January 2009 Grocery Challenge

Jaycee1972

Morning all

Okay, didn't do so well this month with the grocery budget and blew it by more than doubling it! Although to be honest £100 was always optimistic.

My total for January is £237.23

My new budget for February is £150.00 (starting this weekend)

My Feb month is 5 weeks and I am doing 2 wks at £25, 1 wk at £50 and then 2 more weeks at £25. I am hoping by thinking about it weekly, I will be able to manage better and also knowing I have a bigger shop mid month (which will be a Tesco delivery) will make me think 'do I need to buy it this week' when tempted to overspend by offers!

On a brighter note, I have been doing the £5 per day challenge and when I do my totalling up should come in at over £100 and my fuel budget for the month was £100 and I spent £80 so that will all help to balance out my overspending on groceries!

I have quite a bit in my cupboards/freezer and will do a meal plan and a shopping list before I go shopping this week to help me keep on target. I have to go to the supermarket each week to shop for my mum as otherwise I might just go to the Tesco express to top up on bits and it is much less tempting. I find it hard not to buy when going round the supermarket! Much better to stay away. When I online shop, I tend to fill my trolley including offers, see how much it is and then go through thinking 'do I really need that', and delete stuff until it gets to a more managable level. I am trying!

By the way, there is mostly just me, my son who is 2 years and 3 months and our 2 cats. A couple of times per week my hubby eats with us (we are separated). I am trying to take all food to work rather than buying it (and I work part time, the first half of the week). That saves loads as did cutting down the alcohol in January (I only bought 2 small beers).

Have a good day
Jane

yummymummy05

OK I'd started off feb with £160 for Groceries, and set a seperate budget of £60 for DD so I can keep a track on how much i spend on her milk and nappies - however this isn't working as it's too complicated - I have only spent £20 of dd's £60 and have her sorted for the month, but have only £30 left of GC money!!:mad:

I think I'm gonna add them together so i can take advantage of the other £40 spare!!

Mrs M - If it's not cheating too much can i change my GC budget for Feb to £220 - it's still less than before GC.

Angelraesunshine

oh dear well getting back on my OS wagon i did not do as good as i had hoped not got a final figure but i know i have gone way over at a guess i think my total spend is at around £400 omg but i have got a lot that was bulk bought from the cash and carry.

just had my 1st delivery for Feb from mr T last night got to work out how much it is cos they mucked it up and i got a few non food items to take off.

orchid-96

I realised this morning that as I had sent back a pot of herbs (they didn't have the mrT version but sent the schwartz (double the price) so I rejected them so that has meant £1.08 back into my budget so now looking ok for this month :rotfl: Not really, what I need to do is make sure I am logging in here and keeping myself motivated...I have roast chicken with spuds and green beans today planned (for us all), then sweet n sour chick n noodles for the kids tomorrow with some of the leftovers (the rest of the leftovers will be frozen for a chicken pie next week) we will have a casserole from the freezer with frozen chips or frozen roast pots (as the last of my spuds will be gone tonight) right so that takes me to Thursday, so that can be chilli from the freezer (for us all) and then Friday, kids can have fishfingers/waffles/beans and we can have either the same or I have pizzas in the freezer...am out on Fri eve to an Abba tribute with some friends so will have a couple of drinks (driving) but that is not included in the budget

Puds can be choc mousses/yogs/bananas/twinks hobnobs (must make those today) and have bread/tuna/cheese/crisps/yogs/ for lunches and plenty of cereals/bread/eggs for breakfasts...

Then Sat morning off early to a family wedding in the Lakes, back Sunday and have budgeted for a takeaway - phew!!

Sorry to have put all that, it was more for me to think about this week and how I can NOT go over budget (as long as I don't nip out for a bottle of wine!) The difficult thing is that I got my tax credits yesterday so I probably should have started my Feb budget from then and then maybe do it 4 weekly...will think about that for another time...

For those in the final days of Jan...keep up the good work

inamess200

Ok I am declaring January at £332.:T :T Which is my lowest spend ever. I am going for £250 in Feb out of necessity - hopefully with asda deliveries being used I can keep out of the shops and only buy what meals i plan for - its all the odd £5 here and there that seem to cripple me each month especially the shop over the road that has a minimum spend of £5 on a debit card and the cash machine never seems to work.

Lucycat

Very envious of everyone who's declaring for Jan already - especially those who are so much under - well done everyone! :T

We've still got a few days to go and are in the thick of the dreaded 'birthday week' (nah, love it really, but it's traditionally the most expensive week of the year - both kids' & OH's birthday in the space of four days! :eek:) and if I can just hang on to the purse strings it's looking like we might just squeak in under for the first time! Still have bread & milk to buy, but everything else is looking good & the freezer's still well-stocked - will be keeping fingers crossed & purse locked for the next four days! :rotfl:

jackie_w

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all well. Im having a lazy day today, so, im going to read through all the posts on this GC to get some inspiration.

So far out of my budget of £250, ive spent £213.85. Although I know i will be under budget, I really should have come no where near that because my freezers are full, and out of that i think ive bought about 3 dinners:mad: . Im really quite annoyed with myself.

So, will be reading through all the posts for inspiration for the coming month.

ive absolutely no idea what i spend my money on. My oldest is 11, and he is eating me out of house and home just now. The other night, he had sausage casserole with veggies and mash for dinner, then he had quarter tub of ice cream, then he had 2 apples, 2 oranges and a banana, then he had a yogurt, then he had some fritters, all in the space of 3 hours. He would have had more if I let him, so he said I was sending him to bed hungry :rolleyes: .

what does everyone else do for snacks for families. Im really running out of ideas. All this home cooking has stopped my husband and myself snacking (well mostly DH, im still snacking but not as much), but for my kids, they just always want to eat more especially oldest.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated please.

Jackie xx

miss_keep_counting

As I had a NS Weekend and was fed in style by my friend, I decided to buy some herbs and spices for next month to help me making my food more interesting. They were ASDAs own and I'm guessing just as nice as the brands twice the price!

Where is the best places to buy herbs and spices? I mean dried, but I'm also debating growing some of my own this year to dry out.

I also bought some long life soya milk, kiwis and bananas (5 big ones for 49p which is much better then the prepackaged ones!) and a very large box of weetabix which should last me the rest of this month and another week or so next month. All came to £6.92.

All I need now is to make my frozen meals last me the rest of the month, and I may go butchers at the end of the week and get a load of nice meat for next month

-

Also!

On the Saturday I spent it with a friend and she had chocolate. I haven't bought sweet food for weeks, I've stopped craving it, and only had the odd nibble here and there when its offered and I found I could barely eat it. I had a few mini chocolate bars and that was that, where as before I'd have scoffed the lot like it was a major food group!

Anyone else noticed this change in their taste buds? I've also noticed how salty other foods taste, I nicked a few of my friends chips last week and was overwhelmed by them heh

orchid-96

miss_keep_counting - having just sat down with a rice cake (healthy) but spread with nutella! (not so healthy) I think I may still be a bit of a chocoholic I blame my hormones though!

I do know what you mean though, I can't bring myself to buy any ready meals now...was going to get some chinese ones last weekend, but we made our own instead and they were much tastier/fresher....

I am thinking of taking alcohol out of my grocery budget from feb, I have decided to create another budget for 'social stuff' which I will include that in instead...it will still keep me in check as this budget will cover going out/takeaways/wine/beer and isn't a huge amount.....it just seems a bit silly for me to include say wine and cider that we might have at home, but if we go out for a meal/pub that isn't included, in other words, I can get round adding drink to my gc money but going out to the pub (way more espensive as well) iyswim....

I am still going to go for the £200 for feb for groceries though as I am only just making it this month and I didn't get much alcohol in that anyway...

yummymummy05 good idea to include your dd's stuf in the budget, that way it makes extra sense to save on her stuff too....good luck for Feb

sharronej

jackie_w wrote: »

Hi everyone,

ive absolutely no idea what i spend my money on. My oldest is 11, and he is eating me out of house and home just now. The other night, he had sausage casserole with veggies and mash for dinner, then he had quarter tub of ice cream, then he had 2 apples, 2 oranges and a banana, then he had a yogurt, then he had some fritters, all in the space of 3 hours. He would have had more if I let him, so he said I was sending him to bed hungry :rolleyes: .



Hi Jackie,
I'm afraid you may need to get a bit meaner (craftier) I have an eighteen year old man mountain (literally over 6ft 4) and he could eat for England, I also have a sixteen yr old dd and a 12 yr old son so I know where you're coming from.

1 although I do buy goodies I hide them so that I'm in control :rotfl: I did read on here about a member hiding food in the boot of her car so I know I'm not the only one who does this.
2 I have tried to revert back to the WW times where if you were hungry inbetween meals you got bread and butter (hm so very filling)
3 A very cheap way of filling him up more is to serve a starter of soup and if the budget will allow then maybe even a pudding.
4 Tell him to drink a pint of water/cordial apparantly 90% of the time when we think we are hungry we are actually THIRSTY!
5 A question...is he hungry or bored?

I hope there is something you can take from the post - it's devastating to spend a fortune only for it to disappear on the same day.

I have just had a MrT delivery and am in the process of hiding food, I've also decided to put the dates on the longlife milk that I buy for two reasons really, firstly to stop people opening cartons willy nilly because they are too lazy to look in the fridge and secondly as a gentle reminder that maybe they are drinking too much :rotfl:

I think I've made myself sound really mean but I menu plan three meals a day and snacks including fruit juice, pieces of fruit and goodies and there is really no need for them to be acting piggy:rolleyes: