March 2009 Grocery Challenge

ifonlyitwaseasier

Janetew wrote: »

Can you tell me if you all include things like toothpaste, light bulbs, dishclothes etc in your challenge amount? Try as I might, I can't seem to get my monthly spending much below £270 for two adults, a dog and 2 cats but this does include household stuff and my 14 units of red wine per week!

Sorry if this is not the right place to paste. Can I join in for next month please?

hey jane

everyone does it a little differently. i include everything food, cleaning, toiletries, household for two adults but some others don't include cleaning or might have pet's included or have a separate budget for that.

hth

ioiwe x

jackiegibbo

Declaring at £195.12 for March:D

new2thrift

hello!
I'm new to this forum, I've never tried budgetting before so for my new family...me, OH & 12 week old baby plus 2 hungry dogs...I'd like to set a budget of £315 this will include nappies, food for all the family (baby is on mostly formula and some breast millk), basic essential toiletries & any hot drinks/snack bought by myself or OH whilst at uni or work. I really hope to stick to this budget as I'm really not used to it and I need to do it. any helpful hints on how to do this will be greatly appreciated!

cw18

cw18 wrote: »

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.

Just finished updating my spreadsheet with spends from the last 7 days, and managed to (pleasantly) shock myself in the process......

Even with the self-allowed increase in my budget (and the 'spare' from the end of last month) I was convinced I'd already be over, as I've been stockpiling a few bits and pieces prior to an anticipated increase in prices (due to increase in petrol costs from 1st April) and to take advantage of the clearance sale in our local S/Flds (who close on 15th April)

But far from it -- I'm actually still under the original budget I set myself at the start of the month (just), and I hardly seem to have dented the contents of my freezers and cupboards :T

The only thing I haven't yet included is an order I placed with Approved F00ds today - but I'm going to wait until that arrives and I can confirm I received everything (If it all comes, it's another £19.43)

I'm off out to do a bit more stocking up tomorrow, but as long as I keep it under £20 that still leaves me enough for the AF order and over £7 for bread and milk until the end of the month (will need the latter, but possibly have enough of the former) without being over my budget for year-to-date

cw18

new2thrift wrote: »

hello!
I'm new to this forum, I've never tried budgetting before so for my new family...me, OH & 12 week old baby plus 2 hungry dogs...I'd like to set a budget of £315 this will include nappies, food for all the family (baby is on mostly formula and some breast millk), basic essential toiletries & any hot drinks/snack bought by myself or OH whilst at uni or work. I really hope to stick to this budget as I'm really not used to it and I need to do it. any helpful hints on how to do this will be greatly appreciated!

The best advice I can think of to give is - if you have a freezer, make the most of it

I bulk buy which saves money, and buy most of our meat in "Whoopsie" (end of date clearance) and whack it into the freezer. Bulk cooking things like Chille and Bolognese sauces (and mince ready for cottage pie etc) is also a life-saver - use the portions you need, then freeze the rest in individual portions (or meal sized if you always eat together). It's so much easier and quicker to defrost and reheat (plus cook the rice/pasta etc) than to start from scratch, that this tends to remove the temptation of take-away meals and ready meals -- a real godsend (in my personal opinion) after a couple of sleepless nights with a new and/or teething and/or poorly baby

Sylvan

So there I was, happily pottering along, spending around £40 per week while I used the freezer contents and feeling incredibly virtuous and then DS4 told us he needed clothes. Well Mr T had sent us a slew of coupons, the first of which was £13 off a £90 shop, so we duly rushed off with a large teenager in tow. ..
BIG mistake! Instead of buying lots of storecupboard essentials we ended up with oodles of interesting stuff:rolleyes:
Then last week DS5 informed us he needed a haircut and some clothes, so off we toddled to Mr T again, armed with coupon no 2 - this time only £9 off a £90 spend.
Yup, you've guessed. More treats. Well what else can you do when he does the "Puss-in-boots face" and says "Please Mommy" in a loud, high-pitched voice in the middle of a crowded supermarket?:o
(It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't 6ft 2:rotfl:)

I thought we could go once every 2 weeks, which would still mean we'd be spending around £40 a week, but OH says we should make use of all the coupons. If I do that I'll only have £36 per week left for the last 36 weeks of the year.:eek:

OTOH the storecupboards are pretty full, there IS plenty of meat in the freezers and still loads of potatoes, leeks and cabbages (and even some overwintered spring onions) waiting to be harvested, and the new season's produce will start in a couple of months.

What would you do?

I have sufficient dried fruit, vinegar and sugar for the autumn preserving, bread flour for 6 months, oats and lentils coming out of my ears:rotfl:, noodles, fusilli, tinned tuna, Branston beans and Ragu sauce for the year, probably 2 years worth of jam and chutney (and a whole freezer drawer full of plums), butter for the next 5 weeks, the aforementioned leek and potato glut and probably 2-3 months worth of rice.
Stocks of tinned corn, pineapple and tomatoes will be replenished next week.
What else do I need?

reb

Janetew wrote: »

Can you tell me if you all include things like toothpaste, light bulbs, dishclothes etc in your challenge amount? Try as I might, I can't seem to get my monthly spending much below £270 for two adults, a dog and 2 cats but this does include household stuff and my 14 units of red wine per week!

Sorry if this is not the right place to paste. Can I join in for next month please?

Hi Janetew
You can include what you like.
Some of us do include all cleaning stuff and bathroom things, some of us don't.
You make your own rules and challenges.

Have fun!
Reb

Frugaldom

Hello everyone. I caved in and have placed another order with Appr0ved Food to stockpile a couple of items they had available, so my grocery spends this year, to date, are over average. They are below average for the month of March, though, so that's not too bad considering the amount of stockpiling I have done.

January -£201.31
February - £145.24
March - £71.56 including the latest AF order.

I'll do a quick £10 shop this weekend before declaring my total, that should see me ok for bread, milk, fruit & veg. Roll on the better weather so stuff starts to grow in the garden.

sistercas

Mrs M declaring at over £500 :eek: (dont even ask )

please put me down for £400 for April (calender month)
thanks

I really need to sort myself out and knuckle down. i am going for a £100 a week for food, cleaning , washing, dinner money, milkman , newspapers. for 2 adults 2 teens and a cat

cw18

Been out for todays stock-piling shop.....

Set myself an ideal target of under £20, and came to just under £18 - but that was mostly 'cos I couldn't have physically carried anymore :eek:

Had planned to drive out to Mr T, but wandered down to S'flds after school drop off to see if they had any new clearance reductions (which I'm including in my counts as Whoopsie buys, as I wouldn't be buying them if it weren't for the savings).

Got 2 jars and 4 refill boxes of herbs and spices - some new ones to try, and some I know I'll need later this year.

Also got 4 lots of gravy and stock granules I know I'll need in the next couple of months.

And a 5kg bag of Natco Basmati Rice for £4.12 which I'm chuffed to pieces about :T

So with the box of Risotto rice I got from Mr L at the start of this month and the 6kg of long grain I bought last week (plus some long grain I already had in) I should now have more than enough rice for the rest of this year

I think I've also probably got enough spaghetti (got 1kg wholewheat today, which I'll have as snack lunches - DS doesn't like, but I want to increase my fibre count and it worked out cheaper than the last 'normal' spaghetti I got in Mr T)

Just need to check my fusilli stock levels - but there aren't (yet) any clearance reductions on that shelf.

(we don't like the value rices or pastas, so these are 'no compromise areas' for me )

I also picked up a tin of Ghee - not a huge saving compared to the Mr T price (who are £1 less than S'flds were!), but it was still a saving of over 60p compared to them and means I won't forget it when next over there..... It's not something I've ever bought before, but have a couple of recipes that "call" for it that I've wanted to try - plus the Basmati Rice mentions it in the cooking [strike]destructions[/strike] instructions, and I know the family have complained in the past that my Basmati tastes nothing like what they have when 'out and about' :rolleyes2

And to that I added a 4 pack of O/Spray Cranberry Juice (DS will get through that in a week if I don't split the pack and hide some :eek: ) and a couple of boxes of cereal that I can't find anywhere else but have been refusing to pay the full S'flds price for (they're now over 60% off :T )


Looking at some of the shelves that are 'still well-stocked but no reductions', I can see more spending in the last few days of this month - which means I'll officially have overspent my grocery budget for the first 3 months of the year, but I should see a huge reduction in spending between 16th April (first day with no S'flds) and 12 weeks later when Mr M re-open the rebranded store. I'm not going to stress about even a significant overspend though, as I refuse to pay Co-Op prices and A!di and Lid! don't have half the things I shop for -- so any significant shops in the 12 week period would mean using the car to get to Mr T (which also means spending more on Petrol), hence stocking up now saves more than the reductions on the groceries...