February 2024 Grocery Challenge

LotsOfTea

Can I be in for £250 for the month again please?

It's for 2 adults and one child and I'm hoping to come in well under budget this month as I really need to start using up stuff from the 2 freezers we have. There's so much that has been hanging around a long time and the small chest freezer needs to be defrosted so I've really got to get to grips with it. I made a start today by using a box of felafels for lunch with wraps, hummus & salad. 

Balancinglife

Stocked up on toiletries, and laundry products. Did a small shop on Saturday. 

I am using cash and putting loose change in a pot.

Small spend on fruit today. 

£140/£425

wishus

First spend of the month, a little treat for the working day - planned - of nice coconut yoghurt, fresh grapes and a box of choc chip cereal bars. Much cheaper than succumbing to the tuck van and it's hot chocolates and massive Bakewell tarts. The cheese sandwich I took for lunch was not so nice, so glad I had these. Spend: £6.73. I used my Perkbox, but the discount has gone down to 2% in Mozza's. It was 5% not so long ago!

Ainsty

£15 per week for me again for me, please.

Herbyme

Time to get back on the wagon and start taking this whole 'grocery budget through the roof' problem seriously. I'm not going to share a budget this month as it's impossible to guess but I need to be on this thread if I'm to have any hope of bashing it down to a reasonable amount.
MTIA for all your help!

Suffolk_lass

My February started last night with a click and collect order last night. Lots of it, the breakdown was £48.78 groceries (fresh and fridge), £23.01 non-perishable stores, £19.83 (tracked not counted in this budget) for treats & entertainment - snacks for visitors and a surprise bag of minstrels (eaten last night, obviously), ice cream (standby pud [or so I say!]). 

It was quite weird as the SM worker told me there were no beansprouts (fine, will manage without, have dried egg noodles in stores), no milk, no sausages and a possible swap of blue cheese (declined). I asked her to take back the two chickens or the £10 for three would be full price for two, which she did. Then second tray down had the milk in. She tapped away on her app. The bottom tray had the sausages in. Unfortunately it would not let her add the chickens back, so she gave them to me. I have just checked the receipt and the milk and sausages were missing too. So a wonderful start for February for me with four pints of whole organic milk and £10 meat for free. The staff there are always lovely, and given other things that had shrunk or increased in price again, this makes a big difference.

Feeling thankful and loyal. It was perishing cold and the alternative was to pack the car then go in the store and buy the items again, to process them correctly.

I still need to pick up some single cream (maybe beansprouts) and a packet of bacon for my visitors' breakfasts, and I have just spent £4.40 on kefir from the milkman, as a visitor treat to be delivered Saturday morning. Including the eggs for January (paid on 1st) and this weeks milk, my running total for Feb GC is £91.29 

Herbyme

@Suffolk_lass what a stroke of luck for you from the SM's poor systems! Rarely happens that way round, I find

You mention kefir, I guess you probably have tried making your own? I was given some grains, they multiply like sourdough starter so you have to give some away regularly, and it's one of the few things described as 'ridiculously easy' which actually turns out to be so!

AnotherNewDay

Ainsty said:

£15 per week for me again for me, please.

@Ainsty this is an inspirational amount for weekly shop! I could just about manage this 18 months ago, but price increases have made it very difficult  since then! What's covered in your £15 and how do you do it?

pastmysellby

£340 

Down £10 from last month.  This is for two adults cooking from scratch 95% of the time.  80% I reckon is vegetarian/ vegan.  Cleaning / toiletries come from a different budget.  I've rolled over what was left last month but haven't included it in the above.  Hoping to have a pot at the end of the year to cover Xmas food and drink spends.

I couldn't get out of the habit in January of stocking up when items ran out. This month I'm going to try and use up what we have before buying more.  

I still have a few packs of coffee left from last month's bulk buy so hopefully shouldn't need more this month.

charlies_tribe

Good afternoon

£700

For us this month please. 4 adults, 2 teens. All meals and toiletories and a 16th birthday this month. DH has already spent some this morning as we had ran out od DD2s waffles and chicken. We are in the Switch over from TC to UC and it's going to be very tight until March so hoping it will be in budget this month.