November 2008 Grocery Challenge

JennyBee_2

Ok, have bitten the bullet and am going to try and do 2 months meal plans and shopping next weekend. Baby is due on 18th January so want to make sure that as well as batch cooking as much as poss beforehand, there's also enough tins and jars and dried things in case OH is just popping back for a couple of hours at a time. Also adding £20 onto our normal budget for takeaways/fish and chips etc. Luckily we're at mum and dad's for Christmas and only have to provide the HM Christmas pud so it should be quite a cheap christmas.

Just looked on mysupermarket.com to see that 3kg bags of pasta in Asda have gone from £2.95 last month to £3.46! How mean!

candygirl

Went to NETTO and got 3 massive jars of maxwell house at only £1.99 each, plus some choccy so a major bargain today.Just adding it to my total:D

lil_me

Just had to run back to page 1 to see how I was doing, I couldn't remember what amount I set well not bad so far, over half way in as it's a 5 weeks one for me. I am using up a lot this month from the freezer and I have stocked up on coffee when they had it in which is not cheap. Hope everyone else is doing ok.

greent

Well we're halfway through the month (we do month-month) and I've spent £202.96 - less than half of the budget and that figure includes some Xmas pressies/ food and takeaways - so I'm v pleased. Cupboards/ fridge/ freezers are all full too

Tomorrow's dinner is a happy chicken, roast pots, parsnips, cabbage, stuffing, peas, carrots & broccoli - oh and yorkshire puds! With HM apple/ blackberry crumble for pud. Yum yum - and then the chicken can do some sandwiches, another roast meal or 2 for DD and soup - and possibly a curry too.

Am trying to eat out of freezers to ensure all food is rotated ok and that we get some room in there ready for Xmas!

Oh - Asda had Cravendale 4pts for £1 when DH went in there today - so we bought 6 bottles (will only last us just over a week)

Must get back into baking - have been buying goodies for lunchboxes

greent
x

tessie_bear

can i please join in ? i have been reading the thread since august and it is all very inspiring given the way prices are going up in the supe markets....im not sure what to set budget at so am going to monitor what i spend for a bit before i commit myself........we are a family of 4 (2 adults 2 kids) id be interested (nosy) to know what other families of this size spend...but i suppose peoples budgets cover different things........we have started the os money saving ball rolling by eating a reduced pizza from the coop after swimming lesson..we usually duck in to mcdonalds (bad bad bad)

regards tes










tes

savingfortravel

Welcome Tes
Monitoring for the month is a good idea..I'm sure lots of people in families of 4 will offer advice to you..Sounds likes you've made a great start with the pizza though!!!
Good luck! SFT

brummiebabe

Have not had chance to read the whole thread, but thought it was about time I updated my spending - have to say, it's not looking that good & I'm likely to go over this month!:mad:

So far this month I've spent £323.82 of my £360 budget. This leaves me £36.18 for the next week and a half. I do have meals planned until Wednesday...but I can't see the £36.18 lasting until the 26th (the start of December's challenge for me!) However, I didn't put any extra in my budget for DD's 2nd birthday party tea - so really I probably might have scraped by if it wasn't for that!!!!;)

Oh well - hope everyone else is doing better than me!!:rotfl:

thriftylass

Hello,

I've been reading this thread for a while and initially thought I wait til the new December challenge to pop in. But I noticed another GC challange newbie (Tes) just posted for the first time too. I'm testrunning the 4k a year challenge but thought it be also a good idea to keep a closer eye on my grocery spending.
We're a household of two and a cat (whos food is included in groceries) and I try to stay under ₤200, this month I spend ₤156 so far but got all my work lunches for this month and most of December in the freezer plus a few batches of soup and dinner.

angelatgraceland

tessie_bear wrote: »

can i please join in ? i have been reading the thread since august and it is all very inspiring given the way prices are going up in the supe markets....im not sure what to set budget at so am going to monitor what i spend for a bit before i commit myself........we are a family of 4 (2 adults 2 kids) id be interested (nosy) to know what other families of this size spend...but i suppose peoples budgets cover different things........we have started the os money saving ball rolling by eating a reduced pizza from the coop after swimming lesson..we usually duck in to mcdonalds (bad bad bad)

regards tes

Welcome Tess! Well we are a family of 5 but often one or the other is a bit awol. I started on £75 pw food only if thats any help to you. Im now on £65 pw food only. I include takeaways(which is very little)but not restauarnats as these are in my entertainment budget. I would include any school meals if I had such and any trips into coffehouses-canteen meals etc if it applied(but it doesnt).
Had a no spend day today but disaster has struck with my daughters new phone-3 weeks old and she dropped it down a drain!!!:mad:
Claimed the sim credit tho-Virgin were very helpful and tranferred it to a new sim. Now ordering a new phone and dd has to pay for it as its the only way she will learn.:money:
Glad Im an mse fan tho as I got a good deal and a discount whereas years ago /I would have just gone to a phone shop!:eek:
So 2 weeks under budget and plenty to spend over the next 2 weeks. Will be popping to Waitrose tomorrow to use my newspaper vouchers and my nestle voucher so I won't be spending much. Just need to get a chicken out of the freezer now for tomorrows dinner and see what is buried in there in the way of veg.
CW18-I have an idea what you are all suffering-my dh had bowel cancer a couple of years ago-he is ok at the mo tho so he is one of the lucky ones.
Keep motivated and as positive as possible-its a hard road to travel.

Natty68

Spent £39.17 at Mr A's today, plus £2.00 in Iceland.

I don't think I'll count the £262.00 that we spent in Wickes buying two worktops, seeing as this is money already allocated out of Dh's savings..lol