June 2019 Grocery Challenge

Evening all

Another 15.47 for me today. Need to make space in the freezer so some sugar and a bottle of gin to make sloe gin.

One bottle made and another to do tomorrow. Will most probably be more money spent on booze in the next couple of days as want to try sloe vodka and whiskey and blackberry whiskey.

GMAT

Morning all

I have a small spend to declare from yesterday: £3 spent on chorizo for dinner. The plan had been that we'd have "Scrummy with a touch of spinach" for dinner but, while DH had defrosted the chickpeas and spinach, I got home from 2 days away for work to discover that the "chorizo" he'd assured me we had, was actually salami which just doesn't work in this recipe. Quick phone call, with the result that he bought chorizo on the way home.

The above spend brings our total for the month to £22.07/£130, leaving £107.93 for the rest of the month. We still plan to do a big stock-up shop tonight, so I expect a large proportion of that to get spent today.

ceb1995 wrote: »

I'd like to join, we've been trying to get under £200 since the start of the year and have been unsuccessful.
I've recently handed my notice in and i don't have a new job yet (i know not the most sensible choice but it is the best choice for my health to leave asap and we although we have savings to top up dh's wages for a couple of months to give me time, i've got more motivation than ever to cut the food bill).

So we're aiming for £190 this month for 2 adults and a cat. Got some reduced salmon and mince in the freezer at the moment and a few bits of various carbs and herbs, we are a 5 minute drive from a supermarket so we can make strategic trips to check out the reduced aisles, should be fine till the friday night with what we have in and i've made a meal plan with two meat free days for next week.

So far we're on £36.77/£190

Any advice on where we can cut our budget would be greatly appreciated

Welcome ceb1995. It's hard to know what advice to give you, without knowing what you already do and what your shopping style is like. With that in mind, I have a few questions for you:-

1. What do you like to eat?
2. Do you meal plan?
3. When you do a shop, what do you normally buy? What could be "traded down" to an own-brand value item?
4. What do you have in your pantry already? What about your freezer? (We may be able to save you a few pennies in the short term by giving you ideas for using this stuff up.)
5. When is your last day on the job? Do you normally buy your lunch or take it from home? (So we can come up with lunch ideas.)

For the record, my household consists of two adults and our budget per month is £120 for general groceries (including toiletries) and £40 for meat/fish (excluding any bought at the supermarket). The latter usually accumulates for a couple of months, until we restock the freezer by shopping at the butcher's.

HTH.

- Pip

Went out for a managers lunch day yesterday and ended up spending £7.50 just on lunch!!! That's me definitely taking homemeade lunches in for the rest of the month, costly mistake for me.

£105.55/£175 for me.

Ouch! £85 spent at this morning's market & in the supermarket later, but that should be just about everything we need this week. That bought us fish, a bag of samphire, a dozen eggs, 2 chickens for the Sunday roast (& stock & 2 x leftover meals) cheese, bacon, milk, cream, tea, & a trolley-full of fruit & veg. Oh, and a coconut for DD2 to make coconut ice-cream! I'll be doing orange sorbet with some blood oranges I found at the bottom of the fruit bowl. There will be a small top-up mid-week; probably bananas, bread & yogurt, but I'm not anticipating needing anything else.

I've splashed out £25 on a local sourdough course, run by a chef friend whose bread is legendary. She brought round several loaves when I was ill, dear soul, and I just want to be able to turn out tasty loaves like those for us all to eat for rather less money than the local artisan bakery charges! We have a very good local mill so good flour can be acquired very reasonably, but I've killed a number of sourdough starters over the last few years in my cackhanded attempts. So hopefully after this I'll be able to do it properly - and relatively cheaply.

A spend of £32.94 so far but I'm doing a big shop today which will include a joint of beef and 2kg of chicken breasts and 24 loo rolls.

My budget will take a hammering but next weeks shop will be just fresh stuff in the main.