July 2017 Grocery Challenge

*hops over from June thread*

Hi everyone

Got through June under budget and looking forward to carrying on through July! No major changes planned this month, sticking with the £60 per week budget for now... however half term at the end of the month so probably need to review for August as will have a teenager and pre-teen to feed all summer and those things are bottomless! :eek:

Many thanks to those running the thread and good luck everyone!!!

Fox
x

It's a 5 week month for me, so can I be down for $1100 please. I am secretly hoping to keep it under that because it seems like a lot, but I'm already at $1000 for June and it's not even 30 days yet.

I'm starting July early this month because I'm off to Costco tomorrow. For some reason my Mum thought that waiting until the first of the month was just being silly, and since it's her card, tomorrow it is. I'm not sure how I'm going to fit anything into my freezer, though, it's rammed. First things first: freezer audit!

I didn't really know what I spent on groceries before I took part in May's challenge, and it was a steep learning curve! I realised I was spending a LOT in the corner shop and the takeaway. I wandered off-piste in June, but I'm back with renewed enthusiasm for July. I'm going to try having a separate small budget for eating out, under the entertainment category of my budget. I have a full freezer and cupboards and yet still buy more each week, so my challenge for July is to use that stuff up. I'm joining in over on the 'eating out of the freezer and cupboards thread' and I'm planning to just buy:

fruit and veg
sandwich meat for Mr AMOT
milk
bread
tea, coffee and soft drinks (squash)
butter
jam
yoghurt
cereal

For July I would like to set a budget of £160 please. Happy to be on board for July!

And we are out of the starting blocks!

For me it was a NSD, but OH went and bought Ice Cream, Strawberries, A Pastie and Cheese.

So £7.05 has been spent of the new budget.

i took the lead from all you freezer defrosters yesterday and wrapped my food in duvets and defrosted the freezer. I think the door must've been left slightly open cos there was a huge iceberg at the top of it. nearly 4 hours later it was done and refilled.
I found the last of last years home-grown tomatoes lurking in the back and some other odds of veg so thawed them and made a huge vat of blended tomato pasta type sauce that i'll portion and freeze, I find in that guise its the handiest for pasta (obviously) jambalaya, soups, stews etc.
I also need the tubs of sauce to use up some of the space that the veg and the iceberg used, i'm thinking that freezers should be full to be efficient.
while i'm here at dad's looking after him i'll have a root throo his freezer to see what supplies he'll need. lots of easily digested dinners I think.