February 2006 Grocery Challenge

brummiebabe

Well, had my Tesco delivery this evening (whilst I was out so DH had to put it ALL away :j ) and, with voucher code and BOGOFs came to £63.00 exactly. Also popped to Asda today to get some things for DS2's party on Saturday (all budgeted for!!) and spent £4.44 on some Dry-Nites for DS1 (they had motorbikes on them!!)

Due to the 'use up' challenge I had little left in my freezer, so had to buy meals for most of the week - I don't think £63 is too bad (including some non-food bits and pieces!)
This month's total therefore £113.39, still got £156.61 to last me until the end of Feb!!!!

DopeyDora_2

Hi,

I'm a newbie to these boards, but am loving them!

We started our shopping challenge on 23rd Jan. For 2 adults we have so far spent £131.71, which is made up of 2 big ASDA shops on 23rd Jan 6th Feb & milk/bread in between. The main shopping should last until around 20th Feb, so will have to do one more shop to tide us to end of month. I had set a target of £200 so hopefully we should still be able to hit that. This includes main meals, packed lunches for the pair of us, toiletries & cleaning. Cook most meals from scratch, though do buy pies & quiches ready made which we could make easily I'm sure.

squeaky

DopeyDora wrote:

though do buy pies & quiches ready made which we could make easily I'm sure.

Hiya

Yes, pies and quiches... you can use the Be-ro website for bullet proof recipes for the pies, quiches, and pastry. They also have the entire website produced as a handy little book if you find it helpful - and lots of us do!

http://www.be-ro.co.uk/index.asp


You can find the recipes by clicking on "recipe inspiration", and details of the book by clicking on "about us".

HTH

rchddap1

Still haven't spent any of my budget for Feb yet. However, the cupboards are very bare and am starting to struggle for meals. I just have to make it to Feb 14th for my planned tesco online shop ... and everything will be normal again.

Wednesday: HM Pizza
Thursday: Minestrone soup with HM bread (if I remember to set the BM off)
Saturday: We're usually flying around town so will have something on the go
Sunday: I have some lamb mince, so may attempt spag bol as a surprise for OH (not really to my taste)
Friday: Pork chops with something (rice or pasta, as have no pots left)
Monday: Casserole

Quick question about HM sausage rolls. When making them from the frozen blocks of puff pastry (500g) how many can you make? I'm thinking about the ones that are about 4 inches long. Trying to work out whether it is cheaper to make my own, or to buy Tesco's premade ones (12 for around £2.00)

SueRob_2

Hi all
I failed by miles to stick to my January challenge as my stepson has hollow legs & ate everything in site, he once ate 6 pieces of battered fish & 3 chicken portions in one sitting! My shopping bill soared to £82 per week for 3 of us & even though he left us on Saturday, I still spent £82, partly cos we'd run out of all the things I buy every 3 months, like toilet roll & washing powder etc & partly cos I have a new lodger moving in on 21st & want to have decent meals to give her.

nicki_2

I've decided to add another £30 to my budget for this month since it is a long month between my paydays. :wall: I have however got enough pasta to feed the entire population of Italy for a year :rotfl: Asda keep putting huge bags (usually £2 ish) out in the reduced to clear for 50p. I now have 3 of these bags sitting ontop of the kitchen cupboards and all I need until the 27th is fruit, veg, milk, meat for the sandwiches, cheese and possibly cordial since we have gone through 6 litres in a week! :eek: Plus I forgot about Valentines day when I was making my meal plan so the extra money will cover the cost of a few treats

[Deleted User]

I am trying to stabilise my monthly food budget. I already get an organic delivery every week, veg, fruit, milk and eggs. I have just ordered a meat box every two weeks. That will take me up to £167 max for a 5 week month. I`m going to increase my monthly budget from £180 to £210

The last couple of months have been a bit messy re the budget but I will have to get real and put £43 into my cash box. I am quite pleased with that

tallulah_beaulah

Think I've got into a bit of a jumble with my monthly budget, forgot to take five week months into account!

Running my month from 26th - 26th (dh's payday), which means five weeks shopping for February. Monthly budget £221, spend so far £126.32, which leaves me £94.68, and it's only the 13th Feb today!

Also made my week really complicated, buying meat on Saturday, then supermarket on monday and other supermarket on tuesday - found i can get best pick of offers this way, but also most confusing for keeping track.

Bit of streamlining needed i think. Oh well, only my first month at grocery challege, so i can only improve!

rchddap1

OH bought the odds and ends this weekend, so if I bend the rules a little I can say that it didn't come out of 'my' grocery budget...nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

But, should be getting a rather large shop delivered a la Tesco tomorrow which will wipe out most of my Feb shopping budget. However, once that is done we should be pretty much organised for the next month or so and will only need to get the basics consumeables in. So I will once again run the freezer down and plan for another 'large' shop probably in April.

NonStopMum_2

Week 2 spend was 98.13 which was horrendous as I thought it was going to be a good week. The big shop was fine but it was all the top ups that really mount up. Adding verything up is a real eye opener. I always thought that if the weekly shop came in under £75 then that was fine but now I see that is only the start. Am going to try really hard next week.