November 2008 Grocery Challenge

Hollysan

Our spend for the first week of the month was £62. This includes a trip to Lidl for apple juice, cheese etc, but does not include our monthly internet shop from Tesco, which I will do this week.

Miss Bargain - we used to live in London, and now in rural South Norfolk. We visit family in London regularly, and the supermarkets are no cheaper here. We buy organic food as well, and that makes a big difference. If your OH loves to cook, maybe its the ingredients? ie lots of them. I find that if I have a foody weekend (if we have visitors, say) I spend a lot more because of the type of ingredients I buy. Simple recipes with few ingredients work out cheapest.

Just a thought, and good luck with trimming your bills.

Good luck to everyone this week.

Hollysan

Flat_Eric

Morning everyone :wave:

I cant update my spend yet because I have shopping delivered each week from Mr T with my mother in laws and Ive mislaid my last couple of delivery lists telling me how much Ive spent. I know I am going to go over budget this month but it is going to be much better than last month when I went stupidly over so I am quite pleased. Im also conscious that xmas is only a few weeks away so the odd item bought for xmas will only eat into my budget this month but Im not intending on going mad this year and buying all the treats I usually do. This will not only be good for my waist line but good for my pocket too . Im a big fan of Heinz Mean Beanz which Ive not been able to get hold of recently but I spotted them on asda online the other day and had been thinking of doing an order from asda but at 69p a can (you used to be able to get them for about 24p), they can keep them. I wonder how long it will be before supermarkets realise we are not prepared to pay these prices and reduce them to a more sensible level. perhaps we should start a list of boycotted items!!

Flat_Eric

missbargain wrote: »

I don't know how to find this out, unless someone from this forum regularly shops both in London and somewhere much further away. )

In reply to your comment, is a london supermarket more expensive than one in the country - couldnt answer but what I can say is that I shop in the same supermarket albeit one is near where I work and one is in my home town - a difference of about ten miles.

The supermarket that is near my office charges more for the same items that can be bought cheaper in the same supermarket less than 10 miles away. (we are talking about a supermarket beginning with S here).Now the one near where I work is more of a metro style supermarket but in my view that is no excuse. If I buy a tin of beans, I expect to pay the same whether I buy it in Scotland or somerset!

It might only be a few pence here, a few pence there but it all adds up and given the price of food has rocketed recently, its a disgrace. This particular supermarket is more expensive anyway and Ive occasionally thrown something back on the shelf in disgust at the price they want to charge for it.

In answer to Skint Catt's post, yes I see where you are coming from. I often stock up on stuff "just in case" which not only eats up your food budget but means that six - 12 months down the line, you find yourself sorting through your cupboards only to find lots of unforgotten stuff, or half a dozen boxes of rice, out of date (tins) etc!

Jacks_xxx

missbargain wrote: »

But is it possible that the price of packaged goods is much cheaper in other parts in the country than in London?

)

I've always kind of assumed that supermarkets tailor their prices and special offers to the local area.

We have friend and rellies in Devon, Cornwall, Bedfordshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire - and they all express their horror at the prices round my way when they visit.

On the other hand my lovely, it may be that some of your staple ingredients are just a bit gourmet and expensive and the way to go to cut your bill down is to cook different things?

(Having said that, the price of even basic ingredients such as pasta and rice has sky rocketed the past few months so it's becoming harder and harder to cut back.)

Another thing to consider is that it may not be the cost of your meal ingredients which are bumping up your bill - it may be the extras!

One of my friends recently asked for help cutting down her supermarket spend so we did kitchen inventory, then a meal plan, scoped out prices on mysupermarket.com. and shopped just for what she needed - which came to just under half her usual spend but did not include any alcohol or anything snacky - just the ingredients for three meals a day.

She said it was hell and that she had no idea how many little extras they were all used to!

Another way to do it is to set a rigid budget and then make your meal plan fit it.

This forces you to make choices between ingredients because you can't afford to just blithely buy what you usually do - and so you learn which things you really hate to do without and which you don't really miss, or don't notice that you have down-graded to a cheaper one.

We make organic meat from happy animals a priority and make everything else fit in what's left. (or that's the plan anyway! )

I have my Abel & Cole delivery when they have a special offer on or when I can afford it, and most of the rest of our veg comes from the farmers market which is grown locally without pesticides but isn't certified organic. We've also been given lots of veg this year as well as growing some of our own and I will top up at the local market or supermarket if I need to.

Growing your own salad leaves and herbs is pretty easy and can help cut down your food bill - I started that way and then branched out into other veggies.

Cook some different meals, find some alternative suppliers, budget and shop differently and hopefully you'll get a different end result!

Love Jacks xxx

soulbalm

missbargain wrote: »

I don't know how families manage to do it, well done.

Because, even though there is only the two of us, we cannot leave the supermarket (weekly) below 75 pounds, and that's without meat and cat food, which I buy elsewhere (and no, we don't eat caviar and lobster )

Ah, I agree! My shop always used to be about £70, when I was living with my ex partner. And then when we split up, my shop, just for me, still came to about £60 each week. I could never figure it out, although I have to admit I didn't try very hard to figure it initially.

However, I realise that I was often buying cupboard foods for stocking up, and often bought larger quantities than I actually needed, and also premium brands, or organic if available. I was also a sucker for an unnecessary 3 for 2 offer. Sometimes all this this was ok, and it went in the freezer, but sometimes there would be stuff to throw out at the end of the week. I was also guilty of using recipes which required a large variety of ingredients to make dishes, instead of relying on much simpler recipes. On the up-side I ate relatively healthily and rarely if ever ate puddings or ready meals.

So, now I'm choosing to cook simpler meals, and getting better at making batches and freezing. I've also stopped buying cheese (which was my downfall for money and calories!) which helps the budget.

I realise this may not help you much, but good luck with finding ways to shave money off your existing weekly shop. I've only just signed up here, and finding it's helping already (although I did end up buying an entirely unnecessary bottle of port yesterday!).

PurpleSkies

All of these price rises are really starting to get to me now. I try to do my shopping on an average of £10 a week but I ended up spending about £15 yesterday and didn't really have that much to show for it.

ravylesley

I took advantage of Mozzies £2 a lb Beef offer at the weekend and also bagged myself a big piece of pork for just £4.I cooked both the joints and sliced and froze them for sandwich meats or a quickie meal with a few leftover veggies and gravy.I spent £28 in total but did get a couple of other things including Iced Gems which were on BOGOF.Not very practical but the kids love them.I did notice though that not a single tin of the £5 choccies were left on the shelves.Hardly a bargain if they havent got any is it?

Lesleyxx

TOPAZ_2

Hi There
My Week 1 grocery spend (2 adults/2 small children) was £30.85 including nappies/household cleaning stuff.

Its normally up in the £60 range, and the low spend was entirely due to running down the cupboards/fridge/freezer - trying to use things up before use by dates

Week to will be quite a bit higher, I think - so £169.15 left for the rest of November

Topaz

soulbalm

Ah, thank you lovely Old Stylers...

I've just drawn up a proper menu plan for the week this week. I've never actually done this before, always going to the supermarket with a vague idea of what I'd like to cook in the next day or so, and ALWAYS coming away with extra things that caught my eye. And LOTS of things catch my eye in a food shop!

So, this week I'm away in London from tomorrow late morning till late on Wednesday evening, and I'm out at a charity fundraising gala dinner thing on Friday. So, not so many meals to think about this week anyway. But, having planned through till Sunday evening, I realise I only need to buy about a dozen items (all for nice recipes at the weekend). And I'm also inspired to eat what is in my freezer this week - I already have a number of home made frozen pasta bake type dishes in there.

Thanks OS-ers. I'm feeling far more positive about being able to hit my first monthly target now.

Primula

Hi everyone
Well, I was really good week one and into week two and I have spent my whole week's shopping money already and I just know I am going to run out of coffee before the week's up.........ggggggrrrrr.........never mind I am still feeling motivated and this week didn't bin as much food as I have been known to do (I am so bad at buying too much, i.e. rather than buying one pepper, buying the pack of three). Anyway, this week all I binned was carrots and almost a whole loaf of bread. I am annoyed at myself for doing that, but it is better than usual and this week I will try and bin nothing! Haven't been on the computer for 3 or 4 days and I also feel that keeping coming on here reguarly is definitely a good way of staying motivated, so I aim to be back more often!