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Thanks @elsiepac for starting the thread.
Having come in at just under £500 for February, I need to get that down in March. I'm aiming for £460 this month please. My challenge runs by calendar month, so there are an extra three days to accommodate, plus DS1, who works away much of the time, has three weeks' leave, so will be home for most of the month (he came home yesterday).
The budget includes all groceries, takeaways, toiletries and cleaning products and, while we're in lockdown, I also include clothes, petrol etc. I'm taking the view that, while I'm working from home and not socialising, it doesn't matter if all my clothes are old; and I only really need the car to go shopping; so any payments I make on either of these are non-essential.
I have DS3's birthday in March, and a trip to the dentist too, but those will come out of a separate budget.Debt free since December 2015. It can be done8 -
First March spend in this morning. £22.80 Mr L. Happy with my shop and checked my pantry stocks before leaving and know off by heart what is in fridge and freezer as little in them.
Had to stop plus one gathering more toiletries as we still have plenty to use up.
Can I go £120 this month please. Shall not include pet food this month bar the odd bag of carrots, so me and plus one running from 27th to 28th March please. Forgot that Easter is looming!
Sam x
Grocery challenge Feb £107/£100-epic fail due to cake and biscuits
🌟11 -
Hello and thankyou to @elsiepac for this month's thread. Please could you put me down for the customary £4 per day to run for the calendar month which I make a total of £124, thankyou.
Looking back at last month's epic fail I've realised that if I hadn't included my £48 purchase of a year's worth of interdental brushes I would have come in comfortably under budget at £3.65 per day so from now on anything that's being purchased in multiples to stash will be allocated to a different pot. I might juggle this around a bit but for this first month will try and stick to it quite strictly just to see how it works out.
Food
Food for all is a necessity.
Food should not be a merchandise, to be bought and sold as jewels are bought and sold by those who have the money to buy.
Food is a human necessity, like water and air, and it should be available.
From Pearl S. Buck's To My Daughters, with Love.11 -
Evening all
Spends today of £41.28 in Aldi on some lunch bits, cheese, (hopefully) a months worth of crisps for lunchboxes, some fruit, veg, bread, frozen bits, Chinese sauces... It surprising how fast it adds up
Tomorrow I need to get chicken food and straw, Monday I have a Tesco C&C of frozen, more lunch box bits and cat foodApril 2021 Grocery Challenge 34.29 / 2509 -
Morning!
New month started for us yesterday. My budget for March is £280 which is reduction of £20 this month. I am going to swap from Mr T to Mr L this month and see how that impacts on the costs.
MMFebruary 2021 GC £301.45 / £300.00
March 2021 GC £266.41 / £280.00
April 2021 GC £53.19 / £300.0010 -
Good morning All
Firstly, @elsiepac, I’m sorry but we’ve rolled over the £1.40 left from February, so please put my Grocery Challenge budget up to £141.40 for March.
I have my first spend of the month to report. We went to MrT’s. They still had their 4-for-£1 offer on tinned chopped tomatoes, so I bought another 24 tins, which should last us for 4-6 months. We also bought recycled toilet paper, yoghurts, creme fraiche, milk, frozen sweetcorn, hash browns, gnocchi, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, bulgar wheat and bagels. A total of £36.20 spent, once the Bulk Fund reimburses Grocery Challenge the £6 for the tomatoes.March spend £36.20/£141.40, leaving £105.20 for the rest of the month
Frugaliza said:My grocery month for March starts today. My goal this month is £260 to cover food, cleaning stuffs, essential toiletries that is for me and for my daughter who's home half the time. Last month I managed to do it on £224.49 by eating a lot more vegetarian meals. That worked out at about £37/wk/person. What do others include?
My answer to your question is “virtually everything” but it’s a little complicated. Our full monthly housekeeping budget is £250 for two adults and it gets subdivided into separate pots:-
£140 - Grocery Challenge
£ 40 - Meat Fund (spent on irregular trips to the Butcher’s)
£ 40 - Bulk Fund (for bulk buys like the tomatoes above, and 10kg sacks of flour or rice)
£ 10 Garden Fund
£ 20 Christmas Fund (for the goose, the tree and other Christmas treats)
For the Grocery Challenge, I track everything purchased at the supermarket, the farm shop (closed by COVID) and our local shops. That includes cooking bacon from L!dl and the rare YS meat purchase. It includes toiletries, tampons, and DH’s razor blades. If I buy washing-up liquid and laundry detergent at the supermarket, they get included. If I buy them from C0stco or the Wing-Y!p (Chinese cash-and-carry), they get purchased by the Bulk Fund instead.
HTH
- Pip"Be the type of woman that when you get out of bed in the morning, the devil says 'Oh crap. She's up.' "
It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it - that’s what gets results!
2024 Fashion on the Ration Challenge 66 coupons, 0 spent.12 -
Hi @elsiepac and all the lovely regulars and a hello to all the folks too! I’m back and this time from Scotland! I finally made it over nearly two weeks ago and am settling in. Still trying to get a handle on jet lag though, especially because I’m working on American east coast time. Mr. Jings and I will start combining some of our finances soon when I get a bank account and we open a joint account for household bills. Grocery tallies will be interesting since his eating habits have changed a bit in the last 6 months. He’s been loosening his vegetarianism after several decades and is now starting to steal some of my meat from the roasting pan or what have you. 🙄 This means I’m actually going through more meat than I normally would be. He’s also started buying 3 for £10 breaded cod or haddock and eating fish. I think he’s feeling the protein boost. That said he’s still about 90% vegetarian— flexitarian/omnivorous is the better term now for him, I would say.Either way, it’ll be interesting to track the changes. For March, could you please put me down for £300 because I have no idea what the total will be so it’s kind of like an open tracking month. The freezer is rather bare as well because Mr. Jings was living a bit like a bachelor with basics and supplementing meals from Cook. To his credit he was eating very simply and making things like bean soups, eating muesli with yoghurt, etc.We’ve just discovered that a local vegan / organic shop a couple blocks from us sells seasonal fruit and veg boxes each week. £10 for just veg, £15 for fruit and veg, £5 for just fruit. We ordered a £15 box last night and will collect it today after our walk. We’re also planning to stop in the grocery store today for some basics as well. Next week Sunday is a click and collect from Waitrose that I’m still futzing around with so won’t know the final price until next week. Glad to be back all, and have a lovely Sunday.
£15 — local fruit and veg box
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£285 / £300 Remaining10 -
YS organic eggs and carrots so total is now £24.10.
Carrot for dog and eggs for cakes and puddings.
Sam xGrocery challenge Feb £107/£100-epic fail due to cake and biscuits
🌟10 -
First spend of the month. £11.25 at al*is for bits we needed. Running low but big shop planned for tuesday. Will meal plans and go with list 🤓.
£11.25/£250.00 nsd 3/410 -
Well, second spend of the month was this afternoon in Waitrose for £48.85 which covered a multitude of random grocery categories. We got butternut squash, herbs, 3x YS strawberries, eggs, soup, ham, yoghurt, along with household items like paper towels. Some of these items are actually duplicates of our upcoming Waitrose click and collect order, but just brought forward. I can now go into the order and modify it.We also picked up our first £15 fruit and veg box and holy cow, it is a lot of food! They didn’t give us measurements for any items but here’s the list:
Bananas
Apples
Oranges & tangerines
Lemon & lime
Mushrooms
Butternut squash
Leek
Red potatoes and sweet potato
Garlic, yellow & red onions
Carrots
Bell pepper & a long chili pepper
Ginger
What a bounty for a good price. We’re going to try getting a box a week or so and see if we can live off that and top up with berries, dairy, and meat from the grocery stores. We’re definitely done shopping for a bit as our tiny fridge is now full.£48.85 spent
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£236.15 / £300 remaining9
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