August 2024 Grocery Challenge

Nelliegrace

We have our members’ free hot drinks x4 at Dobbies garden centre still to use this month. We had an extra voucher for two drinks and cakes for DH’s birthday last month. It was fun to treat two strangers just ahead of us in the queue to their hot drinks. 

PipneyJane

Good afternoon All

Despite my desire to stay as far away as possible from the shops, I have two shops to declare:  £6.69 in Sainsbugs and £19.33 in L!dl.  The L!dl shop was driven by the need for Feta for tomorrow night’s dinner.  After a quick look in the fridge this morning to assess what needs to be eaten/used up, I also purchased breakfast muffins (to be eaten with bacon and eggs already in stock), seeded flatbreads (to go with the hummus lurking in the fridge), puff pastry and sliced Gouda (to form a Cheese & Ham Crown with some sliced Blackforest ham from the freezer), 3L lactose-free skimmed milk (dated 19th September),  two YS mozzarella (now drained of whey and frozen), and collected TWO free loaves of bread (an Artisan Baguette - was 99p - and a Seeded Sourdough loaf - was £1.89).

In the Sainsbugs shop, I bought two lots of Red Onion & Chive Bagels at the “Nectar price” of £1.25 each, plus some loose broccoli (70p), a 300ml tub of crème fraiche (there was none in L!dl) and four cans of sweetcorn (65p each).

In my change, I received a £2 (which we never spend.  They go into the Running Away Fund money box), and some coppers.  £2.13 to the money boxes in total.

The above brings our total GC spend to £136.19/£202.30 leaving £66.11 for the rest of the month.

While I’m only planning on buying fresh veg with the GC money next week, we have £36 of MrT’s Clubcard vouchers that are expiring at the end of the month.  I’m going to drag DH to MrT’s on Monday.  The Bulk Fund will be the beneficiary.  My plan so far is to buy 10kg flour, 4kg small black lentils, a tray of 500g bags of bulgar wheat, 4x2L bottles of their quad-concentrated squash, and then (probably) blow whatever is left on some wine (which we don’t need, having recently been to France).  Yes, I’ll be the woman wandering around with a calculator.  Wish me luck!

Nelliegrace said:

We have our members’ free hot drinks x4 at Dobbies garden centre still to use this month. We had an extra voucher for two drinks and cakes for DH’s birthday last month. It was fun to treat two strangers just ahead of us in the queue to their hot drinks. 

That’s really sweet of you, @Nelliegrace.  You must have made their day.

- Pip

diminua

£190.69 spent. The bank holiday will likely see me having a pub lunch but that's holiday budget so - drum roll, famous last words - I think I should scrape through. 

Blackcats

Some spends to report but overall I think we are doing ok this month.
DH has Lidl plus app which we utilise fairly methodically to get the freebies, offers and discounts.  I've just set another one up on my phone so that I can separate out my dad's bits and bobs I buy for him and use any offers for him.  

Our freebie offers have given us a big tub of Greek yoghurt, a huge bag of assorted crisps, a big orange juice, bread and a few pastries.  We are trying to get our timings right so that we trigger our 10% off ready for when we get to our self catering holiday cottage at the beginning of September so we can stock up on holiday groceries.

we have treated ourselves to some bacon and sausages from the butcher so we can have a treat at home brunch tomorrow.  Apparently it's going to be raining all day so will be nice to stay home with brekkie, coffee and music.  

Pennypincin

£4.21 spent in Morrisons yesterday on odds and ends plus £1.87 today in Sainsbury's on cheese and a banana.
I will need to get some shopping in tomorrow for the bank holiday weekend.

Mrs_Cheshire

Hi all, realised I didn't post here at the beginning of the month. Need to calculate what we've spent to date, but it's likely that I'll need a budget of around £600 for August due to the kids being home from school. I'll update later once I've had a chance to check my balances. 

Suffolk_lass

I can't make up my mind whether to send £60 at Morries to get £10 off or let it go. It expires today. It would be mostly cat litter and wine, if I go...

crazybunnylady4

Suffolk_lass said:

I can't make up my mind whether to send £60 at Morries to get £10 off or let it go. It expires today. It would be mostly cat litter and wine, if I go...

its not a saving if you're spending the other £50 and dont really need to. 

Suffolk_lass

crazybunnylady4 said:

Suffolk_lass said:

I can't make up my mind whether to send £60 at Morries to get £10 off or let it go. It expires today. It would be mostly cat litter and wine, if I go...

its not a saving if you're spending the other £50 and don't really need to. 

Exactly my conclusion. So I did not. Instead, we emptied the floor space out of DH's workshop. He vacuumed up all the sawdust and debris, and we sorted out what is going where. Hopefully all the beekeeping sale purchases in the campervan can go in there now. We know how to live!!

Blackcats

Did a small shop at lidls yesterday as a friend was visiting for the day and we needed a few bits and bobs for that.  I adapted my lemon cake recipe and made iorange cake to use up 2 small pots of marmalade that had come home with us from a hotel stay.  Very tasty!
I plan to do a shop on Friday which will trigger our 10% off for the following Friday when we can stock up for our self catering holiday.  

Will try to use stuff from the freezer in order to eek out August's budget until 5th September.  

£86.07 remaining