October 2022 Grocery Challenge

Chrystal

Caroby said:

@weenancyinAmerica What a great idea, wish we had that law here too.

Tesco used to do something similar.... then they stopped it!

hazeldreams

Morning all,

Shopping day today. We have £231.04 left in the kitty with today and next friday to go. We should be fine as today is really going to be a top up shop of essentials as we've at least 6 dinners in the stores. I'm so very grateful to these boards. This is the very first time ever we've managed to get the groceries under control and it feels so good! 

Will report back later with today's spends.

Happy Friday!

Hazel x

London_1

Looking through the posts it seems we are all more or less staying well on track, and doing our best to stay under budget . I am pleased that having a break away meant that the first 12 days of the month I didn't shop for food at all and made do and used up virtually everything in my fridge.

Then coming home on the 16th meant I had enough not to have to food shop as again straight away. I used what I could from the freezer and cupboards so its now the 21st, and only one food shop done, and I still have cash left in my budget, and have no need to shop at all until November.
Admittedly DD put a small Hovis and two pints of fresh milk in my fridge for me on the morning I was coming home which helped.

So its now 21st of the month and only ten more days to go and i did a bit of baking yesterday so I have scones and cake and biscuits in my storage boxes .

 I used a tin of the Asdas JE from my stores yesterday and it wasn't too bad for a quick lunch it was chicken and I chucked a dollop of chilli sauce in it to brighten it up a bit .
First time I have had tinned soup for years, and it was OK but not something I would buy all the time but not too bad for 24p.

Next time I am in Asda's I will replace it as it was from my emergency store cupboard for winter supplies in case I can't get out because of bad weather. I keep a standby tinned cupboard just fo that, and as i'd never had it before I thought I would see what its like ,Ok but I still prefer my HM vat of soup I ususally make on a Sunday morning  

Everyone seems to be keeping a strict eye on their budgets and using up more from their stuff in the cupboards now so hopefully there will be a lot less food waste going into landfill

Well done chums you are all doing well this month, and if you get the odd blip its soon recoverable

JackieO xx

                       20/21 NSDs and only £46.29 spent out of budget, with £13.71 left in the pot for October  

mumtoomany

Insider information says that Tesco still do the double the difference, just don't advertise it anymore. Ask at customer service if you are overcharged, mumtoomany.x

SausageDogSandwich

Afternoon everyone,

Husband got toilet roll and some cakes yesterday £8.34 and I’ve just been to the co op to get a couple of things as my eldest isn’t well with a high temp, headache and cough 😷 .. lucozade is the miracle cure in this house  so spent £3.60 on Lucozade, chocolate flapjacks and cucumber which I’ve just realised should of only come to 2.90 ugh! Have decided to go to tesc0 in the morning as running low on a lot of essentials now, I have a really long list so really hope they have everything. 

£107.82/200 spent. One week to go!

EssexHebridean

Afternoon all! A busy weekend coming up meant I opted to do our weekly shop this morning after going to the gym - went to Lidl as we needed bread flour. I was hoping our shiny new big one in the town might be opened but it’s not quite there yet so I had to go across to the old one, thank goodness they did have the flour though as we are on the last bag of white! That’s now up to 85p a bag - still notably cheaper than the other supermarkets would be charging though. 4 bags of white, 2 of whole meal now in stores anyway so that will keep us going for a while. 

Total spend today was £21.12 - so that leaves us on £128.58/£200 for the month.

cinnamon123

Popping in to note last week's shop of $172.28 (yikes!) and today's of $73.89 (whew!). I'm putting all of this toward my grocery budget (no stock-up). This is in part because I can't find last week's receipt and do not remember if I bought anything for the stockpile. 

Oct totals now at $345.20/$550 (grocery budget-food only, also buying spices/herbs) + $20.13/$100 (stock-up budget)

This week I was very grateful that one of my shops is having their special sales ($1 and $2 items in the fruit/veg section). It is wonderful! They used to do it about 5x/year. Then it became 4x/year and in 2022 it will only be 3x. I wasn't able to take advantage of that much today because we still had a lot of fresh produce in the fridge. But I will be going next week before the special sale ends and will aim to get about 9 days worth of fruit/veg. Will have to think about what I can freeze

I plan to come under my $550 budget this month because of this special sale, combined with the fact that it is not the store I would normally go to for certain more expensive items. That was planned for next week but will now be pushed to November. And very happily too! 

Everyone is doing well! Let's keep it up!  

hazeldreams

Dropping in to report that the top-up shop was still way more than I'd have liked to have spent but nevertheless we're under budget with one week to go. We literally had half a trolley at Aldi and it was still over £100. There were so many people moaning in the queue about how little they'd got and how much they were spending.

Anyhow's totals for us are now £478.33/£580.

PipneyJane

Good morning everyone

I have three shops to declare from this week:  £3.47 and £1.89 spent in Sainsbug's; and £18.16 spent in L!dl.  

Sainsbugs have a Nectar points offer where, if you shop 4 times in October, you get 300 extra points towards their Christmas “bonus”.   No minimum spend and it includes refuelling the car at their petrol stations.  (An added bonus, since our local Sainsbug’s petrol station was 2p cheaper than MrT’s this week, so guess where we both filled our cars?  I paid using my Chase card and got 66p cash back on top).   In store, I purchased loose broccoli - up 40p/kg - peppers and crème fraiche.

DH went to L!dl on Thursday, in an emergency dash to buy something for dinner.  (I’d had my COVID booster on Wednesday and was a bit of a zombie by Thursday afternoon.). He scored really well on YS items:  2 sourdough pizzas, a quiche, 2 pies, 2 rump steak, and some sliced beef, plus picking up our free “bakery item” (a soughdough boule).  However, he’d had problems at the self-service checkout and, in a frustrated huff, didn’t check the receipt until he got home.  Big mistake.  One of those pies was rung up twice, the second time at full price!  To say the least, DH was not a happy bunny but with L!dl, once you leave the store, it’s too late to do anything about it.  (That also explains why he had problems at the checkout.)

This morning, I added up the contents of the GC purse.  £18.50 remaining, which means we’ve piggy-banked £3.49 of “shrapnel” so far in October.  There was one £2 coin, so the rest must be multiple 5p’s, 2p’s and 1p’s.  

The above brings our total GC spend to £129.10/£147.60, leaving £18.50 for the remainder of the month.  

Fortunately, we’ve got the £2-off voucher from L!dl to spend this week and the freezer is groaning.  (Yes, I shoehorned in all of DH’s purchases from Thursday, with the exception of the pizzas, which we had that night for tea.) Based on our usual usage and what we already have in stock, our remaining L!dl shop for the month will consist of:  mushrooms, fresh milk, tinned sweetcorn, tinned chopped tomatoes, oats, frozen peas, and loose carrots.  The question is:  when to shop, given that they don’t appear to restock the shelves every day?  Either Tuesday on the way home from work or Wednesday lunchtime are the only feasible times, but the shelves are bound to be 3/4 empty. (They appear to restock for Thursday mornings.  Thursday isn’t feasible: I have to be in the office, which is miles from anywhere.)

Meal plans:

Today (Saturday):  DH is away at his best mate’s, I’m having leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch with a friend and dinner tonight will be one of the YS pies.
Sunday:  Breakfast= will probably skip.  Lunch= wraps, using YS sliced meat from the freezer, dinner= a pasta bake made with cheese sauce, tinned salmon and tinned sweetcorn.  (I have fresh milk to use up.)
Monday:  WFH.  Breakfast= cereal; lunch= leftovers; dinner= Quick Tuna Curry.
Tuesday:  Office day:  Breakfast= cereal; lunch= leftovers; dinner= Chorizo & Broccoli pasta
Wednesday:  WFH.  Breakfast= cereal; lunch= leftovers; dinner= Roast haggis (since we have several in the freezer).
Thursday:  Office day.  Breakfast= cereal; lunch= leftovers; dinner= Something with mince
Friday:  WFH.  Breakfast= cereal; lunch= leftovers; dinner???

- Pip

Soontobeoap

@PipneyJane i cant find the nectar offer that you have mentioned online. Was it one that was only sent to certain customers or is it open to all?