November 2022 Grocery Challenge

Blackcats

Did a shop at Lidl's today.  OH went on his own with a thorough aisle by aisle shopping list.  He used his discretion and bought 2 packets of mince pies.  I dislike mince pies intensely and he's not a great fan of them so a bit of a puzzle as to why he bought them.  Good news is they have a use by date that's after Christmas so we can offer a mince pie to our visitors and I've also found a recipe for mince pie ice cream which does sound quite nice.

The shop included a nice bottle of wine for homemade pizza, Prosecco and football on Friday night.  I'm looking forward to it already and we've removed the temptation of a takeaway or meal out.

I think we might make it to 30th within budget 

£51 remaining 

Crazycatlady2

I didn’t want to add up spends but was brace and it wasn’t as bad as expected….534. I feel likes that’s cheating though as had a big shop on 31/10 so feel like maybe I should include it 🤷‍♀️ anyway I’ve one shop on Sunday left for this month and as freezer is full and we need no beer or toilet roll/wash powder/pet food I really want it under £100. I have already bought some Christmas dinner and snacks in this too which will save money next month….assuming we don’t eat them early 😂 

LadyWithAPlan

Grocery spending £145/145 + 0/£55.45 Bulk

 I have now just fully spent my £145 Challenge  for the month of Nov today  - £28 was at Lidl today. I also used £2.45 from a won Sainsb voucher on some GF wraps and made chicken bean burritos - all ingredients from Mr Lidl inc guac, salsa, and I added rice to - so delicious..

Not spent my bulk fund as yet as yet though but I am about to come to the end of my coffee batch buy and get a black friday coffee deal. I buy beans or nice coffee - I always bought in 250g bags but bought a 2x 1kg bag of beans - separated into smaller portions  and even froze some- has definitely saved me money and stops me going out to shops cos I have run out of coffee.

I have been feeling that I was buying YS over  super healthy food - one day my freezer seemed to be  50% YS  FR  GF sausages .. so decided I need to buy healthier. I have often been picking up YS food  and I want to be frugal  but I also want to be healthy.  So the last 2 shops I have bought a Corn fed FR chicken from Lidl - costs about £10 each but as I live alone last weeks I got 4 meals out as just chicken with rice, potatoes and veg etc, made a truly great chicken stock from it which I used for 3 portions of chicken and leek soup plus it made the base and  finally a Thai green curry stuffed with green vegs and the chicken scraps. Far better than some YS GF sausages or some sweets and the corn fed is an extra 10pence per kg and was super tasty.

Gettingmyshiztogether

Nipped into S@insberrys and got some sliced mushrooms for 49p and two unripe mangoes for 85p.

£310.32/ £460 

I ve also figured out how to do my signature! 🤣🥳 so I'll keep that updated too now 😊 I am loving this challenge so much, its definitely made me aware of how wasteful we have been in the past.

happydenial

£12.29/£500 left now. Needed some cat food and litter, so went to Waitrose to utilise my vouchers and ended up spending £41 and change which was brought down to £33 with a voucher. I did buy wine and some fancy tins of nuts for Xmas gifts tho.

Tonight we had a swift turnaround between the kids activities, so I got a TGTG bag from a different bakery - hot food for £3.50 that I collected in between pickups/drop offs at 5:15. This is more of a Greggs type bakery, so got 4 pasties and a sausage roll. Not the healthiest but every so often, eaten with reheated HM wedges and salad, it’s a quick and easy meal for 4 (and a pasty left for tomorrow!) that was ready in 10 minutes. 

We are away for three nights from tomorrow (different budget) and my month ends on the 26th, so any remainder will be tidied into savings 🤞

mumtoomany

Had use of DD3's car last night. Sge's away for the weekend and left the car so OH can replace the clutch. Went shopping at, farmfoods, tesc, home bargains and aldi. Spent £36.48. Would have been a lot less, but OH came into aldi. Stollen, gulhwein,and cinnamon cereal! Total for the year to date now, £2607.25/£2640. Don't think I'll get to Christmas, let alone new year! 
Hugs, mumtoomany.xxx

ps86edi

It has been a really bad week for housekeeping and cooking. We had a fresh hot meal every day, but my kitchen is a mess and so is the house. I'm blaming the general spirit downing capabilities of a 4:30 sunset. My pain is back and I think this time it's mostly related to playing more mobile games. I made some good money with it, but still... then there is the general chill. It's not too bad and I can say without a doubt that it's been the warmest autumn I've seen in the last three years. I'm not sure how the winter will pan out, but we've managed to keep the heating off. The little one most days is happy in a pair of cotton clothes while her parents are in their hoodies/home light jackets. We have been much more active outdoors, so I'm hoping that's helping as well.
I grew up wearing warm clothes indoors, though we never really had winter like these back home. I feel really wasteful switching on the heating and sitting in cotton shorts and a T-shirt.
We spent £1.65 on milk in Waitrose last week, taking the total to £87.48/£100. There is still a shop to be done for cheese, egg, and yogurt, but I'm hoping I'll keep my budget.
I also spent £26.16/£100 of our bulk food budget on a 1L bottle of Baileys (thanks to the post on the main site), a kg of black peppercorn, and a massive 1.9L bottle of dark soy. These have an excellent shelf life and we'll finish baileys probably before the year turns.

Gettingmyshiztogether

Hello,

I hope that this message finds everyone well.

Another L!dl food shop done today with my cheeky 10% off voucher.

DH came with me, and we took a second trolly as had planned to get some more bits for Christmas whilst we had the voucher.

Turns out it doesn't include alcohol! 🤣 who knew? We didn't as dont really buy it that much. Not that it matters too much but had we have known we might have waited for the offers. You live and you learn.

Anyway, DH had £70 cash he had already allocated for that, so he paid that and then paid the rest on our joint account card. So from the budget we are only taking £62.31.

There were some bits I couldnt get at l!dl, so we nipped to s@inos, spending another £15.60.

Total for November is therefore £388.23.

Our spend last month was £550! So we have managed to reduced it by nearly £200!! That's an amazing saving, thank you everyone for contributing to this challenge, its massively helped us! And that's not including how much electricity I have saved also whilst batch cooking.

I am going to keep my £460 budget for next month also, to include Christmas. I have three days of different family members coming to visit; my mum and step dad, my sister and her family and then my dad also. 

Left to spend for the next 5 days is £71.77. I think we will need some milk for the kids, but that should be it 😁

Happy Black Friday everyone! 

Soontobeoap

Hi folks. I am having a great week. Lots of christmas crafting and DS coming tomorrow with 3 darling GDs. However budget has been well and truly blown. Tesco order done. It includes flora proactive buttery (on offer) that will last us until January. I thought about not getting it to stay in budget but then i would have been paying more later on. Also on offer were pringles nuts and crisps for christmas that hopefully will keep until then. I have also bought some treats for the little ones. So although i have gone over some of it was very sensible. £106.00 spent. Feeling bad enough about my rubbish budgeting, I sent Dh to get some soft fruit for 18 mth old and he returned with milkx2, weetabix, cocoa pops  (aldi equivalent) and some chocolate bars that he felt we needed! He also lost the reciept so I am guessing thats another £10 to add.

I am declaring for this month. A little shame faced but all totals have been logged so that I can try and beat them next year.
Hope the rest of you are doing better than me. See you on December forum. 

thriftwizard

Phew! A market-&-butcher spend of £62.32 this morning has taken me to a pipsqueak under my target for November, but I actually shouldn't need to buy anything now before payday next Wednesday! At the start of the month I thought I'd be able to come in under budget quite comfortably, but as usual unanticipated expenses kept happening. DD1 & BF returned to the fold earlier than advertised, and for more of the week than we were expecting; don't get me wrong, it's lovely to have them here, but I hadn't budgeted for it! (DD2 is a lot less picky and generally cheaper to run!) And I've been doing some tests which make it apparent that I really do need to eat a high proportion & variety of fruit & veg; luckily our market keeps me in fibre for considerably less than supermarket prices, and there's the greengrocer, the farm shops and the allotment, but I didn't get enough winter veg into the ground this summer to keep us going - or rather, not enough of it survived. 

Anyway, declaring for November at £449.38/£450. A whole 62p to spare!