August 2023 Grocery Challenge

Florenceem

Spend of £17.39 today at Ald.

weenancyinAmerica

@Suffolk_lass - Have you considered planting the seeds in the courgettes you buy? Just one fruit would be enough for a lot of seeds.

selloptape

Interesting report goldfinches - thanks for sharing, very thought provoking. 

I'm a bit late to the party this month, but have been quietly keeping a log of spends, ready to have a target for next month

Everything's been increasing gradually for a while now, and I've just been happily spending away on whatever I feel like so there's definitely scope to make savings.

gill5blue

hi all,
I spent £41.91 last week.. so monthly total is 

£250.38/£240

I overspent on the month of £10.38, I think due to price rises and maybe a little complacent.
I will be having a sort out in cupboards and freezer this weekend to make sure no food is going to wasted.
2 adults, 2 labradors and  1 tortoise.
good luck all
gill5blue

SausageDogSandwich

Another spend of £29.37, this was pizza, ice cream, chicken for dog, new water bottle, bread, cucumbers can’t remember what else. Will be another smallspend tomorrow as need some chips. Then we will be away for the rest of the month so the leftover money will be used for shopping on holiday, it usually gets spent from the holiday pot so that will give the pot a small kick start for next year. 

Ive been having a think and decided I’m going to reduce the budget abit next month as we can’t keep using £400 on food unfortunately. Used to be 250 so need to find a middle ground with price rises, feeding the dog, growing kids and wanting to eat as healthy as we can, whilst also not always being in a position to cook because of my health   
£280.96/400 spent to date.

LittleGem

Hi all,

fallen off the wagon a bit with keeping track but I think I am over budget now at £260.43 /£250. Was very pleased today though to get a £1.50 fruit & veg box, full of mostly useful stuff, potatoes, apples, bananas, peppers, handful of tomatoes and a lot of oranges. We’re not big orange eaters so any ideas of what I can do with them would be great, maybe an orange cake? Something we can eat rather than juice/marmalade!

LemonadeBudget

Last top up food shop of the month last night en route home from work. £12.51 on wraps, salad, milk, eggs, raspberries, onions and apples.

Which takes me to £122.42 - £2.42 over budget, but I'd set £120 as a bit of a 'challenge' to feed 2 for a month. May have to up it to £130 for Sep

But £122.42/£120 for August

diminua

I'm up to £194.67. I do have milk so might just scrape through. It will depend if I see people over the bank holiday, as if so there will probably be a round of drinks and perhaps a pub lunch to come out.
Not sure if I mentioned I was being tested for iron deficiency anaemia after trying to give blood? It's come back into normal range now that I'm taking the iron tablets and making a point of incorporating more iron rich food. I'm also avoiding drinking tea or coffee with lunch or dinner as apparently that can inhibit the absorption of iron (I can't do without coffee at breakfast though). 

thriftwizard

£21.50 spent at Friday's market has left me just over £1.50 to last until payday on Thursday. The only thing we might "need" would be sliced bread - currently 85p at W8rose IIRC - but we have flour, yeast etc. and an elderly Panny so I can pop an overnight loaf in that if needed. (OH's teeth are apparently unable to deal with more interesting & digestion-friendly breads.)

Now to try to work out a sensible target for September; I have slightly less than no idea how many inhabitants I'll be catering for!

I'm currently experimenting with a different strain of "mesophilic" (i.e. fermented at room-temperature) yogurt; the last one, Langfil, though wonderfully reliable, was a touch too cheesy for me as a yogurt. It did make a lovely cream cheese but the family generally ignored it & went out & bought commercial stuff for their baking - which, once opened, proceeded to go mouldy in the fridge whilst the home-produced one stayed fine! But still didn't get used, at least not in the quantities I was making. So, trying Viili now. Hoping very much I can hit on a strain which isn't too much work, doesn't need external energy to produce, tastes how I like it, and doesn't produce too much too quickly...

joedenise

Needed to pop out to get a few bits from Homebase so popped into Morrisons while we were in the area and bought some onions (big 4Kg bag) and quite a bit of YS fruit for a total spend of £10.29.  This brings total for month so far to £128.70.  Have £111.26 left in the GC budget anything left after Tuesday's shop will be moved to other pots and will start again in September.