March 2009 Grocery Challenge

LittleGemSaver

cw18 wrote: »

join in whenever you like

I love reading your whoopsie real value to whoppsie price in your signature well done!:j

cw18

LittleGemSaver wrote: »

I love reading your whoopsie real value to whoppsie price in your signature well done!:j

Thanks

I find it a useful figure to have, as it gives a more realistic figure of what my budget would need to be if I couldn't get the clearance stuff

I actually buy some stuff in Whoopsie I'd never otherwise dream of buying (such as chew bars and sandwich fillers), and a lot where I'd buy versions that have a full price around the Whoopsie cost of the better quality ones (joints, kievs, cold meats and garlic baguettes) - so if I lost access to clearance items and budgeted my historical 'shelf price' figures, then I should actually be underspending every month :T

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Well I visited my friend today and we went to her MrA's. She doesn't drive so tends to save her shopping till someone can take her. Anyway, managed to get Nescafe gold blend 200g for £3 - so bought 2, and 12 Andrex white loo rolls for £4. I also bought a couple of whoopsies, some cereal and cereal bars, croissants, JW tuna (3 cans for £2) and a toffee cheesecake for £1. Has anyone every tried their fresh meals for two - chicken chow mein/chicken and mush risotto etc.? They had them on whoopsie for £1.82 but didn't look enough for two and DH eats loads so would probably end up having to buy double the amount!!

I also went into her M&S and got some of the 37p pasta - egg free spaghetti - and some giant pretzels/thai rice crackers on bogof.

Haven't yet been invoiced by my milkman so that will now be on April's budget. That is good because I'm now very close, with two days to go.

Welcome all newcomers - this is my first official month and I'm loving it. It's very addictive, but being a Virgo I love the control I now have over what we are buying in and how much I am using - control freak or what????

Coxy

March GC - £375/£355.54

fletch3163

Well, I don't think my thanks button is working which is weird

Small spend today (DS popped in to M&S again). Just over a tenner for bread, milk, tins of soup, tins of beans, his lunch:mad:

Blew the budget totally today though, washing machine kicked the bucket. Engineer came out with a £35 call out fee, only to tell us it's now deceased. So, husband in true him fashion went to Comet and bought another. It's in situ as we speak. Go figure!

2 more shopping expeditions for me before my month ends. Am getting awfully impatient to see how I did:o . I remember when I put the £450 target I thought I'd be way below this because I had a load of food in the freezer. I don't think I'll be that far off it which is worrying because for next month (yes I'm going to keep going with this challenge, it's fab) I'll have less in the freezer.

Allegra

keys wrote: »

Do you include alcohol in your grocery budget? and would it be okay if i did ?

My GC budget includes all the essentials, so damn right it includes alcohol ! Also toiletries, cleaning stuff, cat food, and yep, booze too. Eating and drinking out and a rare takeaway we class as a luxury though and therefore do not include in this budget.

I do, however, tend to keep at least a rough tally of what proportion of the budget each month went on what, so if things ever got desperately tough I'd know what to cut out and in which order.

Anyway - 5 days remaining til payday, and £15.07 left in the kitty. I really don't want to jinx it, but I do think that we will comfortably make it this month, meaning that I should be able to switch to an annual total at the end of this month.

mummyyof5

Hi everyone ,looks like you are all doing well,

Tonight we had HM cauliflower cheese with HM breadcakes Mmmmm.

Can anyone send me a link to a Savoury mince cobbler recipe please, Im sure my family would love this.

Up to now have spent £320.00 this month but need to go shopping on Saturday or Sunday so will update again then ,think its going to be tight.

tessie_bear

good evening....hope all are well....still lovely weather here...long may it last...we had roast chicken for tea...it was an m and s oakham....it was nice...im going to use the other half in a chicken and mushroom pie tomorrow...or just c and mushroom in white sauce...with no pastry if i cant be bothered....

i got a loads of veg reduced in asda on tuesday...leeks potatoes carrots celeriac herbs french bean broccoli....all 15p (each) soooooo i have made 2 vats veg soup in the fridge for lunches....eating loads of veg with teas...cant beat a bargain

on the subject of non bargain....tesco has put up tin value kidney beans to 24p:eek: 10p in one go...bit of a cheek i thought what happened to going up by a penny.....thats inflation for u

tata
tess

keys_2

CherryPie wrote: »

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)

Hello Cherrypie thankyou for your response , and all others of you very nice people. I think im going to do some spreadsheets soon , {when i find the spare time as its been 15yrs since i did one lol } . I always keep recipts so i can see where my money goe sbut they just never seem to get sorted and just burst out of my purse when i open it ..so the spreadsheet idea is probaably best for me !!
I am going to act like ive already joined this group yesterday as i got a fair bit on woopsies in the local shop yesterday so stocked up a bit already so ive done a signature , hope you dont mind!?!
Again thankyou for all your great ideas ,and help but ive decided to include alcohol and everything else but not beauty products as i think i have set my target to low to include them but still going to include loo roll and cleaning products etc.
So today ive been out and bought some silver trays from the pound shop ready for storing my cooked meals in the freezer i have planned to do next week . Also i bought bread , milk and eggs from the corner shop which i have only just rembered..think that may be one of my downfalls , so im really looking forward to seeing where i REALLY spend my money on food. , so ive added that aswell.

As for the wine whit woo , ive just opened one bottle i found in a cupboard i didnt know was there so just having the one glass ...hehe so ive already saved money !!!
My big shop i plan to do sometime next week and go to the local town tommorrow for things to tide me over with this site in mind , so no bags of sweets for my daughter tommorrow , unless she is really good ..haha..so il lsee you all on here very soon hopefully!!

TheBees

Hi everyone - not been on here for ages as last week was extremely busy.

Dad had his new knee done ( and is recovering very well ), DD was in a show every night (we were very proud of her and she coped well with the late nights and school the next day) and then DH had an interview on Friday and got himself a new job!!! :j Closer to home, a little more money and less uncertainty about redundancies than with the previous company...

So with all that going on there was little time for logging on but we did manage to keep on track with the challenge and stuck to the menu plan.

We have the ingredients for all our main meals to the end of the month but will be over budget due to the amount of milk and fruit we are going through. DS and DD are really enjoying fruit smoothies every morning for breakfast - nice and healthy but using loads of bananas and frozen berries!

Anyway good luck everyone. We still have several days until the end of our month on 31st.:eek:

Penny-Pincher!!

I've gone wayyyyy over my budget this month, but I do have an excuse:D

Ocado KEPT sending me voucher codes for £10 off a £40 spend, so I stocked up on rice, pasta, dried milk, juice, tinned soups, beans, pulses, toms, peas, tinned fruit, jars, jams, condiments, cereal, UHT, washing powder, Flash spray, toilet cleaner,comfort, cheddar, brie, fresh fruit/veg, squash, coffee, tea, flour, bread x 4, tuna yellowfin x 8 mini ones, sugar, butter, chickens x 8, pork joints x 5, sausages 90% meat x 6 packets, lamb joint x 2, lamb mince x 5, steak box x 6 pieces (excellent portion sizes and individually wrapped for the fridge/freezer), frozen peas/sweetcorn,corn on cob/chips/fruit/fish, gammon, bacon x 4....loads more and used 3 vouchers...so £100 there alone, but do have enough cupboard stuff for a few months and a ton of meat/poultry/fish:j :j :j ....used the vouchers and got alot of their deals plus free delivery and saved in total £78:beer:

Have cancelled the milkman this week as I bought 8 litres of organic Rachels milk for 80p each and have frozen most of them. May cancel Mondays too as it is a joke atm...not getting my milk till after 3pm:eek: :eek: :eek: and I need the milk through the day and only get 2 pints Mon/Fri. Have been told to increase my full fat milk to 1 pint a day on top of what Im having and I really cant afford this through the milkman each week at 58p a pint. The organic milk is lovely tasting though, so if they are on special in a couple of weeks, I may buy a load of them again and just freeze them.

I am going to try the value tea bags next time at 29p.

Will get back on top in April

Hugs to all.

PP
xx