September 2022 Grocery Challenge

FrugalAspirations

Put me down for £300, please

This is going to be tough! In my Pennies app – which I thoroughly recommend if you haven't already come across it – I lump a lot of things under "food", so a birthday meal plus cake has eaten a chunk of this already (pardon the pun). It's also kid No. 1's last week before he starts school so have been trying to do nice stuff with him. While most is free (parks, library, play dates etc) or cheap (stay and play that costs £2), I did take him out for lunch yesterday and will be doing a café over the weekend.

Still, I'm determined to stick to the £300. Bread and dripping for dinner, anyone?

Because of pay days, our month runs 25/08 to 23/09.

hazeldreams

Morning all,

Dropping in to report £132.75/£750 spend. £90 in Aldi (was aiming for £70. I've gone through the receipt and there's only about £8 worth of stuff that we really could've cut back on.) The rest of the spend was from earlier in the week which I'd completely forgotten about. Keep trying to be kind to myself and remember that this is a journey and not a race. Not much left of the £150 budget for this week, but I'm absolutely determined to make sure that we come in on budget.

Happy Saturday all!

PipneyJane

Good morning All and welcome to the Newbies

Firstly, @elsiepac, we had £4.90 left from August GC 

please change my budget to £144.90.

One spend to declare so far £3.70 in Sainsbugs.  DH went in to buy their crème fraiche and fresh broccoli - which doesn’t come wrapped in plastic - but they didn’t have either.  Instead, he came out with 2L of skimmed milk and 2 packets of chocolate.

This brings our September GC spend to £3.70/£144.90, leaving £141.20 for the rest of the month.

I have to do some serious menu planning.  We have a £2 L!dl voucher to spend this weekend, that I don’t want to waste, a freezer full of food and stuff in the fridge that needs to be used up.  I don’t want a repeat of Thursday’s mushroom disaster, where I had to throw out most of a “family pack” because it was mouldy. We have onions, cheese, eggs, bacon, spring onion, possible some remaining mushrooms to use up.  I’ve already turned a batch of bendy carrots into some rather fudgy carrot cake.

Hmmm…..

- Pip

ms_iiwii

hey everyone, can i be put down for £200 for the month please! thats for 2 adults and a cat and includes food,toiletries, cleaning supplies, and stuff for the cat. 
i lost track towards the end of the month but we were under budget last month.
OH mum dropped us quite a few needed bits. big box of washing powder and softener, tins of tuna, cat food, tea bags, pasta sauces and 3 packs of butter. it really helps with the budget at the moment.
spends to declare £2.63 in l!dl on yoghurts and sweets. 
need to go to mr T and maybe l!dl today. we need a small top up but i want to try and use up some of the stuff we have in. 

Soontobeoap

Busy Friday and Saturday here. Away for 6 days next week looking after GC's so leaving DH home alone. Hoping for a cheap grocery week! I have been checking stocks to make sure nothing will go to waste while I am away. Froze more runner beans from garden. Stewed the glut of tomatoes for pasta sauce and froze. Was given some cookers by a kind neighbour and also had 5 eaters in the fruit bowl that DH won't eat so stewed them all up together and placed in freezer. We don't eat white bread and had 3 quarters of a loaf left from GC's staying so I have made a bread pud for DH and 3 individual bread and butter puddings for the freezer. Freezer was already choc a block so have repacked it all to make room and did a stock take whilst I was at it. DH went shopping today to get eggs and cucumber. He was very pleased with the price of 15 eggs in Aldi until I opened them and there were only 14! You can't win them all. We have spent a large chunk of budget already this month but really determined to stay on track. Signiture has been updated. Won't be posting meal plans in September as at daughter's for 10 days out of the next fortnight and on holiday in the last week of September.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Afternoon GC'rs!

A £6.01 spend to own up to.  We popped out with a picnic lunch to see something new, and there was a MrL (plus all the other stores) within range, so I nicked in.  I was looking for something that MrL no longer seem to stock - mid price jam - and there was none in this store either, so I reckon they've just gone with the premium 'Good Mother' look-a-like stuff now and to heck with anyone on a budget 🙁I did pick up a dozen eggs, as I'd forgotten them on Thursday and we used the last 2 in egg mayo sangers for our picnic today.  I also picked up some peanut butter, bread flour (because they actually had a few bags in stock), and some macaroni pasta, as I was trying to explain to LG why in the US they generally refer to it as 'elbow' macaroni - we seem to always buy the straight stuff from MrA or MrM.

We then went on to the spot for our picnic lunch (actually a historic ruin), only to find (not been there before), that there were only 4 parking spaces (it's in the middle of nowhere), and everyone else had already had the idea to visit........ 🙁 So we popped over to the next valley and went to another historic ruin (we've visited before, many times), and munched our lunch there.  LG got plenty of exercise rushing about and we sampled blackberries (above an appropriate height 😉), but had to pick carefully, as the majority were small, bitter and very much affected by the heat/lack of rain, I think.  Those that we did munch were lovely - very jammy, but I suspect there were 'so many' still on the briars because they simply weren't worth picking.  But I do love that LG will munch natures bounty.

There was a requested 'potty stop' at a teeny tiny little town on the way home. There are numerous little independent shops there - including a hardware shop that normally is heaving.  Today was no exception, and I did have to wonder if MSE'rs had hired a charabanc on a day trip, as one customer was soooooooooooo excited to find Price's white household candles for sale, and they had stocked up accordingly 😉 IYKYK I guess........

Greying X

FrugalThymes

Little shop today whilst we were out buying school shoes and stationery for the youngest. I'm including all food and drinks in the budget, so the cinema snacks and a few ciders had to be added to the total -

£28.42/£200

We were given some spring onions and croissants on Olio today, but free so not adding to the spend

London_1

So far third NSD of September my shopping list at the moment is only small, so I am pretty sure I can stretch until Tuesday before I need to buy anything

 The large Tesco's is next door to Dobbies where I have my free coffee on Tuesday mornings so two jobs done with one lot of petrol  

List so far  
Potatoes,(  I can use wedges from the freezer on Monday)
Mushrooms,
Beetroot, ( I will buy a small jar as summer and salads are nearly over )
Box of Semolina (I have extra milk that I want to use up in a milk pudding ,plus I use it in Shortbread as well.)
Cucumber
Tomatoes, (May look on the deli part of Dobbies, before going to tescos as often they have over ordered and reduced them significantly) 

Every penny spent will be checked online before buying as Aldi's and Tesco's are very close to each other near to me

JackieO xx


                                          September food-only budget £60.00

Tiddlyteddy

£62.13 spend today. 

HelenaPinky

I’d like to join for September with an aim of £300 please