May 2021 Grocery Challenge

GSDMum

Thought I was going to win this month; I managed to get to the 26th with £52.24 left over.... then we heard we were going to be honoured with a 'royal visit', in other words, Sister-in-Law is going to pay us a visit on Sunday. It looks like Sunday is going to be a cracking day, both weather-wise and company-wise, so we thought we'd take SinL and her husband out of the marina on a 3 hour cruise (on our narrowboat), stopping to while away a couple of hours in a nice quiet spot for lunch.

It's the lunch that's blown the budget!  Two bottles of wine, a few beers, and a special meal for 4 wasn't in the budget. 

For lunch we'll be having fresh salmon (for 3 carnivores), I'll make a cheese and onion quiche for my vegetarian BinL, together with a Jersey royal potato salad, and a green salad, finishing off with meringues, strawberries and cream, and slices of ogden melon.

Today I've managed to spend £119.18 in Aldi, making me some £57.91 over budget. I'm not upset though, as I'm not thinking of going shopping again for at least 10 days. During April I spent £231.37, adding this with this month's total of £357.91 = £589.28 for 2 months..... coming in under £300 per month    

May has been a long month!

t14cy_t

oh rats!! gone £14 over budget this month, i blame the bulk sausage and bacon buying!! on the plus side i had a wonderful YS haul in morrisons yesterday £116 worth for £14!!! this took 2 hours 15 minutes to wait in store for, so really aching today, but boy was it worth it!! also managed to get a few freebies on shopmium app, used DH phone as my phones to old for apps, first time ive used an app so that was a triumph...its the little things!! no more spends now until june. xx

Happy_Sloth

I'm declaring £198.72 spent out of my £300 budget!  im really pleased! 

So with the £100 spare we bought a dehumidifier to try and dry out of our walls, switched it on in the living room and the starting point was a humidity of 76! not really sure what it's supposed to be, but i suspect closer to 50. 

We mostly ate out of the freezer/cupboards this month but the wipe board where we write down the things we ran out of is looking very full! haha .... 

Gonna have to do a stock check and work out what we have left in the cupboards and freezer before figuring out what next months budget will be.  Im thinking of shooting for £300 again but i need to check the freezer before i'll know if thats remotely realistic.   I don't think there will be any getting out of having some form of 'Proper'  shop this month as we are out of alot of essentials including being down to the last loo roll!  

I shall report back on Junes thread with a budget later today! 

Finstickle

OK, no further spends - declaring at £294.30/£450

pamsdish

@Happy-Sloth my temperature display is showing 52% humidity, so you are not far off.

goldfinches

Two spends today. First at the Indian supermarket for 1kg crunchy peanut butter, 400g blanched peanuts and 375g fine polenta for £6.17. Then to M*rks for flowers, 400g carrots, a courgette, a cucumber, a pack of sweet gem lettuces, 500g frozen sweetcorn, 3 bags of radishes, 2 punnets of cherry toms, 2 bags of y/s physalis and some wilted y/s mint which has already perked up in a yoghurt carton, all for £17.77 of which the flowers were £10 so not too bad. 

Happy_Sloth

pamsdish said:

@Happy-Sloth my temperature display is showing 52% humidity, so you are not far off.

Good to know... not sure i'll hit it haha ... but the scaffold goes up tomorrow, then the old render is being taken off from Tuesday.  fingers crossed once the renders not trapping water in my bricks the dehumidifier will do its job and get my house back to a normal level  

Sallyp2

Milkman paid £4.74 and need a top up shop for weekend - the weather is finally going to be sunny - but thats no excuse to overspend today!
£125.22 overspend with further spends today!

Suffolk_lass

@Sallyp2 the definitive place for statistics in the UK is the office of national statistics - and there is always a considerable lag in the presentation of data (so the March 21 release is the year to March 2020 - ie before Brexit and pandemic affected costs and supply) - the site you showed a link to, manipulates the data tables that ONS releases to present the more consumer-accessible strap lines and figures.

Being a paid up member of nerds united I always look at the data in its raw form and then you can see how it is being used by others (in the vein of "lies, damn lies, and statistics", it really is the case that you can make statistical data say what you want it to - all very interesting (to me). The suggestion that a young adult male needs 50% more calories is a huge leap from the physiological data... and so on.

By the way, I also always overspend when I shop - so keep it to once or twice a month in the supermarket, my milk and eggs delivered (more expensive milk but keeps me out of the SM so saves me money!) and a few things like coffee on a subscription service.  - I am also overspent for May as I still bought treats despite starting to go out (but less so against my annual budget). I have spent 95% of my £400 stores budget in five months, but 38% of my monthly annual spend (allowing £200 per month I have spent £907 of the £2400) - it looks like the extra £200 for December might get used before we get there!

Sallyp2

Suffolk_lass said:

@Sallyp2 the definitive place for statistics in the UK is the office of national statistics - and there is always a considerable lag in the presentation of data (so the March 21 release is the year to March 2020 - ie before Brexit and pandemic affected costs and supply) - the site you showed a link to, manipulates the data tables that ONS releases to present the more consumer-accessible strap lines and figures.

Being a paid up member of nerds united I always look at the data in its raw form and then you can see how it is being used by others (in the vein of "lies, damn lies, and statistics", it really is the case that you can make statistical data say what you want it to - all very interesting (to me). The suggestion that a young adult male needs 50% more calories is a huge leap from the physiological data... and so on.

Thanks for above and letting us know.
FYI I was just sharing some information I found after watching a TV programme. The information was just a bit of reading for people on this thread so they could do a quick comparison vs. their own budgets. It was just a light bit of fun sharing - that is all. I don't want to be pulled up for merely sharing data.
Anyway its not incorrect in terms of monetary spending, so I found it useful as a guide for my own spending