onions, sweetcorn and a head of broccoli. £7.50 spent. You may have seen the stories about cauliflower and broccoli crops failing. Theirs have suffered too but they’re still able to harvest some of their crop.

Today, I went to Lidl, to pick up muscovardo sugar, instant coffee, cream cheese, and some “boring” sausages to go into tonight’s Spicy Sausage and Lentil Casserole. £5.96 spent. (Any highly flavoured sausage would be drowned out in the casserole, hence “boring” sausages are required.)

The sausages were RTC at 76p for 12, normally £1.09 (Lidl’s Simply range). When I got home, my husband asked me if there’d been any more on sale, RTC. I said, “Yes”. “So why didn’t you buy them?”. I pointed out that after our shopping yesterday and today, we have less than £3 left in the kitty.

We also received some coppers in our change, so I’ve extracted them from the kitty. Excluding them, the above brings our total spent for August to £117.20/£120, leaving £2.80 for the remainder of the month. Our month runs to 31st August, so wish me luck!

- Pip


* ETA: normally, I take advantage of the 4 cans for £1 offers on chopped tomatoes, buying 24 cans at a time (about a 6 month supply). MrT runs this offer regularly. I’ve been looking but I haven’t seen the offer for the few couple of months.

ancientmum

I've spent a lot since the beginning of August, £106.94 since my last visit to the thread. This is mainly due to taking advantage of money off vouchers and the 25% discount on wines at Mr.S.
I've got a stock of cat food, which I used to bulk up a £60+ spend at Mr.T, to use a £9 coupon and get a petrol voucher.

As for what we are eating, I made a paella on Saturday from a recipe in the newspaper, using meat cut off some chicken legs. Last night I boiled the remaining meaty bones in stock and have enough to make another meal. I've not decided what exactly to do yet, so it is in the freezer for now. On Sunday I cooked a shoulder of lamb which was YS, and has been in the freezer. The veg (mangetout, runner beans, carrots, potatoes) came from the allotment and pudding was wild blackberry and scrumped apple crumble with ice cream. The left over lamb has been made into a curry, one meal last night and the rest frozen in portions for another day.
(the apples are growing on a lawned area on the edge of a housing estate I walk through to get to the allotment. It looks uncared for, with lots of fallers around,so I'm reducing waste and recycling into my kitchen)

ditty1234

Spending nothing today or yesterday (on food).

jam2019

So far spent £26.01/£60 - been living pretty well off my freezer so that's kept the spending down a bit. Might even lower the budget a bit next month

zafiro1984

nothing spent for the last couple of days. I have £118.84 left this month out of a budget of £398.66

Just looked back over what I bought this month that was unnecessary. Absolutely shocked - I needn't have spent £128.40 (teas and smoked salmon from a posh shop, fish and chips x 2, fudge cake and coffees). If I could save that every month it would be wonderful. I'm feeling a little disappointing with myself.

pamsdish

zafiro1984 wrote: »

nothing spent for the last couple of days. I have £118.84 left this month out of a budget of £398.66

Just looked back over what I bought this month that was unnecessary. Absolutely shocked - I needn't have spent £128.40 (teas and smoked salmon from a posh shop, fish and chips x 2, fudge cake and coffees). If I could save that every month it would be wonderful. I'm feeling a little disappointing with myself.

I think that`s the ethos of this thread, what you have spent that was unnecessary, and making you think about doing it again.

[Deleted User]

Been very good but am taking dd and dgs to lunch tomorrow for her b'day and picking up some flowers for her on the way and so going somewhere a little bit more special than our usual 2 for a tenner. Also invited young neighbour as she recently got great exam results and landed a p/t job at Sain..., also taking driving lessons so she is mega excited and longing to tell my dd too. Thats going to cost me and then out for lunch with "gang" on Friday.