August 2023 Grocery Challenge

mumtoomany

Did a top up shop on Tuesday, as we were in town anyway. Veg shop, Aldi and Iceland, came to £15.38. Total now to date is, £1270.56/£1860. Probably only need milk now for a week or so. Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

PipneyJane

Hi @elsiepac. Thank you for the new thread.  

Please put me down for £140.70

That’s for two adults and covers all grocery spending for the period 30th July to 31 August.  Yes, we started a little early, but neither of fancied cooking last weekend, so we went to Sainsbugs for an Indian “fakeaway” (£7.75 on offer), also buying crème fraiche (£2.09*), 1kg pasta (82p*), Olbas Oil (£7.20) and 500g peppers for £1.21 (3 yellow 1 red).  £19.07 spent in total.  The items I’ve marked with a * gave us extra Nectar points.  One day, we’ll cash them in.

We had wanted loose, fresh, unwrapped broccoli but they were sold out so DH went back on Monday, on his way home from work.  £1.95 spent for slightly less than 1kg of broccoli.  (I’ve lost the receipt, but I’m pretty sure that’s the correct amount.)

Yesterday, we went C0stc0 to buy sandwiches, etc, for a picnic supper over the weekend - separate budget - and then visited the L!dl opposite, so that the resident chocolate monster (DH) could exploit an offer which was expiring.  He paid for the chocolate, but while we were in there, I picked up another 500g of peppers (£1.45 for a “family pack”, so 24p more expensive than Sainsbugs), plus a bunch of spring onions (for 50p).  £1.95 spent in total.

The above brings our total to £22.97/£140.70, with £117.73 remaining.

- Pip

SausageDogSandwich

Husband did a small shop buying flowers, ingredients to make corn dogs and French toast whilst I wasn’t here  Still putting off doing a big shop as we are running low on most things now and it’s going to Cost a fortune   
£16.73 spent

JingsMyBucket

Morning all. I had my first shops of the month on Tuesday. £5.00 spent putting in an order of local greens. I'll pick that up today. £25.75 at M & S for bananas, strawberries, YS donut peaches, garlic, salad, cilantro, butter, YS mozzarella, tortillas, kidney beans for chili, YS sausages, and a few other items. 

I also stopped by our fruit and veg box provider for a chin wag and put in a delivery order for next Saturday. That'll be £25.40 but I'll add that in when it's actually delivered. 

£30.75 / £400.00 spent. £369.25 remaining. 

I'll likely pick up some bananas and strawberries again when I head in to pick up the greens. On another note, our M & S has stopped selling compost (food waste) bags. Does anyone else know of a good resource? The M & S bags were a perfect size for us while the council supplied ones are super tiny and break very easily. Please and thank you!

Florenceem

JingsMyBucket - Saver. sell them.

JingsMyBucket

@Florenceem thanks. I'll take a look next time I'm on the high street. 

During my walk out today I stopped at M & S and spent £7.94 on 2 packs of YS strawberries, YS bacon, ground beef, and a free Swiss chocolate bar via a Sparks offer. I got lucky with the berries as the worker appeared from the back with a whole cart of YS berries just after I had picked up a large tray myself. I put that back and got a couple YS punnets instead. 

85p spent at Iceland for a can of kidney beans. £10.00 at our local cheese shop to get a weekend box of 4 cheeses, crackers and a chutney/jam. I wanted to support them since they've been looking empty recently. 

£49.54 / £400.00 spent. £350.46 remaining. 

Tomorrow is our local annual agricultural show. I know there will be food stalls there but can't find a listing to see if there any butchers, etc. I'll keep a budget of £20.00 in the back of mind if there are some purveyors there. Eating lunch at the show will be a different entertainment budget. 

joedenise

@JingsMyBucket - Sainsbury's also sell the compost bags.  I like these as they have handles so it's easy to tie them up, much easier than the ones which are straight across the top.

Futuresavings

Suffolk_lass said:

Futuresavings said:

Hello
Having retrospectively looked at the food bill for the past year and being very shocked at how much 2 of us get through,  I would like to join this challenge please. I am a mortgage free wannabe, so looking at ways to make savings. 

Aim for £600 for the month please. 

Welcome @Futuresavings you will find lots of support here and plenty of tips and techniques for reducing and substituting cheaper ingredients without losing flavour.

The single piece of advice is to know why. You know what (as in how much). You need to know why you spent that much, the first thing is to review your own habits - Me? I go off list when I shop and tend to go for all the favourites if I shop online (my regular things) so I do one big shop and then just top up milk and eggs (both delivered - the more expensive milk pays for itself because it keeps me away from my weakness, shopping). When I started, my monthly spend was well over £600. Initially I got it to £400. I stuck there for ages (years!), convinced that was it. Then I started to open up to other ways to save and now I stay within £250 (average) a month or £3000 annual budget. I have a £500 contingency and with food inflation it might take a hit this year. Reading the first few posts and following the links are good, and there are some cheap recipes too, for all diets.

Good luck in your journey!

Thank you. That is good advice, whilst I have a list I always buy extra. I am going to keep strict tabs on my spend to try to work out where and when I start going off track. Mid isle purchases is definitely one weakness. Currently my monthly budget is way above £600 (but includes other household items). Getting to a £3000 yearly budget would generate a lot of savings (let the journey and learning commence) 

Soontobeoap

Bxx! I have lost a complete post!!!! Grrrrrr!!! No time to update it now! £10 SPENT. 

goldfinches

I seem to have done nothing but spend since the beginning of the month, looking at my receipts shows that I've been into a supermarket every day this week so far which explains how I've spent so much money. I really must stop putting myself in the way of temptation especially strawberries.

My shameful spends are
£3.60 at Mr T's on 2 punnets of strawberries.
£21.40 in Sains on kitchen roll, greek style yoghurt, salt, white vinegar, wholegrain mustard and day and night cream.
£5.59 in Mr T's on bread, mango and YS vegan bacon which I've been wanting to try to see what it's like so that was a bit of luck. 
£7.46 in Mr T's on YS fine beans and tenderstem, cashews, coriander and mint.

That makes my new total £38.05/£124 which gives an average daily spend of £9.51! 

The Baking fund has also been rather profligate as I finished off several bottles and packets this week so I spent £5.40 on bicarbonate of soda, soft light brown sugar and golden syrup which makes my new total £5.40/£25.

On the plus side I have a crammed fridge and a full freezer so my plan is to stay out of the shops by eating from stocks, best of luck to everyone doing the same.