November 2009 Grocery Challenge

Algorfa45

Be gentle this is my 1st time, if I understand right it is saving on general spend food, smellies, cleaning solutions, is that right. i have not got the foggyest fig what I spend in a month but wish to give it a go from 27 Oct - 27 Nov i pledge £100 off I will comfirm at the end of Nov after adding up till reciepts.

clowe1

Hi Can I join in please? My budget for November is £297 from 28 October to 26 November.

Thanks

Clare

angela30

hello everyone. im really looking forword to nov.
i`ve come in on budget last month £140 for a family of 5. and 3 cats and 5 fish lol
i really cant believe that before we were spending £300-£350 per month.
now we are spend far less and eating so much healther.
so can you put me down for £140 again.,
ive got an exter £10 budget for this month as im making the xmas puds ahead of time..:j

XSpender

Please can I amend my nov budget to £288 as I have decided to include DH beer budget and Mr T delivery charges too. Sorry to be a pain:o

I was hoping to avoid the shops until next week but need to get some eggs for baking as making a cake as a gift at the weekend. I really miss runny eggs now I am pregnant and am stuck for what to have for lunches as I had eggs quite often when working from home.

SunnyGirl

Algorfa45 wrote: »

Be gentle this is my 1st time, if I understand right it is saving on general spend food, smellies, cleaning solutions, is that right. i have not got the foggyest fig what I spend in a month but wish to give it a go from 27 Oct - 27 Nov i pledge £100 off I will comfirm at the end of Nov after adding up till reciepts.

Hi & welcome to the Grocery Challenge. The general idea is to help you reach an acceptable level of spending (to you that is) on groceries. Some people, including myself, put a budget down for everything that is bought in the supermarket etc and some only tally up food spends. It's entirely optional.

If you have no idea what you spend each month (I certainly didn't know when I started ) then take a guess and use that figure for your first month. It's not a competition, everyone is very friendly and helpful and we support one another when unexpected things/events happen that throw the carefully stuck to budget out of the window :eek: In my case it's usually my husband or two teenage sons Part of the challenge for me was starting off with a high budget and slowly over the months lowering it to an acceptable level. I'm on a tight budget at the moment as my husband had his hours at work cut and its an instant way to cut back.

Good luck & enjoy yourself. I find that popping on the thread fairly regularly & looking through the recipe index keeps me on track

helen_jelly

Hi everyone
Algofar45 and Clowe1 - welcome and hi, how lovely to have new people joining us, please feel free to ask as many questions as you want, we are all here to help each other out and please look at the great recipes on page 1 posted by Rosieben.
Budgets done up to and including Xspender please shout if I've missed you..

Angela30 - can you please please share how you manage to feed so many on such a small amount, I genuinely [sp?] want to know as I really struggle to feed 2 adults and 2 kiddies on £350 a month and would love some ideas on how to reduce my stupid amount, thank you

Helen x

SmlSave

Hi *wave*

Can I be put down for £200 please? The cupboards are bare

ariarnia

I actually decided this morning (and changed my sig and everything) to do the nov challenge when it started in 4 or so days, and then you went and started it now!

I don't have any real idea how much I spend. I used to spend a good £5/600 a month on me, my OH and the cat/rats. I just got made redundant so this needs to be heavily trimmed and the last few months I've been spending the last pay cheque and stocking the larder.

Just moved in with the MIL and she's giving us money towards food in return for cooking for her, but no control over when or how much so finding it hard to factor that in.

I guesstemate we spend about £300 a month at the mo on me, OH, 2 large dogs, cat, rats and MIL (no particular order:p) so for this month I want to aim to hit that buget of £300 and see where that leaves us (we have a total monthly income of somewhat less than £350 assuming £100ish from the MIL during the month).

I do all the shopping and cooking (appart form when the MIL decides to pick up a load of random stuff from the shop with no notice that doesn't make a meal and doesn't fit with anything else - seriously, £50 worth of shopping the other day that lasted about 2 days and used up a load of stuff I had planned for meals for the next 2 weeks, because she fancied it and was 'being helpful':mad: - but I guess that's enough of that...) I intend to meal plan and shop from tesco.com, but instore (make a shopping list online and then maybe send my OH with strict instructions not to deviate from the list)

The shops in our area are tesco, iceland, farmfoods, wilkinsons, B&M.

scotsaver

Hi everyone - thanks rosieben & helen for getting us up and running again.:A

So much for starting the month off slowly, DD1 has friends over tomorrow for Dinner and sleepover and DD2 has friends over for Halloween Dinner and sleepover Saturday (DD1 will be at her friends for Halloween) so I have had to buy enough food etc for all these extra mouths and also a Pumpkin and sweets for Trick or treaters who may knock the Door. So all in all a spend of over £48!!

Some serious recipe/meal planning will need to take place to try and make up for this unplanned spend.:o

Dinner tonight is a HM Minced pie with carrots and mash, pudding is Delia's Lemon Surprise pudding as Aldi's have a bag of 5 lemons for 49p. Using some more of them tomorrow to make Lemon butterfly cakes.;)

Angela30 - like Helenjelly I too would love some tips on how you manage on your Budget, could you maybe tell us what sort of things you do for Dinners? What do you include in your GC total - I include toiletries, cleaning stuff etc.;)

Anyway, enough waffling - welcome to all the Newbies and good luck to everyone else.:D

freakyogre

I wasn't going to do this this month after going over in October (probably by about £20), but I will try, try and try again!

Please put me down for £60.00 again and i'll see how I get on. I'll start from the 1st, so anything I buy in the next few days won't count, but i'm not planning on buying much anyway.