January 2022 Grocery Challenge

JustMum89

Can I join please? Really want to get myself on track with grocery spending this year as we are trying to finish saving a deposit for our own home 😊 

I have been back through my banking app and so far this month we have spent £325.85.  I know this included a large joint of beef on new years day and lots of other bits that really aren't essential. 

I have taken £150 cash out of the bank today and I want that to see us through to the end of the month. I'm hoping we won't need it all as already got a meal plan and everything for it until next Friday.  

Going forward I want to aim for no more than £400 a month on groceries and cleaning.  Family of 4 (2 adults, DS 13 and DD 10)

We also have 1 dog, 2 cats and I've lost count of the fish. They will come from a seperate budget. 

I think it should be doable.  OH has a m and S habit for his work lunches which is costing us £30 a week so maybe I need to bite the bullet and start making his lunch to curb those spends.  

Thanks for running this thread its brilliant. I tried to keep up before and failed but I'm hoping I'll be more successful this time. 

elbree

GreenCat80 said:

I had to go to Tesco on the way home from work to get food for the next 3 days, and I ended up spending £81 😭😱 This is the kind of thing I need to stop doing!! I didn’t buy any rubbish or any treats so I’m not sure how I spent so much 

So easily done! Especially now!

EskarinaWeatherwax

Hi all

NSD here 

@Soontobeoap I’m new here too and I had to wait a few weeks before I was able to set up a signature. I’m
nor sure if it relates to length or membership or number of posts, but it came along in time. I use mine to remind myself somewhere other than my spreadsheet what I’ve committed to and to keep me focused on my goals. I plan to add a target mortgage pay off date when I can calculate it

NSD here, tomorrow I need to get fresh fruit and veg. If I spend £10 I get a free newspaper so I’m hoping to get as close to the penny as I can! Then I’m going for a long walk with a friend and am taking olio pretzel and Xmas cheese and dates for lunch. 

StickyTheStickInsect

I’ve got some catching up to do from the 6th until today.

I cancelled our weekly Morrison’s delivery and went to Lidl (£32.11) instead but it has led to more top up shops (5 shops totalling £33.90). This is more than we’d have had on a usual week but the more expensive ones are all for things that I would usually get on the delivery but Lidl don’t do, mainly lactose free things as DD1 and DS2 are both lactose free.

I need to work out in the long run if it’s actually saving money by not having the delivery.

£27.38 for a toiletries and laundry at Savers, £11.00 for a household and children’s snacks at Poundland, £15.50 for cat food and laundry bits at Wilko, £7.97 for cat litter and some dehumidifier pouches at Poundstretcher and finally some bread, sausage rolls and grapes from Iceland today £8.65.

I’ve stuck to the meal plan I did at the beginning of the month, every day except today, we should have had hotdogs but were late home after DS1’s club, so we had beans on toast instead. I had to buy bread for it but usually it would have been a Macdonald’s, so I’m happy with that as it saves us about £25.

January monthly total = £284.25

Suffolk_lass

elbree said:

GreenCat80 said:

I had to go to Tesco on the way home from work to get food for the next 3 days, and I ended up spending £81 😭😱 This is the kind of thing I need to stop doing!! I didn’t buy any rubbish or any treats so I’m not sure how I spent so much 

So easily done! Especially now!

I agree elbree and part of being on here is learning what your own fail points are - so if yours is going off plan on top up shops @GreenCat80, consider other options, to avoid that temptation. I used to do the same. I had an entitled attitude combined with a smug filter set too low - (I deserve this, I can make it up elsewhere) I pay more for milk now from the milkman but my top up shop trigger went and I reckon it saves hundreds (I have been doing this for donkeys years and still watch myself).

JustMum89 said:

Can I join please? Really want to get myself on track with grocery spending this year as we are trying to finish saving a deposit for our own home 😊 

I have been back through my banking app and so far this month we have spent £325.85.  I know this included a large joint of beef on new years day and lots of other bits that really aren't essential. 

I have taken £150 cash out of the bank today and I want that to see us through to the end of the month. I'm hoping we won't need it all as already got a meal plan and everything for it until next Friday.  

Going forward I want to aim for no more than £400 a month on groceries and cleaning.  Family of 4 (2 adults, DS 13 and DD 10)

We also have 1 dog, 2 cats and I've lost count of the fish. They will come from a seperate budget. 

I think it should be doable.  OH has a m and S habit for his work lunches which is costing us £30 a week so maybe I need to bite the bullet and start making his lunch to curb those spends.  

Thanks for running this thread its brilliant. I tried to keep up before and failed but I'm hoping I'll be more successful this time. 

@JustMum89 it is great that you can go back through the app and track your spends and good luck with the savings for the house. Maybe a nudge to OH that if he does that for 46 weeks less 9 bank holidays that is over £1300 a year. Maybe he could drop down to one or two a week as a stepping stone, and you can sort him some epic lunches for £6 a day!!

pamsdish

Much shrieking and teeth gnashing going on here, didn`t buy any whisky while inA1d1 yesterday, decided last night I must have, so jump in the car, traipse into A1d1, decide I also wanted potatoes, grab 2 bottles of the preferred brand, have a discussion with the cashier about why vegans need sausages if they don`t want meat, no bag, juggling 2 bottles, bag of spuds, purse and car keys with the expected result, so whisky price now doubled, that spend was £29.15.
Went to A&da this a.m. for tonic water as A1d1 don`t stock, had to buy 2 tumblers for aforesaid whisky, the one I use has a crack in, I KNOW I have half a dozen or so, somewhere, disappeared in the pre Christmas cupboard tidy, so £7.50 on tonic, going to hibernate for a few days now.

PipneyJane

Suffolk_lass said:

@PipneyJane I make breakfast bites in mini-muffin tins - use a small cookie cutter to make disks of gammon, paint the inside of the cups with veg oil then pop in a disk and then add beaten egg up to three quarters and give them 10 minutes in the oven. They are usually quite easy to get out and store in a tin (maybe the one that had Christmas treats in). Don't cut the gammon too thin. If you've got any jars of pimentos you could chop a couple up and pop a sprinkle in every cup between the gammon and egg.

I also make a make-do carbonara sauce - or basically a white sauce with chopped up gammon and stir penne through it for a nice easy supper

@Suffolk_lass thank you for the recipe ideas to use up the gammon. I do a cheats carbonara too, but with cream cheese and stock.  I’ve shoehorned the remains of the gammon into the freezer for now but will use it up in a carbonara.  It hadn’t occurred to me until you mentioned it.

Don’t remember if I explained how I resurrected the quinoa bites. What I did was beat up another 3 eggs, crumbling the bites into the eggs, stirring in some more grated cheddar and baking the whole lot in a lined flan tin for half an hour.

I have two shops to declare from Wednesday.  We needed fresh peppers, so DH popped into MrT’s on his way home from work, buying the peppers and a big pot of creme fraiche for £2.81.  He then decided to wander into L!dl, since it is now just across the car park.  £10.68 spent on two YS quiches, a YS box of crispy duck with pancakes, Oaties biscuits and their almond chocolate.  (He is a chocoholic.)   He was determined to spend over £10, to gain another stamp on their app.

I managed to freeze one of the quiches and the other is now in the oven for brunch.  We had the Duck for dinner on Thursday, with shredded spring onion and thinly sliced red peppers to give the contrasting crunch.

Other meals planned for the next few days:-  

• Dinner tonight will be a warm lentil salad with marinated anchovies, (a store-cupboard special).  
• Sunday, I am going to attempt to make chicken meatloaf, to use the YS chicken mince DH scored last year for 90p a pack, that’s been lurking in the freezer for months.  I’ll blend that with the leftover stuffing from the Christmas goose, that I froze when I stripped the carcass for stock two weeks ago.  (Yay! More freezer space liberated.). That’ll be served with roast potatoes - maybe with roasted carrots - and/or roast sweet potatoes.
• Monday, I’m planning to make a savoury bread and butter pudding, with tinned tuna, tinned sweetcorn, and grated cheddar.  That’ll use up the quarter of a loaf of granary bread my MIL insisted on giving us from her freezer when we visited her last weekend.
• Tuesday?  Not certain yet. Might be leftovers.  I’ll just be cooking for 1.  DH is going to a retirement meal for someone from his previous employer.
• For the rest of the week, we’ll be away at our first games convention for 2 years.  

We will need to do a small shop today (eggs, milk, potatoes and sweet potatoes).  The above brings our total spend for January to £56.50/£141, leaving £84.50 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

clootiedumplin

Spent £46.50 this week on groceries, most of which was filling up the freezer. I have plenty food now to last well into February. 

I did buy a couple of birthday cards but that’s from another budget.
so £29.04 left for the month but that’s very doable. 

Money_Choices

Hi everyone

On 2 January 2022 I spent £81.49 at A$da, this makes my total grocery spend as £81.49/£120.

Money Choices

joedenise

Another £13.88 spent on fruit in M&S - only wanted grapes and they didn't have any so ended up with cherries, easy peelers x 2 and strawberries!  DH also spotted a pack of gravalax reduced so that ended up in the basket to!  Now have £133.52 left of £250 budget.