June 2020 Grocery Challenge

lantanna

July starts for me today and I’ve just done my budget, transferred my savings and sinking funds and I’m better off than predicted. Sinking funds have been the best tool in turning round my finances. Usual budget of £300 to cover groceries, household bits, takeaways and alcohol.

joedenise

Today's shopping was a bit more than I had hoped but to be honest some of it will last into next month as well.  So today's spend was £35.28 split between The Food Warehouse and B&M.

£32.52/£250 left for rest of the month.  Still have 3 more shopping days this month probably so going to be very tight if not impossible!
£1.32/£30 bulk fund left
10/15 NSDs

PipneyJane

lantanna said:

July starts for me today and I’ve just done my budget, transferred my savings and sinking funds and I’m better off than predicted. Sinking funds have been the best tool in turning round my finances. Usual budget of £300 to cover groceries, household bits, takeaways and alcohol.

July's Grocery Challenge thread has just gone up, @lantanna.   No doubt Elsiepac will post about it shortly.

- PIp

lantanna

Thanks Pip

[Deleted User]

I am still struggling to get back to keeping an eye on what we are spending on groceries.  I have roughly £20 left to do us until next Thursday.  I might have to add to that but going to try not to if possible.  Thanks for the heads up re: the July Challenge PipneyJane, I will head over and sign up for it now.

Suffolk_lass

DH has just returned with the shopping. A one-stop shop at Morries that should see us through for another ten days with a top up of milk half way through. £53.17 but they failed to swipe a £3.50 pack of pork chops. He will queue up at the customer service desk next time to own up and pay £2.50 - the 2-4-£3 ice-lollies offer was not working so they owe us £1 to offset it. 

It would be tempting to say nothing but really these mistakes should be recorded and acted upon (training usually). I want my local community to thrive again so it needs to work both ways. We tell them when they make mistakes that cost us money, so we should tell them when it works in our favour too. Nine times out of ten they say don't worry and thank you, and they and we feel better about life in general. That way if the mistakes on my receipt (two today) are indicative of everyone, their profitability and community contributions are maintained.

MazzieD

With a week to go to month end have just done final bit of shopping as want eggs for breakfast and ran out!.  
£3.88 for eggs and YS gammon steaks, so have come in slightly under budget at £96.83. 

Will roll over £3.17 to July and keep to same budget amount.  Think this is the first month in a long time that I have paid full price for almost everything.  Just haven't seen any YS for anything I would want to buy so might try changing back to a weekly shop or a regular top up as I would like to see if I can bring the budget down without too much pain by getting some bargains!.

elsiepac

Thanks @PipneyJane for posting the link!  It's such a fluster putting the new thread up now as I don't have a lot of the thread management tools we used to, so I have to copy it all manually and the challenge is making sure no eagle eyes notice it's there and post before I have all the initial post up! Haha, first world problems!
Have caught up on June, been absent I know, totally mucked up my budget for June - I honestly do not know how I am spending SO MUCH! Yes I'm going through more coffee as I'm at home working, but nothing else should really be much more than as if I was at the office!  I think next week I'll start trying to make lunches in advance as if I am going into the office and that may stop the extras sneaking in at lunchtime.  One can dream!
Lots of returners this month - hi guys! 

PipneyJane

elsiepac said:

Thanks @PipneyJane for posting the link!  It's such a fluster putting the new thread up now as I don't have a lot of the thread management tools we used to, so I have to copy it all manually and the challenge is making sure no eagle eyes notice it's there and post before I have all the initial post up! Haha, first world problems!
Have caught up on June, been absent I know, totally mucked up my budget for June - I honestly do not know how I am spending SO MUCH! Yes I'm going through more coffee as I'm at home working, but nothing else should really be much more than as if I was at the office!  I think next week I'll start trying to make lunches in advance as if I am going into the office and that may stop the extras sneaking in at lunchtime.  One can dream!
Lots of returners this month - hi guys! 

Anytime, @elsiepac.  It must be a nightmare now.  They really didn't think things through when they swapped to the new-style forum.

The only thought I have - which may or may not be helpful - is to copy the html version of each post to a Word document or notepad file, so then you don't have to "edit" each post in order to copy and paste them into the next month.  It might just make things faster.  (You probably already know the keyboard shortcuts:  control+A to highlight everything, control+C to copy and control+V to paste.)

- Pip

Butterfly_Brain

Had banana pancakes this morning the bananas were on their last legs and I won't throw things away unless they are mouldy.
Lunch was egg, mayo and salad sarnies using mixed salad leaves and some rocket from the garden.
Sausage and mash and fresh peas from the garden tonight.
9 days to go and still have £87.35 left  DH goes shopping on a Friday and it isn't a big list this week so hopefully I will be well under budget, that will go into my Christmas purse