December 2008 Grocery Challenge

BeenieCat

Flat Eric thanks so much for the tips in the post. Very helpful and good to know i'm not the only one struggling.

I've done my inventory and put it into a spreadsheet and sorted into sections, i.e. veg/tinned meat/frozen meat etc etc, so i'm hoping it's now going to be easier to meal plan using the list.

Looking at my inventory i don't see why i'd need to go shopping this month aside from fresh stuff, so i'm about to make a sort of calendar and fill in with meals, crossing items off my inventory as i go along, i think i'll print it out first to make it easier.

I hope to join the February challenge at £150 for myself and my 5 year old, which includes lunches to take to work everyday, but my son has school lunches.

Do others tend to include school meals into their list of bills, or as part of the grocery budget?

little_miss_thrifty

Aren't you guys great?!?!?

This was the first time i had really set myself this challenge, and i thought after, what a stupid month to do it in. Then again, what a great month to do it in, as despite the 'over indulgence' everyone is supposed to do, it made me think more about what we eat, and those who do not eat as well as us.

Anyway, i would proudly like to declare i spent for 4 of us £238.62 out of £300!!

I think i will leave the same figure for January. Thanks to everyone - i am going to put the savings in the mortgage pot!!

Happy New Year!!

lingojingo

Well I did have to get a few final essentials (milk, cheese, mushrroms and tomatoes) and can now declare £82.43 for December (we weren't home for Christmas, so no massive food shop) and £1736.35 for the year :j

going to try for £1500 next year, I think divided into thirds, with £100 for stockpiling tins and packets each third, then £100 per month for fresh stuff.

hope you all had a lovely Christmas, Happy New Year, and see you on next year's thread!

Moniker

Hi everyone - hope you have all had a great Christmas! I am here to declare my total for December was £341.27 - which was a whole £8.73 under budget - not much I know but this is the festive season and I did have my doubts! My month ends on 31st but I have no plans to buy any more food until Saturday.

I have looked at my annual expenditure and I have spent just over £3500 for the year (that's all food, alcohol, cleaning products and toiletries for me and DH plus occasional visitors). I know it's a lot compared with many of you and I am determined to keep it below this in 2009. My average monthly spend was £294.51 and I managed to be under this in 7 out of 12 months. I am going to aim for £300 per month/ £3600 for the year but hope to do better than this. So, Mrs M can you put me down for £300 for January please. My month will run from 3rd - 31st.

Good luck everyone - have a happy, healthy and wealthy new year and see you all over in the January thread!

Love Moniker

Sylvan

Well, we spent £26.04 yesterday, mostly on milk, fruit and veg, but £9 of it was for completely unnecessary sweet stuff:o. (Well, maybe not completely unnecessary - 8 exams in January and when you have to leave home at 7.30am there's an awfully long gap between breakfast and the start of the exam.)
I wonder how long we could stay away from the Galaxy bar if I label it "for the Apocalypse" and put in at the back of the storecupboard...

I'm declaring £459.40 for December :eek: - a whole £109.40 over budget. That's more than 30%. I'm hoping I can recoup that when we start using the hoard in April.

I've written my menu for the first 3 weeks of January and shopping lists for the first 2. If we only buy the extras we need for the meals on the menu plan we should have spent a grand total of £70 by the middle of the month.:rolleyes:

Have a happy new year everyone. :beer: See you on the January thread. :coffee:

angelatgraceland

BeenieCat wrote: »

I'd love to take part in this but i would imagine the starting point would be to know exactly how much you're spending in the first place.

I have no idea how to keep track, i've tried writing down spends in a notebook, keeping receipts, neither of these worked as i just didn't manage to keep it up!

I also tried exclusively paying for groceries on my card so i could track it that way, but ended up getting cashback which flawed the figures somewhat.

Annoying... i guess i will come back when i've researched it properly and know what my target can then be.

Well we all do it different this calculation and knowing where to start can be a problem. If writing it down doesnt work for you how about you just keep a grocery purse? Just put a fixed amount in it each week(as you seem to fall back on cash)and make it last.
How many of you are there? Lets say 4 people for a starting point and again-say £80 for a starting point. After a month adjust it as needed. Have you any idea at all what you spend? Even guesswork?
There was a point when I didnt know either-I think most of us have been there. It depends really on whether you want to curb your spending or you are happy staying there on the beach with your head in the sand?
The problem with coming back after research is that its a sort of "this year next year sometime never thing!" Just jump in and go for it! Really-you will gain a lot.

Mouseymousey. £130 is what I spend to feed a family of 5 for 2 weeks. It can be done! The recipe index is good-just bulk stuff out and mealplan. No buying expensive junkfood too. Take your sarnies and drink to work etc-these little bits are the downfalls of budgets. I used to spend about £92 pw on food and I had much less and prices were lower and I wasnt a big spender up by most people out there! When it comes to menus-here is one example: I was working the other day and took with me: A tin of value soup, some HM bread and some reduced utterly butterly. So lunch cost abot 30p. If I had popped over to Co-op-it would have been about £3. Thats the difference-those little bits! I just started off by "banning" one thing each week. Firstly I banned bought cakes-then crisps and snack bars-and so forth. These things are now treats. I make cakes or we don't have them-much nicer-much cheaper.

LilacPixie

I tend to lurk and rarley post on these boards. I tend to stick to the DFW boards.

We have a hard hard time ahead and our grocery budget will be £150 per month for 2 adults, 1 toddler, 1 infant (6 months) and 1 cat. Both children use disposable nappies. Infant takes formula and I make her baby food.

Is this possible??

Could anyone give me any pointers or suggestions?? We are currently around £400 a month so drastic savings need to be made :eek: :eek:

I have a slow cooker and a bread maker. Husband has a sweet tooth so alot of our grocery spend seems to be cakes and biscuites. Do you think it would be cheaper if I made those??

Help please.

Olliebeak

Have you done an inventory of what you already have in your food cupboards/freezer? That would be a useful place to start to reduce what you actually need to buy for the coming month.

Dropping from £400 to £150 for shopping is going to be a bit of a shock to your systems - and you could find yourselves eating things that you hadn't considered before.

The keyto reducing your shopping budget will have to be:
- an organised meal-plan and shopping list;
- don't forget to work around 'leftovers' with your meal-plan menus
- maybe changing supermarket shopping habits (Aldi/Lidl/Netto instead of Mr S/Mr T/Mr A);
- more own-label (or budget range) products in the shopping trolley;
- bulk cooking in the SC and freezing some for another meal;
- making your own cakes/biscuits etc.
- Does your OH take sandwiches to work? Or maybe something home-made in a flask?
- less expensive cuts of meat (or greatly reduce amount altogether) - great for SC
- bulking out meat with pulses when making casseroles
- can the cat be persuaded to 'drop a brand' in its food? Or it's kitty-litter?

Good Luck - I'm sure other posters will be around shortly with their ideas

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Hi Lilacpixie,

Well done for taking the plunge! I think Olliebeak has covered most of the main points here. I would suggest getting stocked up on cheaper items such as lentils, pulses and have vegetarian meals a few times a week as the price of meat has sky rocketed lately. Use cheaper cuts of meat that require long slow cooking (ideal this weather) and use your slow cooker.

Could you make a sweetish type of bread for hubby and add dried fruit? He could have it toasted for breakfast. Definitely meal plan lunches and breakfasts too, porrige is a good one, very cheap and probably the most nutritous thing you could start the day on.

Have you tried a different supermarket? I shop around a lot and pick and choose. I find sainsburys basics very good quality and cheaper than places like aldi even.

I am trying to produce zero food wastage and use leftovers in dishes. Have you got any plastic boxes with lids? I put anything leftover (yes, even things off my family's plates) and make soups, put things into muffins and what doesn't get eaten our dog gets it! This website http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ is brilliant for helping with this.

I pick up my groceries on my bike now and as I can only get so much in my panniers I am choosy about what I buy so no fizzy drinks (bulky, expensive and bad for you) but things like dried pulses (easy to carry, cheap good for you)

I wish you the best of luck, let ius know how you get on

dazzle21

Hi, i have a similar problem with my o/h, i have picked up some xmas luxury food reduced over the past week - Waitrose had 75% off tins of roses etc (so about £2 for 1kg)and Asda had tubs of hula hoops for 50p, these will be hidden and the sweet jar filled by me once a week. I'd recommend Lidl nappies size 4 are £5.29 for 50nappies and my little one sleeps well in them. Definetly get red lentils, i was very dubious, but having tried using them in foods it really does stretch the meat. Good luck, everyone on here is really helpful so i'm sure you'll get lots of help. - And meal planning really does help, although i'm still a learner with this!