July 2019 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane · 2 July 2019 at 1:35PM

CRANKY40 wrote: »

Hello everyone and thanks for the thread Elsiepac. I really need to join in this month please. My grocery cupboards have far too much in them and some of it needs using up. Meals are a bit chaotic as I have a 14 year old son who would happily eat pasta with a tomato based sauce every night if I let him and then there's me - I'm almost permanently engaged in an attempt to lose weight.

I did join the grocery challenge at the beginning of the year but due to circumstances I stopped keeping proper track of food spending. One of my closest friends was very ill so I was spending money on treats and on making treats for her (it was cancer so although she was ill, the massive doses of steroids that she was taking made her very hungry). I also started working in April. Until then I'd spent 9 years being a stay at home mum after being widowed when my ds was 4 (I tried to keep working at the time but holiday time childcare was unavailable so gave up almost 9 months after being widowed).

It would be easy to use the extra money from my wages for convenience/junk food and to some extent I did when my friend was ill and we spent a lot of time hospital visiting. We also ate a fair bit of junk food/takeaway rubbish the week after my friend died. I'm hoping to record our meals every day on here to make myself accountable and also to stick to the budget that I will set myself and hopefully to come in under budget.

July is a 5 week month for me so I will start with a budget of £300 please. That will be food/toiletries etc for me, ds and food/litter for 1 cat.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Cranky. It sounds like you've been through a difficult few months. My condolences on the loss of your friend.

(((((((((( Hug Cranky )))))))))))

- Pip

Doom_and_Gloom · 2 July 2019 at 2:13PM

So we have spent £19.48 today.

Soya milk is made, I did two batches. I know it is only a matter of time until it dies on me (it's at least 12 years old), I can hear it struggling.
Instead of buying a new one when it dies I will get an electric pressure cooker. That way I can cook the beans easily, use my high power blender after then use a mesh screen to separate the milk from the okara that way. It would also make cooking chickpeas etc easier and cook a meal easily and quickly when needed. Much better use of space and money; only a little bigger for counter taken and much cheaper than the soyabella I had my eye on that doesn't have as many function uses

.

£27.40/£200
£172.60 left.

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

ETA - I saved the aquafaba from the chickpeas used in the pasta salad. I will make mayonnaise out of it tomorrow.

Typical, looked through the cupboards and was out of every other ingrediant needed but a sweetener of all things! That was the reason we went shopping and yep other items found their way in the basket :wall:. £5.10 for the items needed, they will last a while though. OH and I both needed yogurt. I should start making soya yogurt again but I'd need one as a starter anyway. The other items, £10.55 worth, will be used but weren't exactly necessary.

Was annoyed that I could only find vegetable oil in plastic. They used to have one in glass but not anymore :mad:. Will look for somewhere I can get it either in glass or to refill (would prefer refill).

LIzzieM · 3 July 2019 at 9:29PM

Evening everybody, I had a food spend of £9.04 today. It wasn't planned but my mom called me earlier this morning and got chatting and I asked her over for lunch on Friday. As I'm having an all-day procedure in hosp. tomorrow I thought it best to buy it today. She'll have smoked salmon and stilton amongst other things but it's worth it as she is an amazing lady and there'll be L/O obviously

Oh, and had a 'date' for the first time in over 3 years this afternoon

I only bought two drinks costing only 40p each (lime and soda). Cheap date I know, but hopefully if it happens again, I might have to set up an 'entertainment' budget....!

elsiepac · 4 July 2019 at 7:30AM

Budgets updated to here

Hi everyone! Sorry for being a bit absent, lots been going on here!

thriftwizard wrote: »

Did you get the new place, elsiepac? Fingers crossed...

Yes I did!! Woop woop!! So very very happy and excited to move in! I move 25 July! I've had to move my animals out of my current house already as a favour to my friends who own it as they are going to sell, so the animals are on extended holidays for the next few weeks, in the process I got badly bitten by one of the degus and it got infected so spent most of Sunday at minor injuries and then most of Monday at the hospital and then also a couple of hours on Wednesday! Still, it's healing nicely now and the infection has been cut out... _pale_

It's all go, and I've been partially good and partially very bad, which I think is going to average out on the slightly bad side in terms of GC, so I need to focus again now I've had a week of madness. I can do it, even though everything seems very chaotic at the moment!!!

pamsdish · 4 July 2019 at 9:22AM

£53 spent since last accounting getting a little disheartened as my balance is now very meagre, think I set it too low, oh well try better.

Rachiedabbler70 · 4 July 2019 at 12:04PM

elsiepac wrote: »

Budgets updated to here

Hi everyone! Sorry for being a bit absent, lots been going on here!

Yes I did!! Woop woop!! So very very happy and excited to move in! I move 25 July! I've had to move my animals out of my current house already as a favour to my friends who own it as they are going to sell, so the animals are on extended holidays for the next few weeks, in the process I got badly bitten by one of the degus and it got infected so spent most of Sunday at minor injuries and then most of Monday at the hospital and then also a couple of hours on Wednesday! Still, it's healing nicely now and the infection has been cut out... _pale_

It's all go, and I've been partially good and partially very bad, which I think is going to average out on the slightly bad side in terms of GC, so I need to focus again now I've had a week of madness. I can do it, even though everything seems very chaotic at the moment!!!

Ouch to getting bitten -hope you're better soon, glad to see you got your place to live :T

I've spent just over £55 of my budget (amount in signature). Going to see how many no spend days I can do in a row to keep me in check:D NSD number 1 today:)

Good luck all xx

Suffolk_lass · 4 July 2019 at 3:50PM

Congratulations on the new place elsiepac! Time to wind down those stores? We have a new place too - only ours has got wheels and is strictly for the holidays

and needs a bit of work.

Sorry to hear you got bitten. No chance of that with my cat - she is asleep in the laundry basket this afternoon. Unfortunately, on top of a clean folded light blue T-shirt that will show every black hair. Ho hum!

Not spending anything again today but I am fretting as I used the last of the onions from my fridge in my potato salad for tonight's supper. Market day tomorrow so I might go foraging

LIzzieM · 5 July 2019 at 5:13PM

That's good news elsiepac

.

My mom came round for lunch today (had got everything in stock) but I said to meet at the SM as I needed some washing up liquid and bleach. I popped some more things in the trolley but at the till she insisted on paying (I'm normally quite stubborn and 'proud' when it comes to people buying/doing things for me) but the big smile on her face was worth 'giving in'! However, in fairness I'm going to add it to my total as at least I won't have to go out for a few days now.

Lizzie

JingsMyBucket · 5 July 2019 at 8:18PM

Hi everyone! I kind of lost the plot last month and lost track. I’m moving on and would like rejoin for this month. I’ll be traveling from mid-July to mid-August throughout Europe so my budget will be wonky and will have both pounds and euros. I’m also thinking about how to count the food I'll buy to eat when in AirBnBs. I think I'll just count that as groceries even when traveling.

@elsiepac I’d like to join for July 1st to July 31st please. £300 and €200.

We’ve already spent £102 of the pound budget. We’ve just bought a bunch of food yesterday to take with us on vacation this weekend plus some that will last through next week. I figure we’ll be good until next Tuesday.

TOTALS SO FAR:
£102/£300 and €0/€200
2/12 NSD

Now to catch up on reading the thread. :j

JingsMyBucket · 7 July 2019 at 1:20AM

Another NSD here on Saturday. I’m posting the NSD so I build the posting habit back up again.

TOTALS SO FAR:
£102/£300 and €0/€200
3/12 NSD

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

July 2019 Grocery Challenge

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