August 2021 Grocery Challenge

Mrs_Cheshire

A small spend of £9.63 at MR T today. Feeling positive as I've only spent £158.27 so far this month. 

thriftwizard

Just spent £48.21 online at the Grape Tree on nuts & seeds for my pescatarian daughters; the amount I've bought should last us at least 3 months. And added another £31.30 for two supermarket spends at the weekend, which was all a bit hectic between birthdays & babies. Sigh... and this week's spending round will begin tomorrow, at the butchers & bakers! Two weekends to go in this month's budget, and I'm working the second one, which always works out more expensive. But against that, DS3's away for a few days now, which always works out a bit cheaper. Swings and roundabouts!

Pixiehouse55

Hi everyone. Well, totally over budget this month and not even done my normal monthly click and collect. House sold our people have been given notice. Trying to eat out of the freezer so goodness knows how we've managed it, but we also have only Brought what we've needed!! .  We've got the big freezer in the garage. American fridge/freezer and what was the dogs raw meat freezer has got bread and milk in it. Our people leave September 7th. Then for 3 weeks we will literally eat out of the freezer. I think for a few months I won't be doing the food challenge whilst out looking for our narrowboat. I will pop in now and again.... keep safe and keep smiling xx

goldfinches

I went blackberrying on the river bank this afternoon and stumbled upon a small group of apple trees which were surrounded by windfalls so I picked all these and carried them home feeling very frugal.



The blackberries are gently macerating in some wine that I spotted on clearance at Mr T's a while ago and stashed for this purpose and the apples have been cored, roughly chopped and stewed with the leftover juice from the ginger roasted plums and a little water. Once cooled I plan to sieve them and then eat them with overnight oats or yoghurt for breakfast.

Finstickle

only a couple of small spends over the last few days:
£4.75 on bread and cake
£21.60 on toiletries

The freezer is almost empty and as we are away from tomorrow I need to pick up some bread and milk to fill it in the interim.  We'll always use it, so might as well keep freezer running efficiently.  My mu is thinking of getting a new fridge freezer, if she does we'll get hers, waiting to see what happens with that, otherwise we'll invest in a second one for the garage - garage currently awaiting new roof so no rush on this.

I'll arrange a musclefood order whilst away so we are ready to start nice and fresh in September

@Ellie79 I second sharing dietary requirements if possible, lots of good ideas here.
@goldfinches jealous of your blackberry haul, none quite ready here, fingers crossed for when i get home from Holiday, ice-cream and jam are my 'go to' items

pamsdish

Slipped into town with a parcel to send, coins to bank and small amount of shopping, sent parcel, bank closed, since when does banking become a 3 day job, when I worked, betting office manager, 40 years, job started at 10 a.m. and ended after the last race, which in summer, night racing can be 10 p.m. and expected to work every bank holiday.
Went into T0sc0 and resisted the urge to browse other shops, decision probably helped by the weight of the coins I had been unable to bank, £16.54 which included water for my rail journey tomorrow, and a huge ys ray wing, cut that in half and frozen half, paid with my T0sc0 vouchers they had emailed to say 1 expiring, had to put £2.04 to it, will add to my figures next time.

PipneyJane

@Goldfinches, are those apples crab apples (sour) or sweet?   If the former, then may I recommend the Cottage Smallholder's Hot Crab Apple Chilli Cheese?  It's delicious, very frugal and you can leave the chilli out or modify the quantity if you don't like hot food.  You start by making crab apple jelly and then, once the liquid has drained out of the apples, rub them through a sieve and make the "cheese".   

@Pixiehouse55 good luck with emptying the freezers and with your move.

@LadyWithAPlan and @Ellie79 welcome to the Grocery Challenge.  The posts at the start are very useful and some of the recipes are lush.  My own tricks are to microbudget and to only use cash for Grocery spending.  The cash lives in its own purse.  Our household is two people, me and DH.  Our monthly housekeeping budget is:-

£140 - Grocery Challenge.  This is for everything bought in a supermarket:  food and cleaning supplies.
£ 40 - Meat Fund.  This is saved for 2-3 months until we go to the butcher's.
£ 40 - Bulk Fund.  For stocking up on flour, rice, tinned tomatoes, etc.  Also spent on alcohol and our C0stc0 membership.
£ 20 - Christmas Fund.  For the tree, the goose and other foody treats.
£ 10 - Garden Fund.  For seeds, compost and anything else we need for gardening.
£250

See what I mean by "microbudget"?  Everything is kept in its own, individual pot and quarantined so it can't accidentally get spent elsewhere.   We also have budgets for nights out, haircuts, clothes, car repairs, petrol, etc, as well as the big household costs.  There are multiple, individual savings accounts.  I get paid on the last working day of the month; by the 1st, everything is transferred to its own pot.  The money that is left in my personal bank account is my spending money for the month.

HTH

- Pip

LadyWithAPlan

PipneyJane said:

@Goldfinches, are those apples crab apples (sour) or sweet?   If the former, then may I recommend the Cottage Smallholder's Hot Crab Apple Chilli Cheese?  It's delicious, very frugal and you can leave the chilli out or modify the quantity if you don't like hot food.  You start by making crab apple jelly and then, once the liquid has drained out of the apples, rub them through a sieve and make the "cheese".   

@Pixiehouse55 good luck with emptying the freezers and with your move.

@LadyWithAPlan and @Ellie79 welcome to the Grocery Challenge.  The posts at the start are very useful and some of the recipes are lush.  My own tricks are to microbudget and to only use cash for Grocery spending.  The cash lives in its own purse.  Our household is two people, me and DH.  Our monthly housekeeping budget is:-

£140 - Grocery Challenge.  This is for everything bought in a supermarket:  food and cleaning supplies.
£ 40 - Meat Fund.  This is saved for 2-3 months until we go to the butcher's.
£ 40 - Bulk Fund.  For stocking up on flour, rice, tinned tomatoes, etc.  Also spent on alcohol and our C0stc0 membership.
£ 20 - Christmas Fund.  For the tree, the goose and other foody treats.
£ 10 - Garden Fund.  For seeds, compost and anything else we need for gardening.
£250

See what I mean by "microbudget"?  Everything is kept in its own, individual pot and quarantined so it can't accidentally get spent elsewhere.   We also have budgets for nights out, haircuts, clothes, car repairs, petrol, etc, as well as the big household costs.  There are multiple, individual savings accounts.  I get paid on the last working day of the month; by the 1st, everything is transferred to its own pot.  The money that is left in my personal bank account is my spending money for the month.

HTH

- Pip

I LOVE your quote ) This is very useful info. Thanks.

I have lots of pots  eg for gifts, entertainment, restaurants etc and fill them up each month.  Groceries and home / cleaning stuff is split - I will look at how I can further split it as you have. 

If you have excess in your groceries do you tilly tidy them to savings?  Or just have a bigger pot for the next month? I have always kept it but then I realise it does not give me incentive to save within a category so I am starting to move excess out of those relevant pots at the end of each month. Some pots of course need to just keep being filled - eg my new tech,clothing or annual costs.

I need to go back to pure cash for groceries - I always forget to take it out, but you really feel it when it flows out of your hands

Ellie79

Thanks! Yes, we have pots for budgeting. I'm not always as detailed as you @PipneyJane but I know what is our rough budget and when my new month starts I am going to be more brave and track everything!

thriftwizard

Oooer - another £69.95 gone today! £36.50 at the butchers, which included some bits to pop into the freezer against the new parents needing the odd hot meal dropped over to them at short notice, £10 on cleaning stuff as DD2's blitzing several areas in preparation for redecorating, £6 at the bakery, and £17.45 on oriental supplies (spices, fish sauce, noodles) whilst dropping DS3 off to his university town for the weekend. That doesn't leave me a whole lot for the market tomorrow & next week, but actually we shouldn't need all that much.

Adding a warm welcome to @Ellie79 and @LadyWithAPlan. I should explain that whilst my monthly budget looks enormous, and somehow I often fail to keep to it, it's for 5 adults, 3 of us (technically) omnivores and 2 pescatarian, plus visiting family & friends most weekends. I'm sure I could do things for less, and have had to do so in the past when we had 5 kids and a large mortgage, but I find it very useful to at least try to stay roughly on the straight & narrow.