November 2008 Grocery Challenge

mouseymousey99

Hello - Just to say hi too. I've never found anywhere more useful and friendly on the internet. My two pence worth would be not to overlook the the odd expensive thing! Sounds mad, but rather buy the Sunday roast enjoy it (with tons of veg) than eat something you don't like. You will have leftovers and the site is full of how to make soups/sherpherds pies etc.
Best wishes

Beki

Scubabe wrote: »

Hi,
Our household spending is £300 per month, this has to include everything which isn't a household bill - so this is for all human & animal food, cleaning products, takeaways (we still allow ourselves 1 per month!), wood & coal for the fire, household items (e.g. Christmas cards, or buying a new can opener, or a new set of pillows, or whatever). Some months it is easy to stick to the budget, some months it is really hard. No matter what though, I *always* take this out in cash and I have a special "housekeeping" purse that all the money goes into, and when this purse is empty, it is empty, so I cannot overspend.

this is a brilliant idea! hope you don't mind if i pinch it?

Any

Hi,
I thought I put my ideas too.

I know it is very easy to run up high bill - my OH does that. You send him to a shop, he spends £100 and we have NOTHING to eat in 3 days (and it is just the 2 of us). I spend about £200 a month, but that doesn't include wine. And my OH never complained that I don't feed him properly.

Fortunately I have a Cosco card. I find that great. I go in about once a month, when I am running low on meat.
I mainly buy pork loins there - packet of 4 is between £8-£10. But each of them easily feeds 2 people and more ofthen then not I have left over to take with me for lunch to work.

Then I buy fish - usually salmon. Whole half for about £8-10 again. Easily 5 portions - you can make with new potatoes, gnochi with salmon and cheese sauce or fish pie.

Then I buy beef cubes for caserolles and - our luxury - raw frozen large prawns 1kg for £7 - this easily makes 2 dinners of italian prawn risoto, each for 4 people (just tried that this weekend).

Of course everything is sold in large packs, so you have to devide it into portions at home.

Once I have all this in my freezer, I only shop at Tesco for vegetables and cheese etc, unless I go half with my sister on one of the huge packs of Milano or German salami from Cosco. If you have a such a choice of meet, you don't have to plan much what vegetables etc to buy, because now I always look what I have in the fridge and take out meat from the freezer accordingly.
Do I have mushrooms and leek? Chicken breast or Pork loin for stir fry. Do I have just potatoes and milk? Pork loin shnitzels with mashed potatoes. Do I have nothing at all? Beef goulash then (that is usually the day before shopping:-)).

I also agree that firstly you have to find out how much you spend for food and how much for "stuff". Because if you are anything like my sister you might find out that food spend is not too bad, but your husband seriously doesn't need any more underwear, he just needs to stop hiding it under the bed and start putting it into laundery basket...:-))

PurpleSkies

Spent about £14 in Mr T this weekend which is quite a bit more than I was expecting since I only popped in for bread, milk, a few pieces of fruit and some cleaning supplies. But when I saw 2kg of mince for £6 how could I refuse!
Now my freezer has gone from full to practically bursting! Although it should mean that I don't need to buy any more mince until the new year.

HowGreatThouArt

some excellent advice so far.
Just a random thought, do you have a clubcard? if so you must have loads of points?? Perhaps using them to pay for a weeks shopping, or put towards a big shop might help motivate you as it could take a big chunk off the bill.

might help kick start those grocery savings.

Good luck!

MrMicawber_2

Hi distressedpleasehelp. I'm sure that with all the good advice and ideas from everyone here you will quickly spot areas where you can make significant savings out of £1,000 per month. The very fact it is quite a lot suggests the savings are ready and waiting to be found and once you've started there'll be no looking back. I read your other thread as well and was very sorry to see your position - but good for you, you're tackling it.

You definitely need a breakdown to see exactly where the money is going - but don't feel you have to wait until the breakdown is penny perfect. Start your saving right now and refine as you go along.

Try forcing a limit on yourself - say £700 - for now and it will help you to see where the overspend is. DVD's, clothes, chocolates, alcohol, expensive food - best steak or scallops would mount up etc etc etc.

Do all those good things others have mentioned as well - we always try to plan each week for meals and have a budget and savings accounts for other expenses (hols, entertainment, clothes, house, birthday, Christmas). It does help focus the mind and it really helps you see where you are. If we overspend on one thing then it just means there's less for something else. Of course we need to change amounts in our various 'pots' every now and again but it does make you think.

Stop making ANY impulse buys - on-line shopping as several have said above - can help this. In your position for now I might consider stopping buying any special offers just so you can really get disciplined on keeping to a budget (even if the offer is something which you would use).

Try to only cook what you are going to use (which includes cooking to put stuff in the freezer). It minimises waste, BUT do use up the leftovers - soups and broths and sandwiches are all a doddle. (With a decent chicken (a free range one costing about about £6.20) you should be able to make two meals for 4 and then make some soup.

Do you buy made up sandwiches and coffeee or meals at the TESCO cafe - if you do, don't do it any more you'll save a fortune.

£100 per week on food and household stuff like cleaning and polishing seems to be quite a lot compared with what lots of people here achieve. If you took that as an initial target it's £433 per month so you've got £577 to play with which makes up your current £1,000.

Stop tearing your receipts up and force yourself to see where the money is going - hard but you're more than half way there coming to this forum.

Someone's already suggested listing where your money is being spent - in terms of the various categories. Post that - people will help you reduce it.

Are you paying interest on credit card debt - I haven't looked at the c card forum but post on there if you haven't already. There's loads of people who can help there.

Well done and post your successes. And also post when you're finding it hard, people are very supportive.

MrMicawber_2

................. sorry Debt Free Wanabee not Credit Card forum.

soulbalm

Did another big shop at the weekend at Mr Ts. It came to £47.15 (minus the alcohol). I've decided in an arbitrary fashion to remove alcohol from the budget this month (and possibly next, as I do like a wee drink at Christmas). The deal usually is that my BF buys the alcohol at weekends and I buy the food, but this weekend I got everything.

Anyway, about the only deal that I managed to get was 3 bottles of Cava for £10, and they aren't added into my budget, so don't count!

I've also established that I'm a much better shopper when I have a list and am on my own. Without the list (and menu planner) I'm rubbish. And with my BF in tow I'm rubbish too - we encourage one another to buy things we'd like but don't really need. How else can I justify the guacamole and humous dip? Except they did help us to use up some pitta breads in the freezer.

Oh, and on a good note - my BF volunteered that it would be useful to get a chest freezer, so we'll be looking for one in the January sales I guess.

Good luck everyone, as we approach the end of the month and it all gets a bit tighter to manage the budget.

sarahs999

:rotfl:I just wanted to ask - how do you find out when they mark down the bargains - is it just a case of hanging around until you see someone with a price-label gun in their hand?

Penelope_Penguin

distressedpleasehelp wrote: »

Hi there, I've lost my job and in debt. I posted on another site an SOA and the members recommended I post on here as I spend £1,000 in Tesco's. I'm not a silly woman and I really do resent every penny I spend in there!

Hi there :beer: You've had some great suggestions, so I'm going to merge this thread with the Grocery challenge. That's the best place to get help and advice on keeping your grocery budget to a level you can afford

Best of luck, Penny. x