July 2008 Grocery Challenge

Aril

Hi Angelnikki
I'm up for this again [didn't do a set budget for May or June as our holiday spanned the two months].
Please put me down for £160.
Thx
Aril

Flylady_Flower

Hi all,

Just popped on to update my signature - 3 pages already! wow, and welcome to all newbies, you'll love it here - but be warned, it's very, very addictive :beer:

Had to pay for rest of glasses today so popped into town and brought hubby 4 new t-shirts too as he needed them, came home, felt very depressed at spending money so spent some more on KFC, naughty, naughty me!

jediteacher wrote: »

Thanks angelnikki (sp?) for the links. I am very excited to start this challenge. My husband is dubious and thinks I'm wasting my time! However, this has just inspired me to knuckle down and sort out our money usage.

You go girl! But you watch, he'll come round when you start feeding him the lovely recipes that they have on here and you start saving money, just you watch......

LittleOne83 wrote: »

I've tried doing this before and fell flat on my face and half way through the month gave up.

But I'm back to try again. Please put me down for £80 for the month. I've already got the money...going to put it in little envelopes and only use that....I will not use my debit card.
Just watch me mess it up again!

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…

Half the battle is starting and you’ve done that. The thing is, even if halfway through the month you mess up, don’t give in as at least you’ve saved loads for that first part. We’ve all messed up, you only have to read the threads on here to see that, no-one, especially me, is perfect (KFC today for instance, shhhh!) but just get up and try again, and you will get there!

kittynortheast wrote: »

Out of principle I didn't buy them as they wouldn't back down (really want them so will go to a different one in the week!!!! full priced they weren't too bad but... there was a bit of attitude involved- which was not required, I was very polite ) Good luck to everyone. Thanks ANGELNIKKI.

I had similar today myself in Primark – it was packed but the queues were quite short, so I decided to go and look at some tops that were the other side – had some TShirts for Hubby in arm and as I walked through a gap, the hanger on one of the TShirts caught on some trousers that one of the floor girls had folded and it came with me, I smiled, turned around and handed it back and I got the most filthy look, hands on hips the lot. I just stood there dumbfounded until the brain (or rather the mouth) kicked back in and I said to the woman standing next to me “did you SEE that look?” she laughed and so did I but the girl suddenly looked really embarrassed, and so she should.

Coolmum66 wrote: »

Ooh - please can I join in??

First try for me - so will set budget at £200 and my "month" will start from next weeks shop because I use the tax credit money each week (if that makes sense!!) This is for me and teenage son - bring it on!!

Welcome, CoolMum, bring it on indeed….

searching_me wrote: »

i feel so grown up today... i bought home contents insurance with all the tips martin has give and cash back sites and it came to £67 the year for up to £5000... i feel so grown up i think thats the most grown thing ive done (apart from my dd but i was 17 when i had her ) i dont know why i didnt think of it before but its nice to know im covered... anyhooooo hope your days been good im having a takeaway tonight but its not coming out of my gc oh is paying for it bless him xxx
p.s just sort the last part of my finances all i gotta do is pay them... look at a big girl ive be come xxx

Ha ha, well done grown-up you… I’ve still got some things to sort out, but am getting there slowly myself – slowly slowly catchy monkey eh!

KAAT_LADY wrote: »

I thought I would have an NSD today then I remembered I had to go to specsavers. I got 2 pairs of bi-focals for £ 58:41p I was flabbergasted, the frames cost £85 and £75, I thought it was going to be a fortune. Its the first time being on benefits and I got so much off. DH got a pair as well but they were free, plus he got new lenses put in his old glasses for free . It was brilliant.

How good is that! Had to pay for the rest of mine today – another £68, broke my heart it did….

Also, A BIG WELL DONE TO ANGELNIKKI! FANTASTIC, ALL ON THE FRONT PAGE, RECIPES AN' ALL! CONGRATULATIONS - MRS M WOULD BE PROUD

timbo86

Put me down for £50 please we are 2 adults

Barneysmom

SAV3R wrote: »

Hi everyone, :hello: Good luck for July.
Thanks Angelnikki for doing a great job and getting us all on the way. :T

Went to town today, specially to try out the fruit/veg shop. I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. Some things were more expensive than the supermarkets, and the quality didn't seem as good, didn't get everything I needed. I didn't think it was worth the hassle and would be much easier to continue buying with the rest of my food shop. Does anyone else have the same opinion or was I just unlucky?

Had my nice new upright freezer delivered today. :j Did have a chest freezer which took up too much room and was a pain to find everything. It was 16years old and I worked out it was costing £85/yr to run. This one should be more econmoical. A Friend is having the old one tomorrow.

Hi SAV3R, I'm S-O-T too, and I don't go to town for fruit and veg any more. I don't think the quality is as good as the supermarket either
My new fridge freezer is coming on Friday, have to book a day off work but it'll give me chance to have a good stocktake of all the food in the house (including the tins stockpiled in the spare room!)

How do you work out the cost of running it, my new one will be 286kw/h per year?

scooterwife

Hello Angelnikki. Can you put me down for £300 again this month please?
Last month was over at 334.01 (more or less!) BUT I have learned that my habit of shopping nearly every day is what is costing me so much - because I can't just buy one thing - I must be a supermarkets dream really :rolleyes: - I go in for milk and come out with a bagful of unneccessary shopping. (course I think I need it all while I'm in there)

So the challenge this month is to menu plan and only shop once a week.
We have got a weekend away, but it is caravanning so I should be able to buy a few bits to take with us in the weeks beforehand.

Good Luck everyone.

mumzyof2

Niki could you put me down for weekly this month as thats how i get paid i want to do it at £37.50 anything left voer will go in my sealed pot

*BigBird*

Happy new thread everyone



I added up our spends for last month and it came to over £400 :eek: - which is just outrageous for 2 peeps and 2 puss-cats!! I’d like to seriously slash that figure, but will be sensible and set my July target as £350 please. But I hope to come in below that.



My month has already started as I got paid on Tuesday, and spent £120 at Mr T’s on Wednesday. But that was a BIG shop (our weekly shop normally fits in the boot of my Mini, but this lot was taking up the back seat too!), so I should be able to get through next week without having to buy anything other than a bit of fruit and veg.



Does anyone have, or is able to point me in the direction of a recipe for apple chutney? The best chutney I've ever tasted was some homemade stuff my Mum picked up at a church fair. I've got some pork steaks in the freezer that'll do a couple of meals this month, but they just aren't the same without chutney.

SAV3R

Barneysmom wrote: »

Hi SAV3R, I'm S-O-T too, and I don't go to town for fruit and veg any more. I don't think the quality is as good as the supermarket either
My new fridge freezer is coming on Friday, have to book a day off work but it'll give me chance to have a good stocktake of all the food in the house (including the tins stockpiled in the spare room!)

How do you work out the cost of running it, my new one will be 286kw/h per year?

Hi Barneysmom, we bought a plug in device from Maplins £9.99 usually £24.99. You plug the appliance into this before plugging into socket, it tells you how many units it uses. I monitored ours over 24hrs, then multiplies it by the cost per unit, then by 365 for the year. Ours was using 2.45 units per day, 900 per year. We checked the fridge, this only uses £12.30 per year. This may sound sad, but its actually quite intersting.
Just a tip, the salesman said we shouldn't keep it in the garage, if it breaks down we need to bring it in the house before calling anyone out. He says it makes the appliance work harder.

funkyfunkymonkey

Thank you for the lovely new thread, although my month doesn't start until Tuesday 1st July.

I’ve been following the grocery challenge since January and have saved so much money. This has been due to following the tips I have learnt from this board:

• Meal plan
• Cook from scratch as much as possible
• Shop using a list
• Buy value/basics where possible
• Shop around for BOGOF’s and other bargains
• Don’t throw food away

My other source of info is Bernadine Lawrence’s How to Feed your Family for £5 a Day.

Although she wrote this book in the early 1990’s, her example food shopping list to feed your family for £5 a day comes to £34.84, my weekly shop averages at £50 which includes cleaning products, toiletries etc.

For example she prices a chicken at £3 – you can buy chickens for this even now.

Bag of white flour 69p, price in Tesco’s now 36p
Tin baked beans 49p, Tesco value 20p
Tin tomatoes 28p, Tesco value 19p
1kg porridge oats 59p, Tesco value oats 63p
500g red lentils 55p, now 68p
500g sunflower marg 66p, Tesco value 29p
1 litre veg oil 65p, now £1.19

Today I have fed my family of 4 for £3.68, this included breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Breakfast was porridge (me), HM toast & butter (OH), chocolate ready brek (DS) and ½ tin fruit cocktail (DD).

Lunch was tomato soup & HM rolls (DD & DS), poached eggs and HM rolls (OH & me). HM Iced buns for dessert.

Dinner was HM tuna corn bake with green beans and carrots. We all had HM Golden syrup tart with custard for dessert.

I made 18 iced buns in the morning and we do still have 6 left over for tomorrow. The bread mixture also made 8 rolls. We also have ½ golden syrup tart left over for tomorrow. The majority of the ingredients were value/basics and the veg was frozen.

FFM

mumzyof2

FFM - do you calculate how much you have feed your family on everyday? How do you do this?