September 2023 Grocery Challenge

AnotherNewDay

AnotherNewDay said:

£85 for one human woman and 2 cats for September - covering all food, household and basic toiletries

Just totted up my spend so far this month and realised i'm already over budget this month at £90.68/£85 and I still have 10 days to go until my monthly budget resets. Am going to go back over receipts to see what happened - i.e price rises or unnecessary/luxury spending or combo of the two and see what if anything I could do differently. 
A year ago if I was careful I could keep a monthly shop to around £50 without too much effort, I really hope to at least keep it under £100 and ideally closer to £85

diminua

I haven't been very good about posting but am up to £109.30. Expecting Tuesday to push that up as my brother is down and we'll probably go for a drink and possibly a meal out. 

I've recently gone permanent and it turns out my payday is the 15th of each month - good, because it means I didn't have to wait too long since starting on the 1st (a Friday, which sounds random but dovetailed with when the temp contract ended) but a bit of an odd fit for how I budget, so I might shift this challenge back to payday next month - I'll see how it goes. 

PipneyJane

diminua said:

I haven't been very good about posting but am up to £109.30. Expecting Tuesday to push that up as my brother is down and we'll probably go for a drink and possibly a meal out. 

I've recently gone permanent and it turns out my payday is the 15th of each month - good, because it means I didn't have to wait too long since starting on the 1st (a Friday, which sounds random but dovetailed with when the temp contract ended) but a bit of an odd fit for how I budget, so I might shift this challenge back to payday next month - I'll see how it goes. 

Congratulations on your permanent job @diminua.  The 15th is a bit of an odd day for a monthly payday, but presumably your employer picked it because it is very close to when they have to pay the previous month’s payroll taxes over to HMRC, so it maximises their cashflow.  (PAYE is due on the 19th of the month.).   When something similar happened to me - and to avoid confusing DH - I parked my Grocery Challenge money in a separate savings account until the last day of the month.  I changed all the other standing orders to come out on payday (e.g. to the joint account for household bills), but because we use cash for the groceries, it was easier to continue managing that by calendar months.  HTH.

I’ve got 3 shops to declare from the last week:  DH went to Sainsbugs on his way home from work last Monday and spent £7.48 on crème fraiche, ground mustard, loose mushrooms and loose broccoli; then on Thursday he noticed they had an offer on the 450ml tubs of Yeo Valley Yoghurt we buy, so purchased 6 of them for £10.50, before stopping in L!dl on his way home - since he was passing - to see if they had any YS bargains.  18p spent on a packet of YS crumpets, to take us over the £100 L!dl+ spend threshold.  (No £2 money off coupon now; instead I get a free breakfast cereal, so will chose the most expensive, next time I’m in the shop.)

The above takes our total spend to £123.93/£178 leaving £54.07 for the rest of the month.

- Pip

joedenise

diminua said:

I haven't been very good about posting but am up to £109.30. Expecting Tuesday to push that up as my brother is down and we'll probably go for a drink and possibly a meal out. 

I've recently gone permanent and it turns out my payday is the 15th of each month - good, because it means I didn't have to wait too long since starting on the 1st (a Friday, which sounds random but dovetailed with when the temp contract ended) but a bit of an odd fit for how I budget, so I might shift this challenge back to payday next month - I'll see how it goes. 

Since we've retired we get several pay days a month as we both get our state pension weekly.   I get a work pension monthly.  DH has a drawdown pension which we don't touch unless something big needs doing to the bungalow, last thing was getting the kitchen redone which meant quite a hit to it!

We still budget calendar monthly for everything as it meant not changing the dates the DDs and SOs come out of the account.  We struggled it a bit to start with but within a few months it settled down.  I think using YNAB helped to a certain extent.

If I were you I would definitely try and get your budget onto a footing where everything still comes out calendar monthly.

goldfinches

I needed milk today and decided to shop at the nearby Mr T's because I don't like much of the stuff that branch stocks so it discourages me from putting more things in my basket. I ended up being beguiled by a CC price net of easy peelers but that was the only other thing I succumbed to and I can claim a NSD for yesterday which is all to the good. Also, while it was tipping down this afternoon, I spent some time working out what I can make from existing stocks and now have a list of recipes to choose from this coming week.

My new total is £142.98/£120 and my average daily spend is now £8.41.

Cocobeans

I still haven't done a proper shop this month as have been really busy but have managed to spend £175 / £250 budget. It should really have been more but OH bought stuff over the weekend and didn't ask for any money so am not counting those spends as technically haven't come out if the shopping budget! 

9 days until our month is over and I'm determined to stay in budget. We are low on lots of stuff though so will need to stock up as soon as the new month starts! 

£175 / £250 spent 

selloptape

I meal planned this weekend which resulted in a spendy shop at T3sco, just shy of £50, but not much to show for it at all   

Shouldn't need to buy any main meal type ingredients until Thursday but will need to top up with snacks for DC. 

The weather's starting to turn a little so I'm going to start soup lunches, instead of salad, hopefully this will help reduce costs a little. Kicking off with leek and potato - I'm going to prep this shortly before work starts and make enough for the next few days. Need to clear some space in the freezer so I can batch cook

Spent £256.49/£440

x

SausageDogSandwich

Morning all, small Aldi shop on Saturday 8.85 and had Tesco delivery yesterday £79.15, mostly fruit, veg and dairy. Couldn’t believe how little there was for that price, have meal planned up til Sunday so it’s just a case of willpower to not spend anymore this week.
£207.97/350

joedenise

Nabbed a TGTG bag from Morrisons £3.09.  Got 2 x 4 jacket potatoes (that's OK they'll get used), 2 bags of carrots (roasted a couple to have with dinner), will make some soup and have also par boiled and sprayed with oil before open freezing overnight and they are now in the freezer ready for when we want frozen carrots again, 6 apples, 4 pears, a baguette (DH had some toasted last night but the rest will be binned as it was already stale when we collected it); small tin loaf which DH will eat toasted.  So not the best bag we've ever had but at least there was some usable food which will save a few pennies.

Need to plan in some jackets this week to use up a few of them!

PipneyJane

joedenise said:

Nabbed a TGTG bag from Morrisons £3.09.  Got 2 x 4 jacket potatoes (that's OK they'll get used), 2 bags of carrots (roasted a couple to have with dinner), will make some soup and have also par boiled and sprayed with oil before open freezing overnight and they are now in the freezer ready for when we want frozen carrots again, 6 apples, 4 pears, a baguette (DH had some toasted last night but the rest will be binned as it was already stale when we collected it); small tin loaf which DH will eat toasted.  So not the best bag we've ever had but at least there was some usable food which will save a few pennies.

Need to plan in some jackets this week to use up a few of them!

What about turning the baguette into breadcrumbs?  Simply whiz in the food processor for a few moments, tip into your largest freezer bag and freeze as flat as possible.  Every half an hour today, take the bag out of the freezer and break up the lumps, so that you can use whatever quantity is needed in your recipe(s).  Tomorrow, decant into a container and return to the freezer.

- Pip