November 2008 Grocery Challenge

ZLS1984

Hi I have just gone through my money and worked out what things need to be spent on and yep it works out that I have £40 a week spare for food.

I think I am going to get bath and cleaning products from the pound shop as this will save me money. I will just stick to the supermarkets for the other bits I need, unless I do all my shopping in town.

lil_me

Oh eek and bother, I have under £50 left for this week and need pet foods tomorrow, have to be more careful for next week, in my defence I have stocked up on my coffee pods which are about 1/5th of my weekly spending but my luxury at the mo.

ZLS that's quite a lot actually, I could get our spending below that if I wanted/needed to quite easily (for family of 4 all meals, animal stuff and cleaning stuff) there is loads of threads for cheap meals, some very easy to make aswell.

angelnikki the offers just get worse don't they, like the petit filous were under £1 when I bought them, value yogs much cheaper, £1 for a loaf of bread!!! 40p for value or lidl/aldi bread I think, that's a £1.60 saving on 2 loaves if you buy bread. Turkey breast steaks over £5 a kilo, sure you can get similar value range chicken breast for that.

I am going to do a meal plan and a specific shopping list, trying to buy just what I need for this week. Must get the freezer emptied, well apart from the overstock of ben and jerry's, would be greedy to scoff all that this week

ZLS1984

Thanks lil-me, for some reason I struggle on that amount and find that I do not get enough for that money.

I think it is due to meb buying so much different things as I can hardly eat certain things at the moment.

May be I should just buy for my dad and dd and work something out for me later.

Julimk

As it is payday (including my Christmas bonus:D ) & still money in the budget I have treated me & DD to an M&S meal deal for tomorrow (obviously the wine is just for me!) Bought a few other bits, mainly for DDs pack-ups next week, so have updated siggy.

That should be it now for this month, but will leave it until after the weekend to declare, as may need some milk and possibly one or two other bits.

Every month my spend has come down & I can’t believe how much food I have in despite this! So thanks to everyone on here for all of your help & support. :A

angelnikki

lil_me wrote: »

angelnikki the offers just get worse don't they, like the petit filous were under £1 when I bought them, value yogs much cheaper, £1 for a loaf of bread!!! 40p for value or lidl/aldi bread I think, that's a £1.60 saving on 2 loaves if you buy bread. Turkey breast steaks over £5 a kilo, sure you can get similar value range chicken breast for that.

I know - the prices are mad now aren't they? It's not long ago hovis was 80p a loaf! And it's getting hard to find any decent offers. It's mainly convenience stuff that's on offer most of the time.

I dont buy petit filous (just thought people might like to know they're on offer). I prefer muller little stars as they dont contain any gum or any modified ingredients, I def wouldn't buy value yogs for DS (they are low fat and contain too much sugar, plus colours, gum, and other ingredients that I like to avoid). I prefer hovis to cheaper bread . And I prefer to buy turkey or FR chicken, I couldn't eat cheap chicken.

I guess I'm lucky that I dont have to stick to a budget and have the luxury of being able to afford to choose with these sorts of things. I have reduced my GC spends a lot and now average £55/wk on food (for for me, X and DS) instead of £100+/wk that we were spending, so I think I'm doing quite well :T

I do realise that other families the same size as mine are spending less than me but I'm not trying to compete with them, I'm just aiming to get the best quality I can for the best price. I think I've been successful in doing this.

Nikki x

tessie_bear

hi........i got an xmas pudding in tesco for £2 instead of £4 ms peeks which seemed quite good.....its not huge but ok for 4 i would say.......iv never made my own im put off by the hours of steaming id probably get bored wander off and burn the house down.....cheaper to buy than redecorate the new kitchen....do people go for the £10 deal at m and s ?i got it yesterday had a chicken a big tray roasting veg chocolate pudding and the oj....dont like wine.....we are going to have roast chicken then chicken and mushroom pie (the next day not straight after) oh and i cut the legs off prior to cooking the chicken and make a casserole with them........not bad for a tenner ......i think ill et another tomorrow

OrkneyStar

angelnikki wrote: »

I know - the prices are mad now aren't they? It's not long ago hovis was 80p a loaf! And it's getting hard to find any decent offers. It's mainly convenience stuff that's on offer most of the time.

I dont buy petit filous (just thought people might like to know they're on offer). I prefer muller little stars as they dont contain any gum or any modified ingredients, I def wouldn't buy value yogs for DS. I prefer hovis to cheaper bread . And I prefer the taste of turkey or FR chicken to cheap chicken.

I guess I'm lucky that I dont have to stick to a budget and have the luxury of being able to afford to choose with these sorts of things.:o I have reduced my GC spends a lot and now average £55/wk on food (for me, X and DS) instead of £100+/wk that we were spending, so I think I'm doing quite well :T

Nikki x

I tend to buy Little Stars too, as they are decent quality. They have been on offer recently. Our Tesco had the Yeo Valley Organic Fruit Tumble 4 packs for £1 (instead of £1.69) last week, so I got two for DS- ones with longer dates.
I think I mentioned this before but our Tesco had 6 value fromage frais right next to the kiddies ones (Tesco own, Petits filous, Little Stars)- the thing is they don't contain full cream milk, actually reduced fat stuff. This is not advised for LO under 3, yet I bet some people get them not realising.
We too like Hovis bread although only buy it when reduced, a lot of the time I make bread/rolls. Not too keen on turkey, so its chicken for us, sometimes better quality than others.
We used to spend £50-65/wk for 2 adults, then about £50 for 2 adults and LO, we are managing on about £30-40 for 2 adults and LO now, so I am happy with this reduction (although could be more if we work on it). Ours has been partly self, partly forced when I left my £21K job to be a SAHM. Thing is, although LO is only 1.5, we spend a chunk of the food budget on him, as he needs certain things, whereas we can be a bit more flexible. I also had to buy nappies this week, normally use real nappies but as our WM is broken :mad: I am trying toreduce washing amount!
Anyway today was another NSD, no more shopping needed bar milk, and our Dec starts soon. Hubby also came home with a carrier of onions, so I sense onion soup!
x

Free_in_Three

Had a rare day off yesterday so did a HUGE shop to refill the cupboards and freezer. I can't move for tins and have had to reorganise the understairs cupboard to store everything!

Spent £28.87 in Aldi and £67.65 in Mr T after £34 taken off in coupons and savings stamps. Really happy with the amount I got, previously I could spend that on a couple of baskets of stuff.:o
Bad news is my total spend for November is £370. :eek: :eek: :eek: My budget was £280. We started badly with not much food in, no meal plans and relied on too many takeaways when I was late in from work. I dont enjoy them and wonder why I ever buy one.

I feel much more prepared for December and with only two adults and two small dogs to feed and no Christmas dinner to make I am aiming for £120 between now and 27th December. If I could manage to spend under £100 I will be over the moon.:D

Thanks to you all for your great tips and recipe ideas. :T

Free in Three x

MRSMCAWBER

Evening all

Reporting a bit more spending this month :rolleyes: ... still I didn't realise how close to the end of the month we were until I saw declared totals :eek: ..only 4 days away from our pay day -so im going to add the €11 spent today ...then declare this month @ €56.85 :j ..I keep wondering if I have missed some spends off -but checking my purse -the amount left in there tells me I haven't :T ...
Today I got :-

1. 1.7kilo chicken €2 -whoops
2. 3 litres whole milk @ €1 =€3 -whoops
3. 2 packs sausages @ 75c =€1.50 -don't usualy buy sausages :mad: need to get some made next month -but they are 95% meat so I will cope -whoops
4. some pears -€1
5. grapes €1
6. yoghurts €1.50 for 8
7. snackies for hubby €1

But there is nothing at all I need for the rest of this month -and lots in for next month :T

Have to confess to coming verrrry close to a thai takeaway tonight - I got as far as looking at the menu -before dragging my bum into the kitchen (the chicken went straight in the remoska when i got in) so we had some with mashed potato n swede, carrots, nobbies and peas :A :rotfl:

Im going to strip the rest of the chicken off tommorow and stick in the freezer for making cobblers

Ohhh not out of the GC budget -but the NAAFI had the large 22oz yankee candles on offer at 2 for €25 ... so hubby got me 4 as a pressie -it works out cheaper than buying cheap tee lites from the german shops -about €5.99 for 50 :eek:
right enough waffle -again
will go and update the list
have a good evening all:D

Pitlanepiglet

Well I need to finalise my figures on Monday as the end of my month is Tuesday but I' will have blown my £200 budget by at least £50 and probably more like £100.

This was my first proper attempt at the GC and I was over optimistic about what I could achieve this month. I spent very little last month (ALL our money is still stuck in Iceland and I was left with a £300 deficit last month as I couldn't withdraw funds) so this month I needed to restock plus I'm buying things for Christmas, plus it was my birthday so we had a takeaway (all comes from the food budget) plus it's DH's DGD's birthday on Monday so we're off to visit and will take them out or buy them a takeaway (although I might exclude that from GC as it's not like just buying takeaway for the two of us).

Sooo...I am a bit disappointed that I've not made it this month, I think I'll add extra for next month to cover Christmas and everything changes in January as DH will be moving to my Dad's to start our build project so that we can all live together. I've got to stay where we are to work and pay the bills!

On the supemarket front I think that basic things have got really expensive, I can't find any cheap value/basic SR flour or dried fruit, everything is more expensive than it was, presumably to subsidise the discounted branded products that I don't buy :mad:

(sorry this turned into a huge post!)