February 2024 Grocery Challenge

Soontobeoap

@PipneyJane that looks lovely.

I have been AWOL this month. I was sure that I had posted a target of £160.00 again this month. but cant find it anywhere! 🤷‍♀️. For those who have been following my story our Son completed his Atlantic challenge in 5th place out of 38 boats and we arrived to see him finish in 35 days and 15hrs! The two of them came first in the pairs and also beat all of the trios. One very proud Mum. Anyway we got back from Sunny Antigua on 1st Feb so have been home all month. I left my phone on the mainland with my daughter by mistake! I am reunited with it today so here is a quick run down of my progress this month. I have already done several shops amounting to a total of £142.92/£160.00. I have also spent £14.00 of nectar points. This total is higher than I would have liked but £30.00 of it was bulk buy offers on toilet rolls, dish washer tablets and bleach. These were too good to miss and I now have enough of these items to last me at least until June/July so will pay off in the long run. Trying not to go over budget but it will be hard. 😊

PipneyJane

Soontobeoap said:

@PipneyJane that looks lovely.

I have been AWOL this month. I was sure that I had posted a target of £160.00 again this month. but cant find it anywhere! 🤷‍♀️. For those who have been following my story our Son completed his Atlantic challenge in 5th place out of 38 boats and we arrived to see him finish in 35 days and 15hrs! The two of them came first in the pairs and also beat all of the trios. One very proud Mum. Anyway we got back from Sunny Antigua on 1st Feb so have been home all month. I left my phone on the mainland with my daughter by mistake! I am reunited with it today so here is a quick run down of my progress this month. I have already done several shops amounting to a total of £142.92/£160.00. I have also spent £14.00 of nectar points. This total is higher than I would have liked but £30.00 of it was bulk buy offers on toilet rolls, dish washer tablets and bleach. These were too good to miss and I now have enough of these items to last me at least until June/July so will pay off in the long run. Trying not to go over budget but it will be hard. 😊

Congratulations to your son @Soontobeoap!  That is quite an achievement.

- Pip

ancientmum

Wow Soontobeoap, what an achievement for your son!  

This month's spend stands at £84.78, over several shops, and includes a top up of stores and a trip to the butcher.  I've got enough meat to last about 6 weeks, and a full loyalty card so that I can get a chicken if I need it to feed visitors. Total for the year so far is £141.70/1200.

sarahj1986

sarahj1986 said:

sarahj1986 said:

sarahj1986 said:

£360

I think that has worked well this month ideally I’d like to be under it but we shall see. This total does include all household and toiletries so I guess it’s not bad. 

Sorry it’s taken so long to report ad this was on Thursday 

£132.22 spent 

Big Tesco shop plus small bits specific bits. CC seems ok so got some bits especially snacks that will last us more like 2-3 weeks so next weeks should be a lot smaller. That being said I think I’ll do another online shop for Thursday and none the following week as it’s half term. I do shopping on days when my husband is at home as I struggle to balance it all with my son. 

Edit

£227.78 left 

£142.42 spent

This is from Lidl around £20 and the rest is Tesco. Next week is half term so I stocked up a bit as I don’t want to do a shop next week at all (small shop maybe for milk and bread) 

£85.36 left

£45.51

that’s over the last week

 It’s been half term and the cupboards/fridge/freezer were all quite full anyways but we needed a few bits like fruit, milk etc 

£39.85 left 

I’ve checked my freezer and I’ve still got a weeks worth of meat/fish in there for dinners, plenty of snacky bits. I won’t do a Tesco shop till mid next week, try to push it into march but it may be 28th or 29th if my husband is off. It’s easier to do the online shop when he is here. I’ll go into Lidl tomorrow when my daughter is back at school and get fruit, veg, potatoes and maybe some pork if some description as we don’t have any pork in our freezer. I’ll need to go in again for milk but I think that £40 (just shy of) will do us till the end of the month 

London_1

Soontobeoap Well done what a proud Mum you must feel. perks you up no end when your offspring do something really good doesn't it.

Well I'm still on 17/18 NSDs thanks to using up what I have in stock already and streetching things out. its surprising what you can find lurking in the freezer well wrapped but forgotten about  

So far I have found a small bag of diced peppers, another bag of diced mushrooms and some broccoli stalks that I wrapped and froze before Christmas when the fresh broccoli came to the shop looking more like a small tree than a veg.
These stalks I will use when I make my next batch cook of chicken (yes I still have a chicken mountain to plough through ) I'm hoping the next batch will see most of it off I will slow cook it and use to make either some curries or chicken provencal or maybe chicken pasta.

 I seem to have a surfeit of packets of pasta in the cupboard as well plus around 8 tins of chickpeas ? I must have got them on an offer and they are all long dated so they will be used up.

I have started to use the tinned carrots and peas from last year when my fresh stuff is running low ,rather than buying more in
 I did find when I made the last lot of chicken provencal towards the end I opened a tin of new potatoes and chopped them in half and for the last hour in the slow cooker they were in with the chicken and veg and once portioned up and cooled then frozen they were when I defrosted them for a meal it was really quite nice and saved me cooking fresh spuds separately
 I usually only keep tinned spuds as an emergency, so using them in the slow cooker is helping to run down the tinned stuff a bit.

I'm trying to use as much up as I can as if I move this summer I certainly don't want to be packing too much tinned bits 

The freezer is getting a bit more wriggle room and as the batched bits get used up (they are in the bottom of the freezer ready for use) then the stuff in the top basket will be batched cooked to replace them

I'm thinking perhaps I could use the chicken mix from the slow cooker in a big  lasagne instead of minced beef for a change. I like to cook a fairly large one then portion it up for the freezer .A bit different ,but meat is meat and I quite like chicken anyway.

Using stuff up as much as I can has dramatically cut my food bills since Christmas only just over £40 odd in January and so far just under £28 this month and maybe one more shop towards the end of the month to do

What's left over gets tucked into a separate account that doesn't get touched for awhile. I may save it all for a shop when I've moved. I still have budgeted for the same amount each month, but instead of rolling it over, I will just stash it away in "The Untouchable " account  

Hope everyone is having a good month its a short one and seems to be flying by at the moment 

Cheers chums 

  JackieO xx

joedenise

JackieO - can I ask what recipe you use for your Chicken Provencal please?  I thought it might have been in the recipe thread at the beginning but can't see it!  I have quite a few chicken thighs in the freezer and could do with some different recipes to the current ones I use - curry, tagine etc!

Soontobeoap

Another shop today at Aldi for bread, juice and milk. £7.55 spent. 🙁

Pennypincin

82p overspend to declare.
Sorry I've been missing in action again.
My head's been all over the place, plus dealing with another cold on top of other things.
I will get to grips with budgeting, especially with the lower budget and the way the prices are rising one day.

PipneyJane

Afternoon All

DH did a quick visit to the shops today, spending £8.17 in L!dl  and £2.93 in Sainsbugs.  The L!dl shop was on cheddar (£4.89), 1kg onions (99p) and a tub of herring in cream salad (£2.29), while Sainsbugs was  1.5kg loose potatoes (£1.06), 1.5kg loose sweet potatoes (£1.38) and a hand of bananas (49p).  Together with what is already in the house, these ingredients should be enough to keep us going for most of the next week.

The above brings our total spend to £70.85/£165 leaving £94.15 for the rest of the month.

I have a rough meal plan for the next few days:

 Tonight:  Broccoli & Chorizo Pasta made with creme fraiche and cheddar
Monday:  Southern Style Pork cooked in the slow cooker
Tuesday:  Pea & Ham Soup (dropped around earlier by DH’s best mate)
Wednesday:  Beef chilli

Pennypincin said:

82p overspend to declare.
Sorry I've been missing in action again.
My head's been all over the place, plus dealing with another cold on top of other things.
I will get to grips with budgeting, especially with the lower budget and the way the prices are rising one day.

You’re here now @Pennypincin and that is all that matters.

- Pip

Amateurretiree

£230/300 so far this month. Will have a Mr T delivery of £70 on Saturday so hopefully should come in on target.

seems the strategy of doing one big shop at the start of the month then two more ten days apart works better . Also have stocked up on 4 for 3 s on freezer stuff we use a lot of, so next month my goal is to come under !