February 2025 Grocery Challenge

remmie

Hi all

I've just looked on my Lids app and they have given me a £5 off £5 spend. I'll add it to the free apple turnover and free veg I'm going to pick up this week. I'll get a big block of their extra mature cheddar with it.

Check your apps!

AnimalTribe

Another small spend of £4.49 on wild bird seed. This as well as dog food comes out of my grocery budget.

MissRikkiC

remmie said:

Hi all

I've just looked on my Lids app and they have given me a £5 off £5 spend. I'll add it to the free apple turnover and free veg I'm going to pick up this week. I'll get a big block of their extra mature cheddar with it.

Check your apps!

Thanks for the reminder to log in having recently changed my phone and had to download al apps again and I even got a £2 off £2 spend voucher! 

Spendywendywoo

Current spend for Feb is a little higher than I would want at this point in the month but a shorter month should make it do-able. 

£348.44/£450

Suffolk_lass

I set my nominal spend target for February to not exceed £250 this month, and it was £200 in January, but I am running behind these rather nicely, thanks to avoiding the shops and making do with what we have. January was £164.86 and this month is £184.03 so far. I think I will buy bowl fruit as well as milk, but I'm hopeful I can come in closer to £200 than £250 for February. My annual is £348.89/£3000, so not massively ahead.

Quantaqa

Nelliegrace said:

@PipneyJane It started as a history project, reading Mass Observation compilations, and wartime diaries, such as Nella Last’s, and watching programmes such as the Wartime Kitchen Garden, and the Wartime Farm. Then there were books about the Dig for Victory campaign, and reprints of Ministry of Food information. Food was so important, a weapon of war, and housewives were the Homefront. It seemed incredible that people’s health improved on wartime rations, and children thrived as never before. The ration quantities were proven over fourteen years, on the whole UK population, to be sufficient for good health. The food was familiar, we grew up with it in the 50s, unadulterated, basic ingredients, seasonal vegetables, and most importantly, it was cheap. I don’t follow it rigidly but it is my standard, and I feel well on it, with my weight back to normal.

I found this in the Times from 6th February 1941, when there had been difficulties with the meat supply. Who cares now that every child gets the full daily ration of the protein they need to grow!

Thanks for this @Nelliegrace.  I love the idea of the history study.  Where did you find the wartime diaries?  I think I am going to try this.  It'll take me a bit of time to get my head around the rationing and points system though.  

I've not been great updating this month.  The month seems to have got away from me.  All the budget is now spent for this month as this is our last week before payday next Tuesday.  We do have some meat left in the freezer - a chicken fillet and 2 x 500g mince so they can be carried forward into next month.  

LotsOfTea

I had a big shopping delivery this morning which came to £113.02 but there's extra stuff in there because of half term and I did stock up on a few things like huge tubs of our favourite peanut butter as it was a better price than normal and we go through a lot of it with a nearly-teen who seems to have hollow legs and be getting visible taller every day! 

Anyway, I'm up to £251.31/£300 for the month but that's fine as we're good for this week and then there's only one more week of the month left. Hooray for short months!

Nelliegrace

@Quantaqa, Libraries, second hand, charity bookshops, Open Library online, and new reprints. Mass Observation was a huge project from 1937 to 1950 to get people to write about day to day living and public opinion. A lot of women kept diaries, or wrote letters, recording the day to day problems and achievements. 

https://furrowedmiddlebrow.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-world-war-ii-non-fiction-list.html

My project at present is to read The Times back issues daily, this was from 10th February, 1941. A comment in The Times yesterday struck me yesterday, the people who want to rewild, or build houses and solar panels on British farmland, are from the generations who did not experience rationing and who have known only the abundant supply of food from around the world in supermarkets.

AnotherNewDay

AnotherNewDay said:

AnotherNewDay said:

Fornightly shop done today, updated totals as follows - me = £40.21 and cats at £32.95

New Lidl vouchers and a top-up shop as follows:
 Cats - catsticks with 15% off £1.68, new total = £34.63
Me - free lidl veg + bakery voucher + caster sugar 15% off, toilet rolls, washinup liquid, lemon & ginger tea (sore throat) & mints (sore throat) = £9.52, new total =£49.73

Quick update from me and hopefully the last before the budget resets on the 28/02 as I have gone slightly over for me, but balanced out by the cats being slightly under:
Me -pastry + marg = £1.58 - new total £51.31 ( over budget by £1.31)
Cats - Wet cat food 48 pouches + dry catfood = £14.98 - new total £49.61 (under 39p)

Nelliegrace

Someone delivered a sealed 2 litre bottle of milk +vitamin D this evening. An odd time. It hadn’t been on the doorstep for long.  I contacted a local milkman, it wasn’t him. I might leave a note for the milkman in case he wants to leave more. Something I haven’t done since the 1980s.