February 2006 Grocery Challenge

JAMIEDODGER

im in for this one again this month. 160 for food.

troll35

I'm going to give this a go. We usually spend approx £70 to £80 per week on groceries (food and non food). The family is 2 adults and 1 child but I am a childminder looking after 11 other children at various times of the day (not all at once, heaven forbid!!). I'm generally an OS cook, I like to know what's in my food! We all eat healthily with lots of fruit and veg. So I'm going to start by making the budget £65 per week, £260 for the month.
We put £2 coins into a jar to save for the occasional take away/restaurant meal.

balijay

Ok so heres my first shopping total of the month :-

Iceland £35.00
Farm Shop £11.00 = enough for 2 weeks
Tesco £16.00
Total = £62.00 leaving £138.00 until 24th feb

JCL

Going to Spain in March so need to be tighter in February on the food expenditure.

Managed under £40 last month so I'm going to aim for £50 in February. This covers groceries, toiletries, household.

squeaky

clbanks wrote:

Hi, I am a complete newbie but would like to accept the challenge. Where do I start? We are a family of five and I could do with some tips on getting started. I already try never to buy any processed boxed food, always use fresh veg etc. Get through a lot of bread with pack ups etc so have toyed with the idea of making my own but on the odd occasion I have it's similar to the bread in 'About a Boy' when the Duck was killed!!

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

If you look up the older challenges there's advice scattered throughout them all so you can pick bits that you can easily do to get yourself started.

You can find these via my signature any time you see it or...

..you can use the Monthly Challenges link in the Blue Bar at the top of every page which looks something like this:-

Rachel021967

In the last 2 months we spent about £90 a week. So I will try and budget for £70 a week which is £280 for the month. Does Groceries include meals out as we've 2 birthdays in February and we've already booked the restaurant. If it does include meals out then I'll add another £70 making the total £350 for the month. This is for 2 adults, 2 pre-teens, a toddler and a cat. I'm really impressed by those who can get their grocery bill down to under £200 a month. How do you do it?

ocemeer

Trying desperatley to do this, though DH rolls his eyes everytime i suggest it and he does the majority of the shopping...
Working on £400 a month at the moment (that includes all our petrol and we do about 1000miles a month at the least) for the two of us. BUt this month Im going to try for £350
How do you get your OH to get enthusiastic about it all, we need to save the money as we move house into our lovely bottomless pit of a cottage in a month and unless we get it sorted it will take an awful long time to get it sorted.

any old style tips on living without hot water and only a microwave would be appreciated ( it will only be for a week!!!! and i can shower at work) while we get th hot water/cooker system fitted.

smokey112

Our month is from Jan 19th to Feb 16th ( I base this around OH fortnightly pay)

I have set a budget of £350 for all food, petrol, toiletries, pet food etc.

This is for 2 adults, 2 kids (weekends and school hols), and 3 cats
food includes all meals (packed lunches) and 2 or 3 takeways in the month (used to be lazy moo and it was 2 or three a week :eek: )

Ang
x

squeaky

ocemeer wrote:

any old style tips on living without hot water and only a microwave would be appreciated ( it will only be for a week!!!! and i can shower at work) while we get th hot water/cooker system fitted.

There's a couple of threads that might be of some help...

Cooking without a kitchen

Microwave cooking


Though loading up your freezer if the move is a reasonably short distance may help out too:-

Cooking for the freezer

froggergirl

Trying for £200 this month - started on 24th and runs to 23rd Feb. This is for 2 adults, a 3 yr old and a 1yr old. £200 should include all food and house hold shopping. Really have to tighten belts this month so will def be sticking to it - shouldnt be too bad though - our freezer is full and cupboards are quite well stocked too. Only thing will have to be more careful with is food wastage - never seem to be organised properly so that we're not throwing out stuff past its date but am trying hard