January 2009 Grocery Challenge

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Can I be put down for £280 please?

spryte

Hi everyone - I would like to join you if I may. My grocery bill has really been creeping up over the last few months - DH is a big believer in eating well so I need to be able to make healthy, nutritious meals but not spending £600+ per month! :eek: (for 2 adults, 2 children, three dogs, a cat and a hamster).

Anyway, please can you put me down for £400. Month runs from 1st Jan to 1st Feb but have already spent £83.66! You can see I may need some help!

Thanks!

3_cheeky_princesses

Popped into asda for a couple of bits and spent £105.52p :eek: I am not going out for the rest of the month now! Going to barracade myself in

pink_princess

Hi mrs mc can you put me down for £350 please from the 2nd til the 30th thanx
PP

teepoo

Can you put me down for a £100 challenge during the month of January?

This is just for myself (I can't do a £60 challenge because I need the carbs for my cycling/swimming/weights!). It also includes non-edible items.

Cheers,
Pete.

oldMcDonald

Pips_Mum wrote: »

Well you know all that rich food over Christmas plays havoc with your digestion!!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

:eek:
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi Guys!

We are going to go for £25pw as we have so much in that I don;t think we need much at all. Think we should be fine.

I am going to try something different this month and withdraw £100 for 4 weeks and put in a seperate purse and only use that for food etc. Will see how I go. Generally allocate £75pw but this includes diesel too, so any money left from the normal £300 will be put into a tin and saved. DD has agreed to bus home 3 days a week as she gets free travel on London transport, so this should save a little.

RA-My amount includes cleaning stuff etc, but I must admit that twice a year I do a big order from Boots when they have a code for a zillion points (lol) and stock up on toiletries (shampoo/conditioner/shower gel/sanitary/soap/toothpaste/deodrant/cotton wool pads/earbuds) and normally spend after discount £40-£50 but gain about £20 points. I save points for my Clinique products and buy my hair styling products from Ebay. Makros for washing powder and loo rolls, but TBH...the supermarkets are about the same cost now, so havent been in a while.

PP
xx

gillaman

Hi Mrs Mc

Lost the plot a bit over Christmas so not sure what to declare, except that it was over my £100 target (not by too much though). Can you please put me down for £100 again starting 1st January.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE and a Prosperous One with a bit of luck (oh well, a LOT of luck then).:rotfl:

LOUBOB

Happy New year everyone......not sure who suggested it but the online spending diary is really good, if you keep everything in food category it adds it all up and you can see weekly/monthly on whatever reports you choose, as this is my first month I take out a notepad jot everything down that I spend, then transfer online in the evening. It is really easy just inputting amount,then it automatically saves what you type in BRILLANT!! Although bad idea choosing my 1st month to run from the beginning of the week (so not officially Jan & already planned a trip to London to bodyworks, and day out today!!! Not much chance of a NSD!!! Still can only get better from here!!! (www.spendingdiary.com)

JennyBee_2

Just seeing that there are a few new people and thought I'd add my great pearls of wisdom on how I find it easiest to stick to (yeah, right - if they were great pearls of wisdom I wouldn't have any debts would I?!!)

Anyway, I know a lot of people have said that they take out a certain amount of cash and only use that...I have to say I'm not one of them. I have an awful fear of getting to the till and not having enough! (sad isn't it!)

Anyway, I have found the mysupermarket.com website completely invaluable. Although Asda don't actually deliver round here, you can still input your shopping list and then print the list out. It comes up with special offers and automatically updates if any prices change. I also have a standard shopping list on Excel of everything that we might use throughout the month. Then at the start of each month I go through that and take out anything that we have plenty of (although there is always room for error as I discovered 2 jars of chilli sauce in the cupboard already when I put the shopping away!)

I input that into the mysupermarket.com site and basically add to it or take away from it as necessary. Having it in two places sounds really sad, but then I know if the numbers don't match then something has changed price or an offer has been stopped which means I can decide if we really need 2 or if I was only getting it because it was on offer.

My OH has the whole month beforehand to decide if there's something that he can't live without....(a couple of cans of coke to go with his whisky maybe!) but by the time we go shopping with our list, if it's not on the list we obviously don't need it and therefore it doesn't go in the trolley. I realise this means that I'm starting to sound a little obsessive compulsive about it all but it works for us!

The only annoying thing is when the shops don't update the offers that are showing online...

e.g. 1 bag of quorn pieces £1.95 on offer for 2 for £3
Activia Yoghurts £1.58 or 2 for £3

Neither of those were on the shelf and yet they came off at the till. We were going to get 4 bags of the quorn as we use it in stir fry's etc but didn't as the offer wasn't showing.

Also, sadly, the fact that I'm checking the prices off the list when we're going around means that I know when we've been overcharged!!

ps - useless information, but if anyone is looking for a man's black suit at the moment, Asda are doing buy the jacket for £18.60 and get the trousers free....will save you just under £6

sorry...very waffly!