October 2008 Grocery Challenge. Please read first two posts.

ness_w

Magentasue wrote: »

Wow!

My bill goes up when I buy a lot of 'treats' - usually when the kids are loading BOGOF Sensations crisps, Jaffa Cakes, Cheerios and the like into the trolley.

Yes, that does happen - and when you eat bogof club biscuits or something you definitely get hungrier quicker and end up eating more - I will have to swear off the bogofs unless they are 'real' food.

cw18

Ness - we used to have big name cheese (and still do if in Whoopsie or on a special offer meaning it's cheaper than the value), but we've successfully stepped down to the stores own mature, and then the value mature. It was one of the products we had to step down in two stages though

More than one box of cereal a day :eek: I know you said there are 8 of you, but if we only got 8 portions from a box then I'd refuse to buy anything except porrige oats !!! My son (17) is the main cereal eater, and even though he must have at least twice what they declare as a portion a box lasts him well over a week !! Hubby tends to only eat Weetabix (or stores own, but not value!), and those are only eaten 2 at a time -- so a box of 48 does 24 portions !!

angelatgraceland

ness_w wrote: »

OK, we'll go for £80 this week with a view to trying to shave it to £70 in time. That would nearly halve our shopping bill. It shouldn't be too difficult the first week as we have stuff in the freezer, not a lot in the cupboards though. I will let you know how we get on.

Ness-have you got a slow-cooker??? These are a must! A nice big 6l one for you. Hard to say what to spend but Im doing £70pw for family of 5 with no cleaning stuff. Id be tempted to say about £100 pw and come down by a fiver every week. I think you are brave starting on £80 so don't get disheartened if its too low and you go over. Stock up on soya mince lentils and oats-it will stretch a lot of meals!
A lot of my meals work out at approx 50p per portion. Sometimes less and sometimes more. Packed lunches are a must unless you can get free school meals and tap water is good too for drinks rather than nasty fizz.
We rarely do deserts-there is usually so much on the plate that there is little room for them and Ive really tried to wean my kids away from sweet stuff over the years. They have grown up now to be happy without it except when Im in the mood to serve it up-and usually it ends up as a snack later on then. I often make a trifle(most weeks)which is really cheap-serves 8 kids or 6 bigger portions. Or serve with value icecream. Costs between 50p and £1 depending on whether I put in tinned fruit and/or trifle sponges and whether I add cream but usually I finish it off at the point of the custard.
I rarely buy crisps-again-they have got used to not having them. Biscuits are always value ones or homemade twinks. Homemade soups are great too-sometimes mine start off as a casserole and the stuff left over gets liquidized. This is a good way to use up the bits of bread-crusts-dipped in soup. I like to make my own yoghurts and rarely buy them except as a treat now whatever the special offer is it rarely tempts me.
I could cut back a lot but it is the time factor and my hatred of washing up.I enjoy cooking but hate housework so its a bit of a balancing act.
I may make a flan later-I have the sponge flancase and a couple of quickgels and a lot of peaches from the market-a couple of them are a bit damaged so they will get sliced up for the flan. Total cost approx £1.20 and that will be 8 servings as its a big flancase. Did my freezer inventory the other day and estimated the value to be approx £188 which isnt as much as I thought but that is because nearly all meat in there is reduced when I bought it. Must now do a cupboard inventory as it will help me to prevent waste(going out of date)and give me meal ideas too.

ness_w

I did buy a slowcooker but ended up giving it away on freecycle. The only stuff I could get to even vaguely taste nice had to have lots of quorn in it so didn't work out cheap. I don't think slow cooking really works for vegetarians!

We don't have crisps, but we do have puddings like yoghurts etc. We also buy really nice organic dried fruit - stuff like mangoes (well, we did until today!).

I hear what's being said about the cereal - the kids have two large bowls each one has to be something hight fibre, the other can be krispies or similar. It's all own-brand but it's just the sheer amounts...I guess we need smaller bowls as I'd never get them out of the habit of 'second breakfast'.

I'm not sure I want to have value cheese, I'd rather have a few more quid on my budget or cut back somewhere else than that - we have Tesco organic mature cheese - it's a few pence more than the non-organic, but not much, or we have stuff from the farmer's market that is expensive. Maybe if I moved over to the value stuff for cooking with?

Jacks_xxx

ness_w wrote: »

What's a reasonable weekly budget for us? .

Hiya Ness, :wave:

I saved my receipts for August last year and was horrified when it all added up to £650!!!! :eek:

(We are only a family of four (Two adults, a 13 year old and a 20 year old - plus a grumpy spoiled old moggie! )


The next month I set a target of £500, and the next £400 and every month I hung out here in Old Style and learned more tricks, tips and recipes to help me do better next month. (You can see my patchy progress in my sig below.)

I buy free range / cruelty free / organic / local now as much as my budget wil stand - but somehow I still spend waaaay less than I used to every month.

If our budget drops below £300 a month/ £68 a week I tend to struggle as Moggie isn't cheap to keep and I'm not looking to make cuts there. He's old and poorly and we just feel lucky he's still here. ( and costing me a fortune! :rolleyes: )

I could still make changes, be more frugal and work harder to make it happen, but this way we stay more or less within our comfort zone, and nobody feels hard done by. We still have plenty of treats - but now I cook some of them.

If I could offer you one tip that worked for me hon - it's all in the planning. The better organised and prepared I am the less we spend.

Good luck with your first month!

Love Jacks xxx

Money_Fritter

Hi Folks,

The food plan is going well. I have spent £10.87 this week out of my £60 budget for month. I have £11.18 left for the last week of the month before I get paid.

Hope everybody is doing well.

Money Fritter

suzybloo

Hi folks, not posted for a wee while but coming in just about budget so far. £37 in Mr T's today and £17 in the butchers but that included a bit beef for soup which I will cut up and serve with an onion gravy, and also enough mince for two meals - (I will freeze half) along with liver, sausages, piece of brisket and a lovely mince round. In Mr T's they had their value leeks noted as discontinued there were 4 large ones in it for 99p so they will go in the freezer, along with the extra cooking apples I got on BOGOF. Had a quick look in the farmers shop and got 6 free range eggs half price 90p and a unsliced loaf topped with oats down to 50p so will have poached egg for breakfast tomorro. Every little helps! :-)

Magentasue

ness_w wrote: »

No, we don't do finest, we do have beer, an awful lot of washing powder etc, 6 pints of milk a day, an awful lot of fresh fruit and veg - eat a lot of peppers and mediterranean type food, a loaf or two of bread a day, more than one packet of cereal a day, we get through a lot of vintage cheddar too - I don't think we'll be able to go value on that. We will use up a whole carton of hoummous, say, or philly or whatever for packed lunches as well as a whole cucumber for veg sticks etc - it all just adds up! OH eats like a horse and the kids are always hungry too, maybe they should get less exercise!

Washing powder - mix half and half with soda crystals
Milk - Six pints a day - same here! Well, between four and six.
Fruit and veg - Do you have a market? We don't spend much less than we used to when we bought from Asda, but we do have a lot more for our money
Cheddar - cheapest mature here.
Cereal - I'm a bit mean here. We always have oats, weetabix and shreddies type (own brand though) and usually muesli. I also buy the odd box of less filling cereal like cornflakes, rice krispies but they're for weekends only. Even so, grown up sons start with four weetabix and go on to a second bowl. They could eat worse stuff though and I'd rather they all filled up with cereal in the mornings than have nothing.

savingfortravel

Hi everyone!!
Thought I'd pop in for a weekly update. We seem to be doing well with our budget (see below) but do need to pop into Mr T sometime this weekend.. hope not to spend to much/list prepared.
OB used up some apples following an apple crisp recipe from lovefoodhatewaste web site.. He finishes his job on Friday and hasn't managed to get a new one yet.
Anyway hope everyone is ok and doing well. Hugs to those who need them!!
SFT

gtx

done my 'weekly' shop and i'm really pleased with myself - i spent £36.30 altogether but if you take off the extras i bought because they were on special offer, i only spent £21.81 for this week.:T

i've added the whole figure to my total though - i'm sure it'll balance out on other offers on other weeks - and it's still looking good because i'll only have one more 'weekly' shop to do plus milk and f&v.

And the extras i bought -3 chickens for a tenner (apologies to the people who feel strongly about happy chickens:o )- 4 casserole mixes for a £1 etc will all provide more than one meal -in the case of the chickens at least 3 meals each, so should see me into next month easily.:j

enjoy whats left of the weekend everybody:beer:

gtx