January 2009 Grocery Challenge

sharronej

reb wrote: »

My sister came and we went to the Harvester for lunch. We did go in time to get the 1/3rd off. It has to come out of January budget though. Arggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Also I lost my little job yesterday due to the credit crunch. The lady needs to economise like us all. The money was handy, hope we'll manage!

Sorry to hear your news, I hope you manage to find something else soon...good luck

sharronej

gillst wrote: »

Would be grateful to hear your views on a small difference of opinion I am having with my DH. We currently have a fully stocked freezer and store cupboards. However I tend to replace what we use to keep the stock up. However, DH reckons I should be using what we have and reduce the stock I have built up. I do rotate stocks and very rarely throw anything away that is out of date. Any thoughts??

I think it's better to be fully stocked - you only need to run out of something which causes you to 'nip' into a supermarket and there's a tenner gone in a moment!

footballmanagerwidow

Hi all, spent £23.83 in Tescos yesterday for extra bits for Sunday dinner (and lager for DH.....grrrrrrrrr) taking my total for this week up to nearly £70. However, managed to pick up my first real whoopsie yesterday in Somerfields - they have reduced their luxury mince pies to 32p for a box of 6. Do you think you could make your own for cheaper than that? I wasnt sure so I stocked up coz DH loves them all year round!

glitterygirl

I have not set myself a official budget but want to work on under £50 a week.
Went to Asda on Friday night & spent £35 including food for the weekend and then decided to go & visit friends & family for the weekend so still have the food!! All we spent over the weekend on food was 69p on some garlic bread to contribute towards dinner at my brothers!!!

So am very happy with that.

Going to go & get some veg today though & make some soup as it is so cold!!!!

huxley

Aiming for a NSD today, the white stuff falling from the sky could help with that!DH wont be working:mad: not gardening weather lol. Chicken stew and dumplings for dinner to use up yesterdays roast carcass, will also act as comfort food for ds2 as driving test cancelled due to weather, the atmosphere indoors today is as warm as it is outside lol. Hope everyone has a good day and if you must go out take care.

rosieben

Allypops wrote: »

Hi everyoone, I am a newbie to the forum and would like to join in with the grocery challenge if it's not too late.

Do you include takeaways and lunches? (although I am planning to cut them right back - realistically I might need to fall back on them on occasion).

Allypops

Hi Ally, welcome to the GC! Its up to you what you include in your gc but I would suggest you include your takeaways and lunches so that you can see the spend reduce!

As long as you're consistent in what you include, you'll get a true picture of your spending.

Catwoman_Kent

Had a good sort out of my freezers this weekend and found that I have enough food in there to last me most of the month. I'll only have to buy fruit and veg and cat food.

Also did a trip to the local Aldi and found their own brand cat food was 20% cheaper than Tesco's. Bought a tin or each flavour and my cats love it. That will be a good saving in the future.

dazzle21

Hi, o/h got a xmas bonus and decided he wanted to treat us to a meal out at the weekend..i made an excuse about ds not sitting through a meal out (he's 6months and just discovered food properly) so then..he wanted a takeaway.. i was cringing as thinking of grocery budget, so compromised and let him go into Tesco to buy a ready made curry.. Anyway, i really resented this "waste", it's not that i don't want him to do something special, it's just i'd rather spend the money to have a special meal on a day out rather than just at the nearest child friendly place, i.e. he wants to go to Scotland next month so we could have a meal out then. am i being silly??? Sorry a bit off topic! On topic.. due to the freezing weather i'm having a no spend day!

yummymummy05

I'm turning over a new leaf for the new year - put me down for £250, that includes all nappies and formula!!! my month runs from today to 1st feb! (4weeks)

scotsaver

Hi all - just logged on to update my signature with my spends for today:- £1.25 for milk in Iceland and then £2.81 in Lidl as needed Celery, Leeks and Bananas. Got yesterday's Happy Chicken Carcass on the boil at the moment to make some soup, that will go down nicely as we're covered in Snow and had to walk through it this morning to get DD2 to School!!

Also planning to make a Chicken and ham pie for Dinner tonight, stripped the chicken off last night after it had cooled down, was really pleased as there was enough for last night Roast, tonights Pie and I will still have a little bit left which I will put into a curry tomorrow night, bulked out with a few veggies, yum.;)


reb - sorry to hear about your job, fingers crossed for something else soon.
dazzle21 - I can sympathise, I always feel now a meal out is a waste of money, the service is usually bad and when the food turns up I always feel I could have cooked it better myself. Hope that doesn't sound big headed but you know what I mean.

Have a good day everyone.:D