February 2006 Grocery Challenge

nicola1982_2

Ok here are a few tips from me. I'm a student and living with my partner, lots of student debts of course so my contributions are limited.

Student cookbooks are a godsend. Everything in them is cheap and easy to make. I have two that I live by as well as a notebook full of recipes I collect from online and magazines and even other people's cookbooks.

My other tip is to check out your local butcher's 'meat for a week' offer. We have a good freezer so we buy a family pack meat for a week for £25 and it will usually last us over a month!

I tend to avoid the big supermarkets bar the occasional value product and stick to the market and local stores as well as Lidl and Aldi. Pound shops and Wilkos are great for cleaning and household products. Poundland even does pregnancy tests should you ever need one!!!!!!

rchddap1

My delivery earlier on in the week came to just over £83. So I now have just £16 to last the rest of the month. However, after investigating the state of the freezer I don't think I could squeeze another chicken fillet or pork chop in there. With any luck this stash should last me until mid/late April when I can do another Tesco Online shop.

The results of all this are that in the meantime I will only need to buy the basics which will hopefully cut down my shopping bill well below my targetted £50 per fortnight in the intervening period.

In order to attempt to 'empty' the freezer OH decided that he would like to make one of his home made pizzas tonight. Cue me taking out one small bag of toppings.

As far as my Tesco clubcard points target for the summer goes. By the time the next statement (May / June?) arrives I will have enough to pay for the tickets for 2 of our planned big trips with the girls (we have them for a week only). So I have now picked out a couple of new targets.

wishingonastar_3

i set a budget for £50 a week, spent quite a bit the first week, but having been doing the use up challenge, i've only bought ffruit and milk for rest of the month, upto now my total is just £61.21 and all i need this week is milk & fruit again, lol. amazing how much stuff i'm using up i never realised i had. :-)

tiptoes

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO STICK TO £50 PER WK FOR 2 ADULTS AND 2 CHILDREN DID REALLY WELL LAST WEEK. THOUGH BIG MISTAKE TJHIS WEEK WAS TO LET OH COME SHOPPING WITH ME HAVE JUST ADDED UP WHAT SPENT THIS WK AND IT £110 :eek:. CAN EVEN SAY WE COULD REDUCE BUGET THIS WEEK AS OUR FREEZE BROKE AND ALL THE FROZEN STUFF DEFROSTED SO NOT GOT ANYTHING ON STANDBY.

OH WELL WILL TRY GET IT BACK UNDER CONTROL FOR NEXT MONTH.

nicola1982_2

I won't let my OH come shopping. He hates supermarkets so refuses to search beyond the dreaded middle shelves. Hence his shopping bills are ridiculous, he spent more when living alone that I do on the two of us!

mossy

I would like to join the challenge, i had made a note on my signature but didn't realise that there was an actual support thread

My budget runs from 20/2 - 19/1 (DH pay day) so I will begin in this thread and move over with the rest of you into march when that starts.

My shopping budget is £200 and has been for quite a while but I never keep to it, I meal plan and write a shopping list in order of where the food aisles are in the store (my friends think thats sad but I think its organised lol :think: ) and add up what its likely to come to so that I can adjust it accordingly my main downfall is the 'I'll just pop in and get some more of this' and before you know it the budget has been blown.

So budget is £200 but my target is £160, if I make £160 or near then way hay :dance: but if I just manage to stick to £200 I'll be pleased. Budget is for two adults (one of which doesn't like paste or rice much) and a 2 year old, it includes everything apart from nappies and cat biscuits (seperate budget for those). Going to do an online shop today to earn 1000 extra points but other than that I will be going to tescos each week.

Very excited about joining this, spare money will be going towards paying off gas and electricity which I owe money on and then towards holiday savings. Please feel free to keep me accountable if I overspend

frosty

My food budget is going well I have spent £146.00 so far ,my budget for feb is £200.00

squeaky

I've blown mine to bits in my last two shops.

But then - I have an excuse

I bought a chic shopper and so have been able to take advantage of special offers that I otherwise would not have been able to carry home. In just two shops the savings have paid for the c.s. and over the next month or two my overall bill is going to be lower.

So - it's swings and roundabouts. I've always aimed for a "generally close to budget over a period of time sort of thing" and I don't have to watch every single penny any more because I tightened the purse strings really hard for a few months to build up a small cushion that would allow me to go over budget when I spot a good offer.

Being able to take advantage of offers REALLY helps.

Mrsbojangles_2

Ohhhh lordie, as you can see from my signature, its not going well for me this month. The kids are off school this week too, which means they are eating me out of house and home! This month, rather than use my card, I decided to take the cash out and just use that I put it in a jar and stupidly I have been dipping into it for things other than shopping, like kids book fair at school, prescriptions, a takeaway, now I haven't a clue how much I have spent on these items, but its definately made a huge dent in my budget (cries)

moggins

We had that problem with taking out cash initially too, to solve it I kept the months cash in a separate purse in my bag and took out £30 contingency money to keep in a pot on the shelf. If anyone wanted to take anything out they had to come and ask me first so I knew how quickly it was going down.

It certainly saved me from DH continually taking a fiver out of my budget for parking