March 2009 Grocery Challenge

AlwaysHappy

My total for the month is £200.72 which I'm really pleased with - only 72p over budget. Am annoyed with myself though as this includes over £20 spent today on an Abel and Cole delivery - I got tempted with an offer if you spent £20 you got a "free" fruit and veg box. I thought I'd ordered for the week that had all the things i liked in, but today I've got beetroot, and jerusalem artichokes which I have no idea what to do with - I'm sure everything will be really tasty but I could have easily done without it. Oh well, onwards and upwards. Not sure when the next thread will start but I would like to go for £200 for next month please, my month runs from the 20th. Good luck to everyone. I don't post much but I do read the thread every day so thanks everyone for the inspiration and ideas!!!

mooomin

Hello!

I would like to join please if there is space for one more. I have a budget of £200 per month for me, t'other half and our two cats (Who seem to cost more than me and t'other half combined...)

This month I have been about £40 under budget, but would like to do better next month. Payday is on Monday so my month runs from the 23rd March to the 22nd April and I will update my sig (If there's room!!) once payday is upon me.

f_f

kezlou

Hi everyone just came on to update sig.

Well spent more money on food, but should last me while. In ldol they are selling 7.5kg of potatoes for £1.99 so i grabbed a bag as my local farm delivery still hasn't turned up grrr. Ldol now do fairtrade coffee (really nice) and fairtrade tea and bars of chocolate for half the price of the supermarkets.
Oh they are also selling swedes, cauliflower and onions half price as well, think they all 49p.

My breadmaker was a toal washout so been having to buy bread, so now only have 30 to last me till end of the month, i could go over but don't want to, i will beat this bread obsession lol

Hope everyone is okay x

S_Wales_Saver

Had some NSDs, and a few small spends. F&v, milk, bread and spices. Still on course for a good result. Will need to buy some snacks at the end of the month for our forthcoming trip to Disneyland Paris :j :j :j .

Big welcome to all newcomers, some names I recognise from other threads. LOL moneysaving spreads to take over your whole life :rotfl: :rotfl:

JayneC

Hi again,

Spent another £5.46 in Tesco today - only went in for milk n bread but there was quite a few whoopsies in the bread dept so got some hot x buns reduced to 50p per pack (got 2) Syrup sponge pudding reduced to 62p each (got 2) 4 pk panini 62p (just 1 pk - thought I might do them for tea at some point with lots of salad, not sure what to put in them tho maybe bacon and cheese:rolleyes: )and a wholemeal loaf 36p plus the freshnlo milk is now only 87p and crumpets were on special offer at 50p so was well pleased with that! Still have £50 left and a week to go so will be so disappointed if I don't manage it.

Made a meat and potato pie for tea tonight which was suprisingly easy. Only used half pound of mince and that fed 4 of us and enough left over for one greedy portion or 2 small! Used my other half pound of mince yesterday to make pasta bolognaise for 3 and cottage pie for one (OH doesn't do bolognaise). Got reduced pizza in freezer for kids tomorrow and OH will prob have egg n chips or baked spud n cheese (He doesn't do pizza either:rolleyes: ). I'm at a meeting so will get fed there - free food, yay:j ! May be able to snaffle some to bring home if there's leftovers - I have no shame...:rotfl: I got a load of quiche last week leftover from a meeting at work.!
Anyway think I'm off to bed now,
See ya soon,

Jayne x

yippeelou

Hi eeryone,
Hope I'm doing this right. I'm really pleased to have found this board - i've been keeping totals of all our grocery shopping for march, we're trying to stick to a budget of £200 (me, OH and our 3 month old). So far it's not looking too bad - spent about £120, but we will see at the end of the month. I'll keep coming back here for some encouragement and tips!

Louise )

keys_2

Hiya, Ive been getting lots of encouragement off this site the last few weeks and wanted to ask if you could add me please for £180.00 a month ? This is for myself and my 3yr old daughter and my new 3pet rats i got last week. I have no real idea how much i spend on grocery shopping but i do know it is definately too much now!! I am not a lover of supermarket shopping but yet love a bargain , and find myself shopping around in different stores on a friday !! payday}and a few times a week when i run low on food. But after reading this topic i am very motivated to possibly do yet another big shop online maybe twice this month and hope to cut down on all the other biscuits / chocolate / treats i find myself buying when out shopping in other stores. I am loving the recipe ideas too ive been reading and have gone and bought some discounted meats today to hopefully make some dishes and freeze for later days in the week. Can i just ask thow i have a girly night in with friends once or twice a month and tend to buy alcohol in for this purpose, but always seem to have consumed a couple of bottle sof wine etc, before the evening arrives , then have to rush out and buy more before they arrive..hehe !! Do you include alcohol in your grocery budget? and would it be okay if i did ? as i think this maybe the reason why io spend so much on food shopping !! And does anyone have any good ideas for me as there is only me and little one to feed so i end up throwing food away alot of the time after cooking :eek:? Anyhow look forward very much to be included in this challenge:o

CherryPie

keys wrote: »

Can i just ask thow i have a girly night in with friends once or twice a month and tend to buy alcohol in for this purpose, but always seem to have consumed a couple of bottle sof wine etc, before the evening arrives , then have to rush out and buy more before they arrive..hehe !! Do you include alcohol in your grocery budget? and would it be okay if i did ? as i think this maybe the reason why io spend so much on food shopping !! And does anyone have any good ideas for me as there is only me and little one to feed so i end up throwing food away alot of the time after cooking :eek:? Anyhow look forward very much to be included in this challenge:o

Welcome keys. It's really up to you what you include in your budget. Some people include alcohol, others don't. Are you including cleaning & health & beauty stuff too? The best way I found was to keep all my receipts for a month, decide what I'm including, and take it from there. Some people on here have sooper dooper spreadsheets to list everything on, and others (like me) just put their receipts somewhere safe, and do it that way. There's loads of recipes & ideas at the start of the thread to browse over. And I'm sure you'll get a few ideas from everyone else on here.

I'm just glad there's another night owl on here tonight, cos I can't sleep and have to be up for work in a few short hours!!!:eek:

And don't buy the wine until the girly nite!! :beer: (I'm exactly the same)

kunekune

I don't put the alcohol in this budget, but I do include cleaning things. There's no particular logic to it, except that the alcohol is where we sometimes splash out and I don't want to be inundated with posts saying (a) but you could get a decent bottle for £4, why are you spending £10, (b) you drink too much or (c) don't go on about it, cos we can't afford that kind of money. Also, as a teacher, if my students found my posts, I wouldn't mind them knowing my grocery budget or meal plans, but it's my business what I do with booze!!!! If you ever see an extra line in the sig, say the fruit challenge, maybe I've decided to set up a secret alchohol budget target.

That said, I've not been around on this thread this month, as I've been too busy, but the month has gone quite well. Partly due to DD giving up meat, so we didn't need to buy any. We did have to stock up on other things (I got myself some yummy Japanese ingredients too) but I seem to be on budget, maybe a little under with one shop to go. I have done my online shop this morning, and it was £80, but I'll not put it in my sig until Saturday cos I usually change it at about 11pm on Friday night. Love those late deadlines Waitrose have.

I got some new vege cookbooks, but hey, they're another budget!

Baileys_Babe

Hi Keys,

Its up to you what you include in your Grocery budget. We include ALL food, including going out for meals, takeaways, sweets, chocolate, cleaning stuff, toiletries, alcohol. Their is nothing to stop you having an over all budget and sub dividing it to keep track of certain key areas.