October 2019 Grocery Challenge

susan946

Hi everyone
Well I've failed miserably at my challenge to post more frequently, but I've got a fantastic £127 left in my budget for October. I've a few odds and ends to pick up before the month is out but shall still come in nicely under budget.
Well done to all of you for your successes. I read the daily emails from the list so I keep up with what's going on and next month I shall. once again, resolve to do better.

tessie_bear

i went to the farm shop today and got half sack marfona and 10kg carrots and a massive cauli came to about a tenner...i use loads of carrots through the winter as make soup and thought the pots would be timely for some jackets over halloween/bonfire night

also tried a new to me butcher got black pud/pork chops/ bacon/sausages not huge quantities for £7 I like to try small shops with mixed results

still averaging about £50 a week for 4 I think i could do it cheaper but never quite do it if that makes sense hope everyone is staying dry

Saver-upper

On Wednesday had to buy milk,bread and bacon (£7.25 approx),on Thursday night did a biggish top-up shop (£40.59),then on Friday spent another £24.29 (included 3 tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream=£9).
Total spend £72.13,makes it £320.17for the month

Suffolk_lass

I'm still trying to keep the costs down and I post infrequently on here now but I am still tracking. We still have beans, courgettes and leeks in the garden, and some tiny butternut squashes that have set since I harvested the main crop.

Despite my best efforts I have accumulated yet more stuff and here we are, a week before pension day for DH in the dead zone between his former monthly pay date and his new pension date - a whole extra week on a third of his money. It is psychologically a long month!

thriftwizard

Oh bu&&er! A silly miscalculation has pushed us over budget - I was making some chocolate ice-cream, a great favourite of DS2's, kind of on autopilot whilst I looked at apple ice-cream recipes. Somehow I accidentally poured in twice as much milk & cream as I should have done. So in order not to be wasteful, I had to double-up everything else too, and make a double batch, which left us short of chocolate, cream & eggs for DD1 to make her long-planned chocolate pudding - DS2's other favourite thing - so a rapid trip to the supermarket was needed.

In the meantime I'd found an interesting recipe which could be adapted to our 600ml ice-cream maker so I had to buy some condensed milk too. £9.83 added, and we're £7.06 over now. Fingers crossed I don't make any more silly errors before Thursday - payday! - although we've just heard that OH's twin brother and his highly-allergic & hollow-legged teenage son are descending for most of half-term so there'll be two extra mouths to feed too!

After last week's gales, the pile of windfalls reached epic proportions & was actually quite hazardous. A young friend has snaffled up most of the apples for his pigs, but I'm doing my best to rescue as many of the quinces as possible, as they're a lot rarer & utterly delicious. 7 more jars of quince, pineapple & rosemary marmalade were concocted this morning (some for us, and some to give away for Christmas) and a vat of apple & quince stewed up for later reference. (Some of that will be frozen, but there'll be crumble too - BiL's a fan.) Four carrier bags of quinces have been given away, and one more may be swapped for some medlars, and I can always make wine with the rest.

However today's tour-de-force has to be the Toffee Apple ice-cream... I may have to never make it again, there are definitely some calories in there! But - oh yum...

pamsdish

Small spends in Aldi, £6.60 went for some pumpkin squash while on super 6, they were too small, so waiting for next delivery, did get 6 packs of garlic to prepare.

ditty1234

Checking out here:
In a 5 week month for 2 people
Cupboard stuff £44
Ready Meals £28
Dairy £42
Meat £48
Fish £7
Breakfast £6
Vegetables £54
Cleaning £11
Toiletries £13
Household staples £9
Dog food £6
Alcohol £44
Snacks £14
Sweets £27
School lunches £30
All in all I'm coming out with a spend of £395
This is including everything, a birthday party probably explains the alcohol and sweets, apart from that my main crime is cooking everything from scratch as we don't really eat any luxurious dishes. Mostly chilies and pasta dishes. I only really shop at Aldi and generally bring a list.
I do I feel I keep failing - but ds 17 does a lot of sport - so he probably eats for 1,5 and the 5 week thing probably explains most of the rest. Anyways I'm not proud, and I don't know how you guys does it.

shopaholicnumber1

Thanks Mrs V! Feel OK about excluding non-groceries now! Which is a good job as I'm now on £201.31/£225! I'm hoping that the milk holds out until Friday so I don't need to go near a shop!

MandM90

Went to Morrisons before we left on our jollies Oop North and spent £60.69! But that will have saved lots whilst up there. I bought breakfasts and snacks and other bits for the week. Lots of fake meats and other things we wouldn't normally buy.

Have £36 left but seeing as we only have three days of the month left I think we will cope. Hurrah!

jenni_fer

250.10/300 here with 3 days to go.

Expecting to do a top up shop on Wed but *should* only need a couple of things (dates on meat not long enough at the weekend) and will only have time to have a quick dash round Lidl so should come in under.

Next month I'm going to stick to £300 but include any lunch-time eating out to try and have an even bigger impact.