February 2023 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

Update on the last minute coffee request from DH. Have just done tins and jars stock take and found a jar of coffee right at the back. Its the last one of 3 that I bought when they were last on offer. Have also found it on offer in Sainsburys so will drop in there tomorrow and buy another to keep in reserve. I have checked off all of my tesco shop for 1st March and can save £6.95 with the bits that are on offer in Sainsburys at the moment so will pick them up whilst we are there. I have £20.00 worth of nectar points built up so it shouldnt cost too much. I had meant to use them earlier in the month but couldnt get there without a car. Insurance company have now provided us with one whilst ours is fixed so we are very happy bunnies

sarahj1986

sarahj1986 said:

sarahj1986 said:

sarahj1986 said:

£142 spent 

this includes a big Tesco shop today online and a shop in Lidl on Tuesday, which I’m counting as February as everything will be used in February. I got diced beef for 90p a pack, chicken fillets for 90p and third off chicken goujons and sausages. The above will pretty much do 2 weeks of meals. I shouldn’t need a lot next week at all. I’m going to try and only do 3 big shops this month. Next week I’m gonna try and do a bigger shop to make it stretch 10ish days and take it from there. I’m going to utilise Lidl more for reductions too 

£22 in Lidl on Monday. It was £21 something but I’ve lost the receipt 

£164 spent which means £86 left. My next big shop is on Sunday. I’m undecided on if I do one big shop or make it a smaller shop and then do another. I’ve still got a lot of freezer stuff to use. 

£68.50 spent today 

I got a few non grocery items which bumped it up so removed them. 

My freezer is absolutely jam packed of meat, fish, batch cooked meals, veg etc so I’m not too worried for now.

£17.50 left

i think it will be tight however I’ve easily got over 2 weeks worth of dinners here. Admittedly I’ll need to buy milk, fruit and yogurts maybe another bag of spuds but that should be it for the month. 

£49+£4

Tesco smallish shop for fresh items. My freezer is packed full but needed things like yogurts, fruit, cheese, milk, bread etc

£4 on a too good to go bag from Spar. This was a great bag! The lady told me I was getting extra and asked did I want Cornish pasties or sausage rolls, I said the pasties as they were my husband’s favourite she then proceeded to say “well you can have all 4 of them” so that with the bag which had 1 chicken and mushroom slice, chicken tikka slice, microwave burger, bag of grated cheese, box of mushrooms, a 4 pint of semi skimmed milk dated 20th so still a few days left, salad dressing and a bottle of fizzy drink. Easily £20 worth of food there. We 2 of the pasties for dinner with chips and beans, then the other 2 for our lunch today. I’m making rice pudding now with the milk as we don’t drink semi skimmed. The burger, slices and cheese I have frozen and the mushrooms will get used tomorrow for my husband. 

£35.50 overspent but shouldn’t need anything else now. That being said I am going to pop into Lidl tomorrow. If I can get reduced meat I will and store it for March and take from marches total as we have enough meals in there for the rest of this month. 

Suffolk_lass

Soontobeoap said:

Thanks @joedenise that is the plan. He doesnt always remember sadly. I have just discovered that it is £1.00 cheaper in Sainsburys so we could be headed there next week. 🤣

You don't say what brand - I use both Douwe instant and Beans but the instant is on a subscribe and save with Big River now - typically £5 a jar (buying 6) and I top up with some little things to make sure there are five items in each subscription months so there is 15% off. I only buy pet and non perishables and I try to be quite savvy about prices. This comes out of the Stores or DD subscription headings but all counted for Grocery Challenge except pets and treats & entertainment

joedenise

Another small shop this morning of £11.79 which takes me to £112.47/£200 so now have £87.53 to last the rest of the month.  Looks likely that they'll be some left to move over into either the bulk fund or maybe one of the holiday pots (I have 4 different holiday pots going at the moment!!!); one of which will be filled next month ready for our April holiday to Gambia. 

Ginmonster

I have 2 extra spends from Saturday to declare. £12.04 in the greengrocers which was £2.05 on tomatoes and £9.99 on a massive jar of locally made honey. I know it's more expensive than supermarket honey but it's nice to support local producers and it really does taste better. 

I also spent £8.76 in the zero waste store on some porridge oats, couscous, hemp seeds and some chocolate eggs to be stashed for Easter.  

I'm up to a total of £173.86/£250 now and I've got a supermarket delivery booked in for next Tuesday so I just need to check the spend on that to ensure I can buy lemons and more tomatoes tomorrow. We used all the tomatoes over the weekend as we had visitors and I've only just clocked that it's pancake day tomorrow! I have all the other ingredients so I just need to remember lemons. 

Blackcats

I've just totted up February grocery spend to date and I've got £28 left until next Tuesday.  It should be doable as we did a lidl shop today and have plenty of food in stock.  We are away for 1 night too.
I made a cake on Friday which is lasting well (out of sight is out of mind) and we are having a slice each evening with a cuppa so no need for puddings or chocolate.  Plenty of milk, fresh fruit and veg - i think we can keep in budget.

Soontobeoap

Went to Sainsburys today to buy regular things that I buy on offer this week using my £20.00 worth of nectar points. I am very sad, it feels like I am off on a birthday treat when I can get shopping with vouchers as well as on offer. Anyway we got there only to discover that the whole area had a power cut and so they werent letting people in as tills were all down! We will be back again on Wednesday.

It reminded me of a time back in the 1980's when the power went as I was shopping in Asda's. They closed the shop, but if you were in store the checkout staff were guessing the total of your trolly and asked if you were ok with paying that. They were guessing lower obviously as noone would want to pay more. I think I got about £30.00 of my shopping for free. I was over the moon as we had a young family then. Of course in those days we could write a cheque but I guess not many people carry enough cash to pay for their shopping, so there is no way of paying these days without the card holders working.

 Day 1 of reverse meal planning today. We will live more frugally by using store cupboard and freezer ingredients. There will be 2 exceptions. Easter eggs for GC and meat and gf ingredients to do cooking and baking for GS's coming to stay at Easter. Other than that I am going to try to ignore my obsession with stocking up. DH still has 4 jars of options hot chocolate powder that I bought last year for £2.00 a jar. I have pointed out to him today that one jars best before date is March, one is May and two are June. Hopefully that will slow up the coffee usage. I also seem desperate to make sure I have a good stock of baked beans, pasta, sugar and frozen swede!!! 😂. I am keeping severe frugalness going for as long as I can as with insurance excess of £650 and crown being fitted on tooth £600, I need to claw some money back from somewhere. 

So today we had pancakes for lunch, no time to make them tomorrow. Also made a lemon meringue pie with homemade shortcrust pastry and lemons bought last week. I made double pastry so the other half will get made up tomorrow. Sausage, peas and mash made with one baking potato, 2 large new potatos and 1 red potato for dinner this evening. 

weenancyinAmerica

With the power failures that seem to happen regularly, you would think people would realize there will be problems if society tries to go cashless. People talk about it over in the US, but then people bring up things like yard sales and swap meets (boot sales over there), and family fruit and vegetable stands, and I point out the we only accept cash at our book sales. I went to a bank once with a check for $10 and one for $6 and the teller couldn't add them up because her adding machine wasn't working. Now with computers, the bank just has to shut down completely as does almost every other store and business out there including the gas stations with their electric pumps. Unless all the stores start putting solar panels on their roofs and having their own generators, I don't understand how a cash-less society would work.

Doom_and_Gloom

Haven't posted at all on here yet this month but I've been keeping a close eye on our spends.
We have spent £153.33 between shops at A&C and Mr S.

£153.33/£224.
£70.67 left.

2Scratters

Today I will remove the cash from the account holding the grocery/housekeeping money. This is the money for February (this was increased to £250 to include everything) where my month starts when the money runs out. I may get a little confused with this so should stick to the 1st of the month and save the left overs. However it is stopping us from spending too much and pushing us back to shopping from store cupboards and the freezer. I actually get paid in 7 days and am just taking this months money out. I am impressed with how we have managed it, it has been made easier by being the shortest month but still its there.
Meal planning for the next week with some tasty quick meals to be defrosted as both DH and I are at family funerals separately as they are on the same day in different parts of the country. 

2 Scratters xx