September 2009 Grocery Challenge

PurpleSkies

Hello to all.

Not sure if I'll be remembered in here as it's been a long time since I last did the grocery challenge (possibly as far back as March!)

The main reason for this being that my laptop broke so I couldn't access my budget files or my internet banking (didn't want to do it on public computers!) so it was quite difficult to keep track of my spending.

Well I've finally caved and bought a new laptop so I've got my finances and budget back up to date and having seen how much I spent when I wasn't keeping track of it I figured it was about time I got back in here!

Hope everyone is doing well.

p.s. forgot to add my budget! £45 for the month please

soupfan

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Im reading a book on getting out of debt at the moment (very interesting) and this says the kind people at the supermarket deliberately move stuff around because us savvy customers remember/know where everything is. Thus by moving stuff around, we go to aisle 10 for the beans and they are gone!

I have been known to walk out of supermarkets when they do this, and yes, I do make sure the manager knows!

I do the freezers first, that way I have to be ultra quick with the rest of the shopping and it stops me treating it as a "browse" and makes me focus on what's on my list instead.

CRANKY40

I've done my first weekly shop of September. Ds doesn't start school until next Monday, so I had to take him with me. Fortunately, as he spent a great deal of last night keeping me awake for reasons best known to himself, he was tired. I knew he'd be asleep by the time we reached Asda :T This meant that I had to put him in the buggy, so I was limited to what I could carry in a basket and I had to stick to my list :T:T:T. I bought some veg to go with the already cooked and frozen food that I have, some smartprice biscuits (the maryland cookies seem to have shot back up in price all of a sudden), some eggs, some milk and a few other bits. £10.06, so fairly pleased. It won't be that low every week, but it's a start.

Oh, and if anyone knows why a small child who was lovingly reared on home made organic purees etc should have such a love of Asda's 9p a packet chicken noodles then please feel free to share :rotfl:It's handy though, and he eats that much other stuff he's unlikely to suffer from malnutrition!

Eltee12

Hi:hello:

Would like to join in please

Guesstimate budget for September grocerys/cleaning = £450

Total spend so far £4.67

joshiesmum

Both my kids love the cheapy noodles too - can be quite handy at the end of the month when money is tight.

Popped to shops today for some lunch stuff as we had a last minute addition who's a tad fussy - bit annoying as i didn't really need to do a shop till next week but never mind only £3.09 spent. Could have been a lot worse though if i hadn't signed up to this as i wouldn't have thought twice about chucking a few extras in my basket!!!!

yellowmonkey

jinky67 wrote: »

well I had to go to MrT's for cereal:rolleyes:

spent £45.42:eek::eek:

My god....Must have been a big box

ym

rosieben

Flat_Eric wrote: »

Im reading a book on getting out of debt at the moment (very interesting) and this says the kind people at the supermarket deliberately move stuff around because us savvy customers remember/know where everything is. ...

the supermarkets deliberately trick us. ...

There's a huge amount of money spent on marketing and the sad thing is that so often it works; I resent the way they use psychology - especially those tv ads meant to frighten us into buying the product; that's one reason why I love OS, we get more savvy in finding way to beat them!

yellowmonkey wrote: »

My god....Must have been a big box

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

welcome to all the GC newbies :wave: good luck!

ktpie

I had exactly the same problem in Tesco the other day trying to work out whether loose apples were better value than a bag. The bag or price label didn't have a weight or price per kg, just the number of apples which wasn't very helpful. Next time I will weigh a bag.
Also I've moaned about it before but I'm fed up of buying supermarket fruit which goes straight from rock hard to mouldy, it must be ripe for all of 2 seconds.

I had a little disaster today, made the famous hobnob recipe, tried one and it was horrible, idiot here had forgotten the sugar! Have sprinkled some demerara on and they are slightly better. I'm blaming mushy pregnancy brain, it gets blamed for a lot these days! Luckily 14 month old DS seems to like the sugar free hobnobs!

Not spent anything today, I'm great at NSD but then I make up for it by spending loads when I do go shopping.

millienjacksmummy

Well I am making a start today - you know how it is, one of those days spent sorting stuff out and looking at the finances and wondering why we havent got more savings etc.
So have got myself organised and been doing a weekly food plan and shop
So......will set my own budget of £400 and see how I do....here goes!!

MJsmum

Bowski_1011

I've spent £4.03 going to morrisons for dinner today with my sister and a friend and then spent £6.00 on meat and veg for a roast for tea for 5 as I'm having it at my sisters, she's cooking though