July 2020 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

Welcome all returners and new joiners!
@lantanna I bought my airfryer about 2 months ago (Tower brand £40 reduced from £55, now back up to £55) - easily one of the best small appliance investments I've ever made as I use it *nearly* every day.  Very very pleased with it.  

XSpender

After 3 visits to L1dl and a trip to £stretcher we are now on:

Groceries - £119.76/£450
Bulk - £5.98/£40

We are well stocked up and have enough dog food to last the month.

Next week we will be doing a ‘make it work’ week where I don’t buy anything to make our evening meals Monday to Friday and only need a pack of wraps and a tub of pasatta to make Saturday and Sunday dinners so will be having a low cost week to bring us back well under budget.

lantanna

Thanks Elsiepac, I’m trying it for the first time tonight. Sausage and chips - yum. 

£2.29 on sausages today.

nannygladys

Elsiepac, May I join in for July please, starting on the 1st. Im not setting a budget but as I have plenty of tins etc in I would like to keep it as low as possible, so if its OK will post how much I spend rather than 'try' not to overspend. I will go though my cupboards, freezer etc tomorrow and make a bit of a meal plan then shop on Wednesday for the first time. 
Thanks
Nannyg

CRANKY40

Hello all. Thanks for running the thread Elsiepac. My budget for July is £250 thank you. That is food/toiletries for me, my 15 year old son and his furry nuisance beloved cat. If I can stick to my budget there will be money available to put away for the holiday that we would like to take after my son's 18th birthday so that's a good incentive. My cupboards and the freezer are fairly full - I'm not running anything down if I can help it as my furlough pay stops at the end of July when my employers would have to start to contribute. I usually work in a cafe and due to socal distancing they will not be working at full capacity when they reopen so not all previous staff are required. 

MazzieD

Off to Lidl again this morning, spent £2.98 got the onions (finally) and some FR eggs.  Now have all I need to start batch cooking.  

It's only a few days in to my month and already spent £51.80  so £48.20 for rest of month.   

thriftwizard

And I'm off into the July budget with a spend of £15.85 this morning, which doesn't sound too bad until you realise I only went up there for some milk  However they had their big packets of wholegrain rice back in (vanished in the Great Loo Roll Panic) so I picked some of that up, plus we needed dishwasher tabs & salt (which also disappeared) whilst there. No frivolities there; I'd have had to buy them all shortly anyway.

joedenise

First spend of July's budget this morning of just over £40!  Bit more than I was hoping but some of it is actually for our caravan holiday next week so bought today rather than leaving it until the weekend.  Hopefully shouldn't need to spend much at the end of the week but still need to do my meal plan for this week.


£209.61/£250 left of grocery budget
£100/£100 left of bulk budget
0/20.   NSDs


PS. Meal plan now done and need to buy a few things but not much.  Hope I don't need to add too much more!

Chloris

joedenise said:

I use a falafel recipe by Tori Avery which uses dried chickpeas rather than tinned and I find they make really good falafel.  I bake mine rather than fry though - website here:  https://toriavey.com/?s=falafel.  Using dried chickpeas means you have to think ahead as they need soaking overnight but I think it's worth it for the result.  Also means they're cheaper to make so very MSE!

Thank you. I shall have to try this one. I'm going through chickpeas at a rate of knots ATM. I've been making coronation chickpeas and my DH is a big fan so it doesn't last long in our house.

joedenise

Thank you Chloris.  After posting this decided I needed to make some but DH decided he'd rather have hummus, so I just opened a tin and made that, but will definitely be making some falafel soon.  I think they're a great healthy snack to keep in a tin, especially as I don't often eat biscuits or crisps.