January 2009 Grocery Challenge

turkolina

Hello everyone.

Can you add me onto this challenge too. There is me DH and DD who is in nappies and on formula at the mo. For the month hoping to use £200.. This includes toiletries and cleaning equipment. I'm so excited about doing this.. Until now having worked full time as well as hubby we never really thought about what we spent on and didn't care that we spent on cards either.. After having tried for a baby for 10 years my little miracle came in July.. It was a shock to say the least the biggest one being curbing our spending habits..

I had a terrible habit of buying all buy one get one free shampoos even when i have enough to wash a million heads.. Thankfully all this will last me nearly a year so hope to stick to these budgets.

My husband is sure im having an affair with someone on line and its just me glued to this site.. ha ha ha..

Happy non spending everyone.. Philsmum brilliant ideas.. Think i have loads of empty books in my book shelf.. Will pull one out and note everything..

Tx

taka

Can you put me down for £110 for Jan please? Thank-you! This is just for me including food, cleaning stuff and basic toiletries. This is a drop of £20 per month so I hope I can do it... Santa brought me a breadmaker so I'm hoping between this and my recently bought slowcooker my food/eating will be more OS in 2009!

Not quite finished on December's budget yet - I'll wait till the 1st Jan to call that as I want to hit Mr S an hour or 2 before closing on Hogmanay to see if there are any bargains to be had!

Good luck everyone!

recovering_spendaholic

I have just read through the thread so far and have a few newbie questions - please bear with me if the answers seem obvious - I am easily confused!

does spending on GC include any or all of the following?:

toiletries
cleaning materials
medicines (paracetamol, tampax etc)
payment for window cleaner or wheeliebin man
petrol
school trip money etc

I am really sick of Christmas food even though I still have half a boneless turkey crown and a huge piece of gammon left to get through, and a full Christmas cake, stollen and pudding. The pudding is unopened so will keep but the Christmas cake and stollen are cut into, but I honestly can't face any more of them (don't even like the stollen) - Can I wrap them in clingfilm and freeze? I am planning to make some lentil soup with some of the gammon, but I don't fancy turkey curry as we've already had it, and when I served up cold turkey and bubble and squeak today it hardly got eaten and ended up in the dog's bowl! I think it is maybe a bit late to freeze the turkey now as it was cooked last Thursday. We've had flu so food hasn't been eaten in it's normal quantities. I also have a load of tangerines which are starting to look a bit dry so I might squeeze them for fresh juice. I am determined not to go to the supermarket until next week as I have bread in the freezer and loads of Cravendale milk. I also spent £12.99 on that Christmas Pudding cheesecake from M&S and it was really horrible. Only about a third got eaten and I am debating taking it back to the store because it was so horrible. I have never taken anything back just because we didn't like it but it was soooo expensive and of the six of us on Christmas Day no-one thought it was even remotely nice. It had the texture of cottage cheese rather then smooth cream cheese and it was a really odd taste. Would you return it and what would you say?

greent

Hello to all newbies (& 'oldies' :rotfl: )

Mrs M - can you please put me down for £400 for January. This is to last until 31st . Thanks!!

Nice to see angelnikki again - welcome back to the challenge

Am half doing the festive food store cupboard challenge to try and use up contents of one freezer (bit dodgy - so the meat in there may be lost:( ) so would have set it lower - but we have no spare loo rolls left (an unheard of occurence!), no kitchen roll, are low on nappies and shampoo and the guinea pigs need hay & dry food - so am not going to set myself a low target which I will feel bad about if I fail. Four of us have had a bad cold bug so have not eaten as much as planned over Xmas hols - but have been getting through juice at an alarming rate, along with things like cereals. I'm also thinking about a small order with Suma - which will eat into the budget.

Am planning on some soups for Jan (healthy, uses stuff up & cheap!) and to restart bread making (gone by wayside with morning sickness and then bugs _pale_ ) and cake making (too tired!) Also meal planning has gone out of the window where we've been unwell - so will do that again from when kids are back at school. I only do a week at a time - but it works ok for us

Hubby can't believe the progress we've made in the last 7 months - we were spending £750 ish/ month back in May :eek: ! And we've not stopped things like takeaways and still buy organic/ free range meat and eggs.

Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy and money saving 2009!! _party_


greent
x

dsljfreeman

This is my year to totally overhaul our lives with regards to spending, but as this is our first month and I don't want to leave ourselves too short I'll put my budget at £380 this is to include all food, cleaning products, toiletries, nappies, wipes and school dinners, this is for 2 adults and 2 children.

My month will run from 2nd Jan to 5th Feb which is 5 weeks.

mommyof4

Hi. Looking forward to 1st Jan so much, am psyched up for this challenge! how sad is that. Bought another freezer yesterday so am well prepared now:rotfl: Hoping I haven't set my amount too low (£140) for a first shot. It's for my, DH and 6yr old DS and 2yr old DS.

Turkolina - many congrats on your little one, what a precious gift! Your post made me smile.

As I am new to this, can anyone explain the challenges I see at the bottom of posts ie sealed pot etc (I know it sounds obvious, but is there a forum for it etc?) thanks :rotfl:
Good luck everyone and Happy New Year :T :j :j

Pip-squeak_3

Please put me down for £100 in January. Spent £149.30 in December
Happy new year and good bargain shopping to you all

Barneysmom

Hi everyone, Happy New Year!

MrsM please can you put me down for my £170 this month.

My month will start this Saturday as I won't be shopping till then hopefully.
I know I've got to try really hard now, after the shambles I made of my last quarter's totals. I don't think I overspent but I did !!!! it up!

fedupnow

My goodness Happy New Year everybody!!!!

I too got totally lost over December....... well OK, I didn't get lost but at some point I am somewhat ashamed to confess I must have thought 'o sod it - it's Christmas'.

However, new year, new me and all that jazz.

I have done my maths, and in 2008 I overspent on my food budget by a total of £408.30. Just think what else I could have done with £408.30. It's a holiday! So.... must do better is the mantra of the day.

January £184.45

oldMcDonald

Sorry, I posted this on the Dec challenge thread but I think I should have asked here now that everyone has moved on to this one, so copy and pasting the below:

Is there still a 'Weekly Menu Plan' thread running now? I've had a look but haven't seen it (but I am pretty useless at forum searches!) I used find it really helpful to see what others were cooking for the week.

If it is still running can someone please point me in the right direction?:)