November 2009 Grocery Challenge

becky170

Can I put my name down for £100? This will be my first attempt at the GC Hoping that it will motivate me to make pack lunches instead of buying sandwiches at work and spending a fourtune.... I might also try meal planning, although I tend to decide to make something and then when it comes round to actually cooking it I just don't fancy it. Anyway it just me and the £100 includes all cleaning and bathroom stuff from today (31st Oct) until the 30th November. Got no idea what I actually currently spend, but think it's around the £120 mark.

Changingme

Can you put me down for£260 please this month came in just under last month.Thanks.:j

Frugaldom

Hello, I'm all ready for November challenge and hope to keep within a budget of less than £10 per week by continuing with my store cupboard / freezer challenge. I succeeded in October, so no reason and still have loads in store plus an ever increasing stockpile of frozen left over meals! To round off October, lunch will be lasagne, dinner will be turkey pie!

Aril

As it's the start of a new year for me tomorrow [Druid] what better way than to start it by rejoining the challenge for November:D Please put me down for £200 which I hope will give me a good chance of coming in under budget as I ease myself back in gently:D
Aril

BigMummaF

Morning Folks..I've a spend to add on for October & unfortunately there are still too many hours left in today so I'll leave the scary bit till tomorrow
We are a household of 4 adults with the pets having home-cooked/vegetarian stuff we would eat ourselves, so I guess effectively I should budget for 5 adults. WOW :shocked: !Never considered it that way before..that would explain a fair bit of the over-spend then :doh: Talk about :idea:...need to put another shilling in the meter or get the hamster to run round his wheel quicker :rotfl:

It's the Meal Plan chat that has grabbed my interest today. I've made many attempts at doing a week at a time but found that hard, so had a re-think. Last month I made a note of the days when I would need a 'quick' evening meal or a dinner the offspring could whack in the oven, then filled in the spaces around that. It was so obvious on the first draft that I'd managed to get all chicken one week, beef another & pasta another But still; a bit of re-jigging & not faithfully following the list SIZE=1]but having it there in my purse for those times when you wander the aisles looking for inspiration[/SIZE & the month whizzed by. I'm definitely repeating the process for November, cuz the flexibility of having that much choice on the "menu" works really well for us. As long as there's something to eat, we're not bothered which day we have it & I can take advantage of absolute bargains or varying number of diners as needed.

candygirl

I'm having a NSD day today as am full to the gunnels with tins etc:D

Rebekah24

I've spent 6.60 towards November, I got loads of 30p veggies, made up 7 tuppawares full of soup yesterday and still got some veggies left, going to do another batch this morning and get that put away.

Should be able to go a while on what I have in store cupboard/freezer. Earmarked £5 for next week, mainly to go get any marked down bits at the end of the day and value loo roll

Looking forward to the month ahead!:o

ellemm

Well only spent £30.42 yesterday in Aldi & Morrisons, will pop out later to get steak for OH at M&S so should stay within target of £40 per week.

Got the house to myself today and planning on a lot of batch cooking - carrot and banana cakes, pork sausage casserole and cottage pies.

Bought loads of pears yesterday reduced in Morrisons so will preserve them in syrup as the last ones I did were delicious.

All I need to do now is stop ambling around these threads, get out of my jammies and get moving

rosieben

Welcome to the GC MC_Emily and becky170

MC-Emily, I include all food, laundry and cleaning items, some people include all their supermarket spends, others have separate budgets for birthdays, alcohol, pets etc. Work it whichever way suits you best.

welcome back shell :j and Aril :j and Happy New Year Aril

nykmedia, you are such an inspiration :T

BigMummaF meal plans really do help don't they? I don't stick to my meal plans rigidly but I like the fact that something is written down for each day, saves me having to think when I'm tired - which seems to be most of the time these days

good luck all

ellemm wrote: »

... All I need to do now is stop ambling around these threads, get out of my jammies and get moving

snap

helen_jelly

Morning everyone

Budgets done, thank you.

Aril - welcome back and Happy New Year
Mc-Emily - you can include anything that you consider to be part of your Grocery shop - I put all food, cleaning and smellies in mine, I have separate totals for wine etc
Becky170 - welcome and hi
Shell2001 - welcome back

Please feel free to ask any questions and also check out the recipes on page 1 that the lovely Rosieben posts which she is constantly updating thanks to lovely people who post their recipes.

Have a nice day everyone
Helen x