April Grocery Challenge 2006

letsgobilliejoe

i've tripped across this thread (hits you like a train, telling you how much you overspend!) and I've decided to budget myself and my fiancee.

firstly, let me thank you all for your fabulous tips!

right, here's our story:
we're 19 year old students living together in her parents house, ready to go to uni in London in September. currently, all of our wages (£70 each!) go on food, luxuries and travel, as we have no outgoings in the way of rent/bills (apart from internet). so, as we need money for uni, we need to budget sooner rather than later. plus, it will give us practise for being poor students down in the 'big smoke'.

i've started by making a list of the things we are likely to buy each and every month, and I have been on tesco.com getting prices for the quantities we are likely to use.

we're vegans, so no food expenditure in the shape of meat/dairy, so our main standout ones are nuts/seeds (apart from the obligatory chocolate - I swear she's addicted!). does anyone know where we could get reasonably priced nuts, seeds and dried fruit apart from the usual tesco, holland and Barratt and sainsbury's?

I've also realised how much cheaper it is to buy dried pulses compared to tinned - up to 4x cheaper! even so, if anyone knows anywhere that's cheaper than tesco for dried pulses that'd be great.

so, I've decided to join the club, with my month starting next thursday (payday!), and i'm budgeting us to £35 a week, about half of one of our weekly wage. good luck to me! and thanks for reading.

LGBJ X

johanne

just been to tesco for shop.... meant to only get a few "bits" but had a horrible week/day and decided it was cheaper to buy pizza+cola in there than the takeaway place like id decided! So splashed out on a very non OS shop bought pizza! :rotfl: Also picked up some reduced raspberries as a "treat" for myself.. BUT i had a £3 clubcard coupon so used that making the total spend...£4.37!!

Making this months amount so far £21.32

Leaving £23.68 of my £45 in the kitty to last me 2 weeks! Can u tell im trying to clear my storecupboard? hehe

diamondcatz

IMHO you can't beat the asian shop prices for bags of pulses,rice and spices

Bunnie1982

Managed 4 weeks of shopping for under £20 at Asda, this week it came to £17.11 including a lot of meat and fresh fruit and vegetables

stefbate

This is the first time im going to try this shopping budget lark. I used to go to tesco/morrisons for my weekly shop, and would easily spend in excess of £100 per week. Then i realised it was rediculous, and that i couldnt keep spending like that on ffod, so started shopping at Aldi, about a month ago.
My bill usually comes to on average £70. then i have to go to savers for my cleaning stuff, and then theres stuff during the week like milk , bread etc.
So this week when i go to aldi, im going to limit what i buy, as i ALWAYS buy to much, ill buy a full weeks worth of milk and bread (freeze the bread), for some reason i have it in my head that milk only lasts a day! DOH!!! im going to try and plan my weeks meals, and use what i already habe in the cupboards.
So here is my target for this week -commencing tuesday 18th april. £65.

BTW there is me, DP, step ds 14 (eats for 10 people!!!) hes such a pig! and ds 2. a rabbit, and 2 fish.
Luckily for me, the animals dont cost hardly anything.

wish me luck.

carlih1

Hi

After some useful help and advice from your goodselves on os, i am going to do the challenge for the rest of the month.

I intend to use things up that i have in the fridge, freezer, cupboards and see what i am making. I have set myself a budget to only spend £50.00 to the end of the month as i did a 'big' shop last week.

I get my organic veg delivered on a tues so will have that fresh every week anyway.

THanks for all your help again

Carli xxx

kazzzyliz

A big thankyou to you all for this thread i have been reading all your posts with great interest,I have been budgeting for a couple of months now but this month i know i have gone over my £350 month for groceries for 2 adults and 3 hungry teenagers who don't have economise in their vocabulary! My month starts on the 20th so will try harder for May although my daughter is 16 on the 1st so that will be extra.
Joined the £2 savers - this month £8 ,saving for hols.

lynzpower

Trying again with the challenge this month, and havent been very DFW as we've put the budget up slightly to 100 pm for me & very hungry OH. £20 just wasnt covering it for us, and will try to get it down again in future, but I think going from 75pw to 20pw was a massive shock, and a bit unmaneageable. This should be more comfortable I think- I HOPE :money:

MinnieSpender

Not the greatest start in the first two weeks, but have managed to only spend about a fiver this week (so far!).

I've started a spreadsheet to keep track of what I spend on groceries each week and it's a great way of keeping track.

I'll keep going and review things at the end of the month.

Skintmama

I am in for this, better late than never. Need to add up my receipts, hope I am not over budget already it being the holidays, visitors etc.