September 2021 Grocery Challenge

poppysmic

@PipneyJane Wow, thanks ever so much for those ideas and recipes. I'm also a rubbish sandwich maker, hence my difficulty taking in lunch, but those all sound fantastic. Can't wait to try that French lentil salad in particular. 

Haven't posted in a few days about my budget due to September madness at work - but also, thanks to a very generous glut of veg from my Mum's allotment, I haven't had to buy anything in recently! Therefore, between that and trying to use the store cupboard sensibly, I've only spent £64.10 of my £90 budget (and some of that was a takeaway), and my 'month' restarts tomorrow, so a fresh start! Not every month will be like this, especially coming into winter, but really pleased with myself, despite a handful of hiccups. The leftovers I'll put towards Christmas 

Admiral_Barbarossa

Bit late in the park! 

I use the discount surplus shop in town and find that we can get our cat and Ms Admiral in for about £60 a week. We find their food very good and have lots of fresh fruits and veg!

If we shopped at another place starting in W, we would be paying around £95 a week instead! It is wroth shopping there, and in our town another discount surplus shop is to open up soon!

Suffolk_lass

Just made nearly-free soup. The onions were grown here, the carrots, 20p a kilo (wonky ones) - just two big carrots from a bag of 8, and the squashes came from the garden. Seasonings from my stores. This will do three days lunches for two of us. Bargain!

Still no need to visit a shop but I do need a box of ritz crackers and some streaky bacon to make a plate of snacks for a Village event, before Saturday and I do have a list of store cupboard items that need replenishing (mostly tins, I seem to bypass that aisle!)

elsiepac

Great news, I sold my garage freezer last night and was so excited to have some unplanned for money that I went to the shop... I didn't go mad though! @Suffolk_lass you'll be so proud haha

So I got some things just to make my life a little bit easier and more pleasant for this last week of the month and in total I spent £15.25 which suddenly felt like an awful lot after this month's frugality!

I got:
Tenderstem broccoli (such a treat!) - £1.20
Smoked tofu - £2 (on offer)
2x vegan spread - £3 (on offer)
Loaf of bread - £1.50
Wholewheat spaghetti - 55p

This is what I would call the proper grocery bit and totalled £8.25.  I'm most excited about having my toast and spread for breakfast as I've massively missed that!

The other £7 was on treat things:
2 bars of the square marzipan chocolate - £2
Vegan spray cream - £2 (I use this on my galaxy vegan hot choc - lush lush lush of an evening!)
The biggest indulgence was £3 on a pack of 4 vegan cakes - oggs.  They are usually £4.50 so I was totally tempted by the offer on them!!

I'm about £30 under budget for the month which is FAB.  I have exactly a week till next month starts.  I have £1.88 in change so I'm happy to spend that if I want something fresh (broccoli or cucumber!) but that's my aim for the remainder of the month.

I'm pretty pleased with myself but I definitely don't want to be quite this strict in future!! Like I said before, I've got quite a lot of useful kind of lessons for myself this month so I'll take them forward

MissRikkiC

jozbo said:

Couple of spends to declare - £5 on milk , eggs and squash. Learnt that co0p is 45p dearer than sainsbo’s for 2 pints which was a surprise. Had to shop around for free range eggs, there were no eggs at all in the first shop I went to.
then £9 in Mozza’s today on a few onions, garlic, snacks for children at school, tinned soup etc. 

So I’m at £238.59/300 . Quite impressed with how we’ve done to be honest as some months recently when I totted up spending it went as high as £550 - that was online supermarket deliveries and generally overspending unecessarily. Because I’ve had a lean pay month it has forced us to see if £300 is doable and while it has required more thinking and planning , so far it hasn’t been too hard and we have plenty of stores remaining.
going to try and keep to £300 (and even reduce) next month so I can put the savings towards a new kitchen next year. Got to save about £400 a month towards that if I’m to avoid getting into debt.

We are also currently saving for a new kitchen and need similar amounts per month. Food budget was my first thought of where we could save however the ever increasing cost of items is worrying! Great job reducing your spends already!

MissRikkiC

I'm most definitely over out budget for the 2nd row in a month (only 1 from 4 ive actually hit target) however ive also used Olio and Surplus Hub and STILL managed to go over. We dont have that much waste really (maybe a bit of limp lettuce) so ive decided to increase  the budget by a touch this month and see how we go. I meal plan, we use what we have in but somehow its still not enough. So, see you over in October where i hope for now an extra £5 a week (ish) will help!

Money_Choices

Hi

On 21 Sept I had an delivery from Mr A which cost £44.89 which means I've got £13.87 left out of my grocery budget of £85 to last for the next 8 days. I've managed full up my small fridge/freezer with items that can be ingredients to be used in making other meals, e.g.frozen fish fillets and quorn mince.

Money Choices

nannygladys

Pixiehouse55 - are you going to live in the campervan? I would love to have one to go roaming around the country. I miss the caravan I had but could no longer realistically afford to keep it. 

Nothing spent today, so money still in tact but I will be going to the community pantry tomorrow for a few bits and pieces, so a little will be spent whilst there.
Nannyg

goldfinches

Just popping in at the end of an exhausting day to say I've managed to have a NSD today despite going to a picnic and being very tempted to pop to the shops first thing to purchase additional ingredients to prepare my contributions. I was very firm with myself about using what I had already and substituting or simply omitting where I didn't have everything in the recipes and the results were delicious so I'm pleased to have avoided the temptation as I'm sure I would have spotted other things and probably bought those as well.
That means my total remains at £90.66/£120 and my average daily spend is now £4.12. 

Finstickle

So I'm not over yet but with another week to go I definitely will be.

£85.66 last week's Lidl shop
£33.90 in the Co-op over 3 shops, I know there was bread, eggs, wine, dishwasher tabs, beer, not sure on what else as was last week
£15.60 on airwick freshmatic, I get from Amazon in a pack of 4, but have 3 in the house as am paranoid of dog smells, especially coming in to the wetter weather.  We hose the dog direct from a well in our garden to get rid of the mud, but always the wet dog smell    DH says i over compensate, and my mum says she doesn't notice anything, but I'd rather that than the other.

I will be going to Lidl's tonight and seem to need quite alot, but it's always in the lunch & snacks category.  We're BBQing on the beach on Sat so will get simple burger \ sausages for that and Sunday I'll do a roast chicken as not sure if DSD is coming or not and that's an easy one to stretch or have as leftovers either way.

We received our AllPlants delivery and had our first meal on Tuesday.  Tasty and more filling than it first appeared, although perhaps not enough for DH.  But, it ticked the lazy and healthy box so will assess properly once we've finished the full delivery.  Will try for 2 nights a week over 6 weeks to see how we get on.

Updated total: £467.92/£495