February 2022 Grocery Challenge

peony40

Afternoon all,

£42.77 spent this week, so £7.23 put in the savings pot.  Off to catch up with everyone’s posts.

DawnW

shabbychic12 said:

Well lve lost the plot big time so will limp along head held in shame until March and just try to eat from stores.😂🤞

Well, then you probably have lots in to tide you over for a while

Somerset50

Hello. Can I join in? Have been following since the beginning of the month and have learnt so much from you all! I live alone except for weekends where I have 2 visitors to feed! (Pets out of different budget) Appalled at how much money I’ve wasted over the years. On a fairly good wage but eaten up by bills. Have no idea how much I used to spend but I do know I used to throw out a lot of food. 

Anyway enough of the waffle. I set myself a budget for £120 for the month. Purely for food. I’ve eaten really well and haven’t had a sandwich meal deal at work once!! Current totals 56.89 spent so £63.11 left. Have set budgets for other things for the month so may well need a tweak going forwards (think I underestimated petrol costs) but hoping that I can send anything left at the end of the month in each pot to my Credit card as an extra payment. 

Eggy bread for lunch to use up some stale (reduced) sourdough. Yum! 

boxofpaws

1st Feb
Cat food £35.95
Household £4.99
Groceries £15.40

2nd Feb
Food 74.86
H/hold £1.75

11th 
Food 86.72
Hhold 1.10
Toiletries £1.85
Magic bag £3.33

I have decided not to count the wine that I have bought but instead count the wine I have consumed because I have loads of red already and stocked up on prosecco. So i will charge myself £8 per bottle.

We have drunk 3 x £8. A bit more than normal because we celebrated my job offer midweek.

Total £249.95 of £400 spent

I was pretty pleased with the magic bag. We got 5 x sandwich fillers, 3 types of bread, 2 cartons cranberry juice and some snacks. They are the sort of things I wouldn't buy because full price they're either a)b)not good value or a bit extravagant. So we had some lovely sandwiches and juice today which felt like a bit of a treat. 

Have done loads of soup batch cooking for lunches, and feel like we should be able to last a while before the next shop.

Still mulling over if an annual budget is the way to go.

Smoosh

40p the other day on bread and hummus with carrot sticks (both YS).

£2.50 today on 4 pints of milk and a jar of jam. 

Will need to do a small food shop tomorrow and still need to order cat food and litter for the month. 

We have £61.64 left so should be fine. 

joedenise

Which shop did you get your Magic Bag from @boxofpaws?  Glad you were pleased with it.

Soontobeoap

Somerset50 said:

Hello. Can I join in? Have been following since the beginning of the month and have learnt so much from you all! I live alone except for weekends where I have 2 visitors to feed! (Pets out of different budget) Appalled at how much money I’ve wasted over the years. On a fairly good wage but eaten up by bills. Have no idea how much I used to spend but I do know I used to throw out a lot of food. 

Anyway enough of the waffle. I set myself a budget for £120 for the month. Purely for food. I’ve eaten really well and haven’t had a sandwich meal deal at work once!! Current totals 56.89 spent so £63.11 left. Have set budgets for other things for the month so may well need a tweak going forwards (think I underestimated petrol costs) but hoping that I can send anything left at the end of the month in each pot to my Credit card as an extra payment. 

Eggy bread for lunch to use up some stale (reduced) sourdough. Yum! 

Welcome. I have been on here 2 months and everyone is so lovely and helpful.

Soontobeoap

esjw said:

£59.11 spend brings monthly total so far to £217.65/£475.00 with £257.35 remaining

This includes our annual sugar purchase (15 x 1kg bags at £8.79 from C@stco) - used mainly for DH's cups of coffee and a touch sprinkled on porridge.

DD2 is still woefully underweight and back on iron tablets with instructions from GP to eat lots of fatty food So everything I should avoid being prediabetic is fair game for her. Add in DD1 and her no lactose - food shopping just got more interesting  

Day off tomorrow so will be tackling the chest freezer and then hopefully I'll find I'll not need to buy any meat or frozen veg for the rest of the month. Pretty sure there is a lamb joint near the bottom.

@Soontobeoap not sure what you have near you but if you are over on the mainland anytime with a car there are a couple of places in Southampton you could try: Rogers Wholesale is a past best before warehouse close to Dock Gate 20, no membership, buy in bulk cases. It's a bit hit and miss with plenty of junk food but I tend to go when I see they have something I would buy anyway at a price lower than in other shops (trays of tins of tomatoes or passata working out at 25p a tin, bread flour, noodles to name a few). Then there is Company Shop heading out towards Bitterne which is members only (free) but you can check if you qualify for membership on their website. They sell in date but close dated fresh food as well as store cupboard staples. Again, it's hit and miss but you can get some real bargains and can buy up to 6 of any item (I've had 5p packs of ham, lots of different chicken, a pack of lamb chops which turned out to be 5 x lamb shanks for £6.50). They both have websites and are on social media with updates to what they have available. I wouldn't suggest you make the journey specifically to go to them as you won't save anything once you factor in the ferry costs but if you are over anyway and in the area then you lose nothing by having a look.

Thank you so much. I will look into it. My daughter lives just outside of Southampton so we are over quite often. 😊

nannygladys

No money spent and leftovers from yesterday eaten today. Gets a bit boring sometimes but it's worth it to me! I'm hoping to only buy milk this week, and visit the food hub for a few bits.
Nannyg

NoraNoir

More like £30 spent this week rather than the £25 planned. I did get some multiple items and occasional buys (vegan cheese and peanut butter) plus my fruit veg box which should last well over a week. I did slip up in getting some ‘chicken’ type vegan burgers, thinking they would be cheaper to cut up & use in stir fries etc than the fake chicken bits I occasionally use, however there were only 3 in the oversized box so not much of a bargain at all. 

 Also apparently arrived a second too late today at the YS section, only to see the last decent bits being cleared out by a very speedy and rather sharp elbowed lady as I was approached 😩 (If there’s someone waiting by the YS bit while I’m diving in I usually check if they want anything/certain items if I’m clearing it out. I figure they may well be in the same boat I’m in, if not worse. Does anyone else have a YS etiquette?) 

   I’m not planning on getting much in this week, so hoping this overspend will even out over the month.