November 2008 Grocery Challenge

Pitlanepiglet

DPH, I see on your other thread that your kids eat at school/college but I can't see anything in your SOA to fund this? Do you need to allow extra for that and could they take lunch to save some money?

charlottecarter

I can't do that thing where you quote other people's post because I am simple BUT I just want to second what someone else said about shopping online. I have got my shop down to £35 each week for all food/toiletries/cleaning stuff for my family of 5 by meal planning ALL meals & snacks and then shopping online.
More often then not there is a code that will cover the delivery cost and it means that once you think you've finished you can then cut out things that you can do without/can't afford! It has made a huge difference.

Good luck - and don't be daunted - if I can do it, anyone can! x

wannabe_sybil

Just want to say hi

Also, it is so hard. I didn't realise at all how much I was spending, until I tried the grocery challenge. I failed miserably, then I went away and hid. I am still nerving myself for another attempt.

One thing that is helping me bring down my shopping bill is shopping online, via https://www.mysupermarket.com because then you see all the offers that are out there. I have picked up one or two items a lot cheaper that I would normally have never considered.

I have also started getting a delivery once a week or once a fortnight and definitely only getting what I absolutely need. It adds more delivery charges but it takes away my temptation to buy lots and lots and lots of things 'in case I run out'. :rolleyes:

Are there a lot of snacks being bought? That can add so much to a bill. Would your children and dear heart eat home baked cakes and snacks (often a lot healthier as well as tastier)? How do they feel about cutting costs? Do they have to have branded snacks or can you go down to a value brand (lidl and aldi do superb goodies and I shall be going there for my Christmas munchies!).

I am still spending far too much, but it is getting better, and I hope it works out for you. Good luck.

candygirl

Managed to get a trolley full at Tesco today and only had to spend £12 cos I had a £5 NOTW token and cashed all my Dads old coins in at coinstar, bless him:A :A Still well on target for this month:D

Julimk

I had to go & get DD from her Dad’s today & someone had left a News of the World on the train, with a £5 off £30 spend at Mr T voucher still inside!

As I am nearly through my tubs of individual portions & was on trains for several hours, I took a few cookbooks with me & have worked out a plan, based on the meat I already have. I can cook Jamie’s Chicken & Leek Stroganoff & Delia’s Chilli Chicken without any chicken, let the sauce bit go cold & then mix in left over chicken without resulting in reheating the chicken until needed.

Also planning meatloaf, chilli con carne, bolognaise, beef stew with dumplings, sausage with lentils, sausage casserole, chicken with lemons & olives, chicken with garlic, cider & cream and butter beans with bacon & mustard. And will make some stuff useful for lunches, such as vegetable soups, smoked mackerel pate, quiche & flapjacks.

Wrote out everything I will need over & above what is in, plus a little bit extra so still have some stuff in, and costed it on My Supermarket, came to £30.85. This is within my remaining GC budget for this month anyway (and this will last me way beyond this month), but with the £5 off News of the World voucher, £12 clubcard vouchers & some other vouchers I have received from the various Mr T clubs, it should come in at less than half that.

At the moment I am feeling smugly organised but we will see how it actually goes tomorrow! :rolleyes: I am working at home & DD is going to a friend’s after school, so I will have time to shop & cook.

sophistica

Hi here
Good luck wth your challenge. Here is what I do:
1. Buy in bulk on gret deals for the store cupboard eg. half price coffee, deals on nice Italian bisuits etc.
2. By the value range for pasta, tinne tomatoes, tinned red kidney beans etc. I absolutely avoid the branded ranges e.g. Dolmio sauce
3. Use cookery books to plan meals and I then cost the week with a calculator (estimating likely costs).
4. I either make one and freeze one or I eat the same thing two days in a row.
5. I use a range of supermarkets including Lidl and Waitrose.
6. I know wehn the supermarkets reduce their stock and I only buy pre-cooked or ready meals if they are greatly reduced...my idea of a bargain is much less than half price.
7. I freeze things instead of leaving them in the fridge. This means I reduce waste.
8. I don't buy and cook from scratch. I look in the fridge and freezer and before planning my menus and only aim to buy 1 or 2 new ingredients per dish.
9. If I see a bargain on somehting I wouldn't usually eat e.g. celeriac, I buy it and find a recipe for it.
10 I mentally cost a dish and I am pleased if I can cook for a meal for under a £1.
11. I buy toiletries and cleaning stuff in Poundland.
12. I only buy clothes, christmas presents, cards etc if they are on sale and sale means LESS than half price. Then I buy in bulk. And I always check the charity shops as I walk past.

I hope this helps you.

EssexHebridean

Welcome to OS. I really feel for you - we've been through some tough times over the years too with suddenly finding ourselves with hardly any spare cash left for food after the rent (as it was at the time) was paid. It's so hard, but once you have learnt the skills that those on here can teach, you will not only have them for life but will be able to pass them to your kids also.

I've brought our food spending right down over the past year, but to be honest we're probably eating better and more healthily now than we ever have before. Some ideas & pointers:

Try to find your local farmers markets - so long as you buy carefully you can get better quality meat there than you will in the supermarket, and hence you will be able to use less of it as the flavour is so much better. Tip: Take cash, only the amount you want to spend, none of the stalls take cards anyway so you can't be tempted to overspend!

mysupermarket.com is a fantastic resource. I have an excel spreadsheet set up for my shopping list. It has columns for product, quantity and price then a total for each line, and it autosums up at the bottom so I know what I'll be spending. I write the list of what I need into it, check the prices via mysupermarket, enter in the prices and the number of items I want and bingo, one list. The trick is to learn to stick to a list. Try to work out what your triggers are for buying extras - it might be that you shop when you are hungry and are more tempted, maybe your Husband coming with you - that's usually a nightmare for me as he's always saying "Oh, these are nice - shall we have some" and I feel like the wicked witch of the west keeping on saying no!

Clear out your cupboards and fridge. That is the very first thing as then not only do you know what you've got, but also you can sling out anything which is totally past it and know then that everything there is something that can be used.

Cleaning stuff - take all your cleaning stuff out and work out what you actually need. I pretty much only use Stardrops, Bicarb, soda crystals and white vinegar for general household cleaning. That lot will clean pretty much everything. Value Loo cleaner for the Loo and washing up liquid (diluted a bit with water) for the dishes. Tesco own brand washing powder tablets and whatever dishwasher tablets are on offer. Bicarb is an incredibly good scourer - did you know that? Add it to white vinegar and you have a foaming cleaner for drains, and the white vinegar also doubles up nicely as window cleaner and fabric softener. Check out the pound shops and buy some mircrofibre cloths - they make cleaning so simple and they are washable and reusable.

When I first started the cutting back on spending experiment I pulled all my toiletries out of the bathroom cupboard and was amazed what I had amassed - I had more than 7 bottles of shampoo for a start! A lot of what we buy we buy either from habit or because we can't remember whether we need them or not - we buy "to be safe". Cut that spending out and you're halfway there.

Very best of luck with it.

OddjobKIA

May I recomend you visit

www.capuk.org

they will help you in many ways and unlike other organasations will stick with you all the way through

the_rottweiler

Do you go to tesco for milk then spend £30
Try to set a realistic weekly budget for your shopping, then do it on the internet and when its waaay over budget, filter the list down.
first to go, snacks and sweets, then any other non essential items, then downshift by a brand
My budget for myself and 2 teen boys (plus fussy eating cat) is £50.
if i have lots in freezer then the snacks can come back on list, but meals, loo rolls etc come first

lil_me

Hello, welcome, could have written the same myself 2 years ago, as you can tell by my signature it's not what I spend now.

I would suggest listing what you buy, what it's used for, then see what suggestions people can make.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, you might not be able to see it right now but it's there, just remember that.

What helped me -

1. Looking at what I buy, what I used it for and what was changable
2. Waste diary, keeping a record of EVERYTHING I threw away (I chucked away £40 worth of food one week!!!)
3. Meal planning -- not for everyone but worked for me
4. Using much much less of the recommended amount of washing powder (tablespoon of powder and one of soda crystals gets my mucky terrors clothes clean usually)
5. Less convenience foods
6. Using up what I had first, I banned myself from buying any more toiletries unless I ran out of an item, still using up some now, 2 years later............
7. Use mysupermarket.com but use it via ipoints to earn points, it has a downshift function now too suggesting cheaper alternatives
8. If I go to the shop for just milk and want to stick to it, I take just enough for milk!
9. Pets stamped their feet and refused to eat but sharp got used to the new food was the ONLY option
10. Shopping online can reduce temptation but can also remove possibility for reductions (here they aren't worth it so I tend to stick with online shopping) if your store does good reductions, do the shop online of what you need then take in cash what you need for it based on the total and a small amount extra for bargains.