August 2019 Grocery Challenge

MoneyMission

Just checking in with a budget update for the month. So far have spent £243.09 out of £440. Should only need a milk top up this week so heading in to the final budget week of the month with a very healthy budget still. Anything leftover will be diverted to emergency funds as am trying to top that pot up a bit.

[Deleted User]

Am going to Lidl for a rose plant for daughter and have made a small list of Greek foods (its Greek week)/ I bought a giant jar of olives for dd a couple of years ago and they are on there again so thats towards Xmas gift and they also had some butternut squash plants the other day so after giving it some thought, if they are still there, will buy one. Will be spending £20 on lunch meals today plus money for drinks at restaurant., Planned for.

Merlin's_Beard

£101.92/£100 so I'm over.

Frankly I'm too tired to care. I was really bad and got three yellow stickered ready meals and I don't care about that, either.

I still have all the ingredients for a student cookbook macaroni cheese in the cupboard but I don't have the will or desire to make it. Also have all the ingredients for Jack Monroes Mandarin and Lentil curry that I'll drag out the cupboard at some point and that will see me into September along with the rest of the ready meals and a frozen pizza in the freezer.

And September also brings more than one day off a week for me, which is why I'm so ****** tired right now.

[Deleted User]

Well , mighty fail yesterday, went to Lidl, got most stuff but no butternut squash plants (going near another Lidl today so may pop in there) so spent £12.07, bought giant tin of sliced peaches and large tin pineapple plus 2 jars of the Greek cheese in sauces which I have put in my Brexit stash (not a big stash but just odd, easy keep stuff). The giant olives are in the Xmas drawer upstairs and the mini rose plant was given to daughter as part of her b'day gift. We then went to what sounded like an extra special "manor" for lunch. Light lunch 2 for £10 and there were 4 of us plus 3 drinks. Well, dd and I had the beef pie, one with mash and one with chips. Pie dish was hot but the beef was just under luke warm so we had to send it back, hummmm, not good, other meal was veggie lasagne with salad and found a small sliver of what looked like a bit off a shiney brillo style pad, so that had to be returned and a fresh one brough. The last one, beef lasagne, was not sent back (dgs had eaten it) but although it was hot around the food at the side of the bowl, he said it was cold in the middle. There was side salad with the lasagnes but no veg at all, other than potatoes, with our pies - how much would a few frozen peas cost!. The server was so very sorry and said she would speak with manager but manager did not come out to us. She knocked £10 off the bill but we will not be going there again, debating with myself if I should put a review online, have never done one befor but.....!

Doom_and_Gloom

We have spent £23.10 since last post. Though OH will be going out later to buy milk. If he only picks that up that will be 80p or so later I think to add. We are already over budget and we have over a week left .

My meals for today go as follow
B : Muesli (with cherries, banana, hemp seeds, chia seeds and soya yogurt)
L : Chips with salad.
D : Tofu and vegetable stir fry with rice.
Snacks : Peanut butter with celery.
Drinks : Water, coffee, green tea, lemonade and maybe vodka lemonade.

OH had chips for lunch and for dinner will be having pizza for dinner.

It will be NSD's for Saturday and Sunday.

£207.55/£200
£7.55 over.

thriftwizard

Hmmm - I'm confessing to an £87 spend at the market & the butchers today, which should now see us through to the end of the month, with £12-ish leeway for any small things we may run out of.

However, I'm not confessing to the £60-odd spent at the wholesalers yesterday... possibly a complete waste of time & effort, but I just had a feeling that a couple of our favourite store-cupboard staples might be in danger of shortages/price rises as the end of October gets nearer so decided to invest in them now rather than wait until closer to the time. There are trays of tins stashed everywhere... most dated 2021, we'll eat them before then even if all goes perfectly smoothly! I should probably adjust the next couple of months' budget downwards to reflect the fact that I've already bought some of the stuff we'll need...

CRANKY40

Hello all,

Sorry for not posting - August turned to chaos here. I had a miserable teenager with "no friends" at the beginning of the month. Further investigation showed that most of his mates were feeling the same - like everyone else was busy doing interesting things without them when really they were all sitting indoors waiting for someone else to invite them to do something.

As a result of this, all spare grocery money that I didn't spend on our food shopping has been spent on extra rations for him and his mates who all say that they like coming here and talking to me but who wouldn't like to do things with their own parents. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter - I didn't expect to have much change from the allocated budget anyway and I'd rather they were here than getting into trouble or being miserable at home.

We also went away last weekend which involved making and taking a lot of cupcakes away with us. Out of interest I costed the cupcakes - only roughly as I have no idea how to calculate the cost of the oven being on, but ingredients and cake cases came to 19p per cake - a lot less than the supermarket price.

whmf that's really bad practice. At work we have digital temperature probes and if we cook anything from frozen we have to check the inside temp before the food leaves the kitchen (and I work in a small family run cafe, not a grand establishment). You should probably be reporting them to someone, never mind leaving a bad review (which can be deleted).

Matron_Midge

I'm ending August at £351.88/£400. Quite amazing considering we have all been at home and lots of snacking and convenience foods have been consumed. Thank the Lord for whoopsie pizza LOL!!
I feel extremely pleased with myself as that now means I have a bit of a cushion in my annual budget and can stock up on dry goods and freezer meat
Having home grown fruit and veg has really saved my pennies. We have munched freely on rasps, strawbs and blueberries and I have some
In the freezer too. My tomatoes are just starting to ripen so hopefully I will have multiple portions of pasta sauce to go in the freezer for quick winter dinners.
See you over on the September thread,

Doom_and_Gloom

We have spent £3.74 since last post.

Me (OH will have some potatoes though) ; 2.5kg potatoes, 300g courgette, 200g kale and lemonade.
OH ; 800g bread, 1 pint of milk and a pack of custard creams.

My meals for today go as follow
B : Green smoothie (easy peeler, pear, banana, frozen cherries, kale, bit of fresh ginger, little soya milk and some greens powder*)
L : Baked potaoto with salad.
D : Tofu and vegetable chilli with rice.
Snacks : Peanut butter with celery.
Drinks : Water, coffee, green tea, tea with soya milk and lemonade.

OH will be having cheesy pasta for dinner. I know he would prefer homemade chips but it is too hot to put the oven on. The hob on is bad enough!

£211.29/£200.
£11.29 over.

Still have 4 more days to go, 5 including today. Hoping not to spend too much more as we are already over for this month , hoping OH doesn't go shopping when he gets home later but I won't hold my breath as hot weather makes him more likely to pop to the shop for some reason.
Still due to the amount of bulk/expensive items this month, that will last a while! I don't see it as a fail to be over budget this month.

*contains hemp protein powder, wheatgrass powder, barely grass powder, pineapple powder, chlorella powder and spirulina powder. It is stated as organic, vegan and gluten free. I bought it a while ago reduced. Wouldn't pay the full price (reduced sticker says £8 original price for a 100g pack with a 10g recommended portion size :eek:) but it is a nice addition to green smoothies.

zafiro1984

Did what I thought was a final shop yesterday and came in at 2.71p overspend, much better than I have ever managed before and reasonably pleased. However, today my DD announced there was no milk in any of the freezers, a bit remiss you may think but DD is the only one who uses it on a regular basis and tends to keep an eye on how much is left. At least she volunteered to go and get some so £13,00 later we have milk and my overspend is now £15.71:( just hoping for no more spends