March 2009 Grocery Challenge

mummyyof5

ETA sorry didnt realise I was writing so big

Cornishpixie_2

Hi:wave: I think I now feel brave enough to join the challenge. I've been trying to find a reasonable for us amount per month, as finding price of food going up and up. So could you please put me down for £300 per month.
Many thanks. This will include at £6 a week school dinners and my alchol and some toiletries and cleaning stuff. We are a family of 6. PHEW! that's that done!:D

Cornishpixie_2

Sorry forgot to say month runs from 23rd March till 30th April. I have already spent £157 on monthly shop online, plus some reduced chicken and meat at M&S, and fruit, veg, and salami at Lidl. Whom have put 10p onto their funsize packs of fruit in 2 weeks.Thanks again! :coffee: (she creeps away sheepishly!)

theskintfamily

Ive been following this thread all month and finally feel 'ready' to join. my grocery shopping is biggest problem - i seem to be addicted to whoopsies so continually overspend as I'm constantly trying to sniff out a bargain .

Can you put me down for £160 for April - Starting from 1st April. there's me, DH, 10yr old DS & 18 mth old DD. Will include all toiletries (inc Nappies/wipes) and cleaning products.

thanks everyone for your inspiration

jinky67

mummyyof5 wrote: »

Hi not declaring yet as have a few more days to go but can you add me to the list please for £500 again,dont know if Ill make it as children are all off for 2 weeks and they eat me out of house and home during the holidays:eek:

Will try to fill them up with lots of baking and HM breadrolls,they love these and they are more filling than shop bought bread

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

I forgot about the kids being off:rolleyes::o

I should be going away for one of those weeks though without the little darlings, but maybe I should up my budget:think::think::think:

yeah MrsM can you up mine to £ 250 please?:A

GC81

Hi all, gloomy weather here this morning.

Although my challenge for March doesnt end until sunday I'm feeling positive about meeting my goal.

can I be put down for £200 again in April please

queen_of_string

I have returned to lurking status as I am away too much to make this work properlly. I am still keeping a tally of my spends thougha dn seem to ahve had a good month. I was away for the first few days of the month, but so far have only spent £62 topped up with a £21 spend in Approved food today. I am really pleased with this as I have frozen veg, some fruit and then bread and milk in the freezer so shouldnt need anything before the month end.

It now looks like I will be emigrating before xmas not after, so have been further motivated to use up the contents of my freezers. Binning food would seriouslly upset me, so I'm on a mission. Had loads of nsd's as I am trying to avoid seeing whoopsies which I cant resist, which then refill the freezer. Shopping in the smaller local somerfield seems to help me, less choice = less shopping for me.

I'm away for a week in the kids holidays so will remain lurking and reading for april I think, but will be personally hoping to be under £100 again. Eating a stockpile makes such a difference to my spend :-)

cw18

I've had to do some "re-jigging" of my annual grocery budget due to the fact my elder son is going to more home for more than 4 weeks leave in the year (hoping that increasing it to 12 will cover it, as by the middle of next month I'll already have had to feed him for 6.5 weeks!).

I'm also on the live on £4 challenge (though I'm including everything and doing it for £8k), so actually have an annual grocery budget. I'm now splitting that up into more accurate monthly chunks depending on how many days he's home (and how many school days there are for me to be feeding my GDs as well) rather than just a daily average over the whole year.

So, as things stand, this means the annual (food only) budget that I set as £1448.50 for the £4k challenge now shows as £1530.90

and

my January budget that I originally set to £128 should have been £141.90 - declared at £157.20 but then found some missing receipts that took it to £169.30, so an overspend of £27.40

my February budget that I originally set to £112 should have been £114.90 - declared at £77.64 so a monthly underspend of £37.26, and a total underspend to date of £9.86

my March budget was originally set to £128.50, but had I known DS was coming home so early in the month this should have been my new target of £159.10 plus the £9.86 underspend to date (haven't asked to have it changed on here, as I'm happy to just record the change in my personal spreadsheet) - my spends spreadsheet is still to be updated with receipts from the last week, and I'm not due to declare until end of 31st.

have just calculated that (allowing for the fact DS is going away with friends for 5 days next month, before coming back for 24hrs before returning to Germany) my April budget is £138.10 (plus any relevant adjustment in my personal spreadsheet for an under/overspend once I declare at month end!)

Boodle

As we are doing our first "April" shop this evening, I can declare my March total at: £115.11.

Now April is a 5 week month for us, which would usually give us £125. However, we have Easter Saturday tea and Easter Sunday Dinner to cater for, as well as my massively growing appetite (I only have 2 months to go, but then I have a feeling that feeding the baby might well increase it even more! :eek: ) So we are allowing ourselves a bit extra as we think it is fair. I still want to keep it fairly low tho so I have something to aim for...

So please can my
April Budget be put down at £140, please?

CherryPie

Time to declare for me. Have gone slightly over but def the best month so far. So I spent the sum of £98.18 for March.

Can I be put down for £95 again for April please. Really want to be under budget one day, but I dread to think of how much I spent before joining the GC.

So :beer: to everyone for the help & advice.