January 2022 Grocery Challenge

thriftwizard

Declaring for January at £531.65./£500; slightly disappointed but not down-hearted. In the end I didn't separate out the stuff bought for the weekend from the rest, so some of that expenditure really belongs to the February budget. Plus, for us it was a 5-week month, which I normally allow £550 for, but didn't this time as we had plenty of Christmas leftovers (liebekuchen, anyone?!) and DS3 was away for half of it. So I don't think it was a total failure, but I do think I can do better... 

ETA: "losing" the cheese stall hasn't helped! Don't know where he's gone, but no-one's impressed with supermarket cheese, and it certainly isn't cheaper!

nannygladys

No spends today, and roll on February.
Nannyg

Blackcats

I did a bit of jiggery pokery with my entertainment spending pot and my food shopping spending pot - basically put the nice bottle of wine for our Weekend treat into the entertainment pot which was underspent .... a bit of creative accounting which means I'm declaring a teeny weeny underspend for January 🥳

drum roll .....

£1.78 underspend for January 

Soontobeoap

Declaring for January . Disappointing . Didn’t hit target for this  month but still on target for year. Will try harder next month. Final total for January is £214.39

next month is a 4 shop month and I have some club card points to spend so I am going to try for £160 again. This time I hope for more success!

had savoury mince and rice tonight for dinner at DH request. Havnt had it since school but it was really nice. 

shabbychic12

£412 / £400 is my final total for my first month and my hasn’t it seem a long month. I can do better and will try month on month to bring my/our spend down. See you all in February xx

Frogletina

I'm declaring £199.97 of a £200 budget. It certainly has seemed a long month.

Quite a lot of my grocery spends were non-food and should last me a few months. I nearly went for another Sainsbury's shop as I got a voucher for £6 off a £40 spend, but I stopped myself in time.

Although I had bought what seemed like a lot of lactose free milk, I've just one carton left. They were a good price at £1 each but are now at £1.70 - I'm hoping that I can get more for less than that when I run out which is likely to be next week.

I'm hoping for a lower spend in February - but setting the budget again for £200.

frogletina

GreenCat80

I'm calling it for January, I shouldn't need anything else now (luckily as I'm close!)

£533.34/£540 (£413.87 spent on food, £17.66 on the cats, £101.81 on household, most of this is my sons pull ups, I think the only other things in that bit of the budget was some loo roll and tin foil)

JingsMyBucket

Oof! I definitely need to catch up on the thread and tally my spends. I know I’ve already gone over but it was a bit of a crazy month. I’m back in Scotland now have and been eating down the fridge after a Tesco order and a veg box delivery from our local veg man. We’ve definitely been packing in the vegetables so Mr. Jings and I are both really happy about that. We also built a raised bed in our garden last Saturday and are going to build another this afternoon as well. Very excited to plant and grow things this year! 

Right, let me catch up on the 20+ pages I’ve missed and I’ll finally post a tally sometime this evening. (Willing myself to face the numbers.)

Have a lovely and cozy Saturday all! 

PipneyJane

Good morning All

I’m about 40 posts behind, so apologies if I’ve missed anything.  (I will attempt to catch up after I write this post.)

I’ve got 4 shops to declare.  Did I mention early last week that we would be away for a few days?  We went to Norfolk.  Well, I spent £1.20 in MrT’s last Sunday on snacks to nibble on the way home.

This week, both DH and I did separate shops in different L!dl on Thursday, which we needed to get two more £10 stamps to fill a stamp card in their latest promotion.  After an appointment, I went to the one in our local market town and spent £16.90 on YS lamb mince 500g (£2.79), Salmon en Croute £3.99, Cheddar £3.69, Breaded Camembert 2x£2.49 and cooking bacon £1.45.   DH went to our local branch and spent £14.58 on a YS rump roast £6.99, YS Frying Steak £1.95, YS sausages 2x£1.04, YS creme brûlée 2x£1.04, Almond chocolate £1.49, mushrooms £1.40 and Oaties 59p, also utilising the £2-off voucher that we’d earned via L!dl Plus.  (My shop had crossed that threshold.) 

On my way home, I filled up my car at our local MrT’s Petrol Station and popped into the shop to see if they had bargains. £1.65 spent on YS muffins 24p, YS bloomer 45p, and a bag of their mixed peppers 96p.  With the exception of bakery items, the Condemned Shelves were clear.  Just as well, really, because, at that point, I didn’t know DH had scored all that meat and we already had a full freezer.  At the checkout, I did see a gentleman with a basket full of YS meat items - lucky him.

With the exception of the cooking bacon - dated 24th February - I managed to shoehorn all the meat into the freezer.  We had the Salmon on Croute for dinner on Thursday and the breaded Camembert yesterday, as part of DH’s birthday supper.  (His other treat was lobster, bought at L!dl over Christmas.  The L!dl frozen lobsters have a starter-quantity of meat on them and aren’t expensive.)

Once everything was unpacked on Thursday and DH and I reimbursed from the GC purse for our shops, I tallied up our spends on my GC spreadsheet and counted up the contents of the GC purse.  There was a  £2.56 difference, which I’ll put down to a £2 coin and other shrapnel coins added to the coin-collection moneyboxes.  (£2 coins go in one for the Running Away Fund, 2p and 5p into a jar.)

The above brings our total GC spend for January to £107.50/£141, leaving £33.50 for the rest of the month.  I’m not going to declare yet but there should be a reasonable sum to roll forward to February.

-Pip

EskarinaWeatherwax

Morning all.

Like others I’m a couple of pages of post behind as I had to spend quite a lot of yesterday travelling to and from a physiotherapy appointment in a distant city.

But I hope everybody is doing well.

I didn’t manage to make the community pantry yesterday as there was more work than time but I’m hoping to do my last drop of the month today.

I top up and salads and fruit and veg every Saturday so there’s that to do and I’m also going into town where there is a zero waste shop so I’ll be picking up some nuts and seeds there.

I’ll pop back later to update my figures but I’ll declare on the 31st as I run for the whole calendar month.