January 2010 Grocery Challenge

tessasmum

Sorry - I have to admit that I lost the plot - AGAIN - and I gave up close to the end......I will try again but not set the bar quite so low. Please put me down for £300 for February. Thanks.

jackieglasgow

I am declaring £152.05/£150 for this month, which is great as this included the sweeties for the boys' trip to the movies yesterday, and wouldn't normally be part of my budget. I'm changing it up a bit for Feb, and am heading over there now! See you all there.

Jackie XX

wantabetterlife

I am declaring £235.45/£250 for January :j:j, this is the first time i have kept a record of grocery spends and i actually thought £250 for the month was being really generous and expected to come way under budget, just goes to show we dont realised how much we are spending with all our wee trips to the local shop.

mrssnowy_2

Well,I've done it-wooh wooh!

£16.26 under,so-

MrsM declaring at £163.74 for Jan.£180 for Feb please.
Thanks to all who kept us going xx

See you all next month

mrss

TheBees

TheBees are declaring at £14 over budget... but we have 3 months supply of loo rolls!!!

mollythewestie

I wish to declare: £354 out of a £400 budget for january

So £46 under budget for my first month of the grocery challenge, at least I now know where I am wasting money and I am working at getting better in these areas.

cuffey

Declaring for January at £162.10 out of £250 budget. Obviously VERY pleased with this!

Strangely though, I printed my spreadsheet out, folded all the receipts for the month in it, and then put it in my back pocket. Went upstairs, did some sorting out, and . . . . . I've never seen it again!!!???

candygirl

Declaring at £88/90 for Jan, and would like a £90 target for Feb please:beer:

Helen1965

I'm declaring £332.81 for January. Overspent my £250 budget by more than £80, so a bit disappointed, but the first month was just a guess. Off to join Feb thread with a more realistic £300 budget this time.

Winged_one

This week, we spent:
€2 bread midweek
€12.50 M&S dine in offer Fri
€91 Mr S on Sat (main shop)
€29 M&S dine in offer and other bits sat
€30 Lidl yesterday - few forgotten bits

Overall I declare at €343 for Jan - not bad and I have a good few things in freezer now for Feb. And I did have to get a lot of stores in Jan.

And I decided last night that I am going to aim for an overall spend of €6,000 for the year (average €500 a month), but I'll track that through my sig this year rather than as a specific target in the monthly challenge.

I had to spend €100 in Mr S to use my last €10 voucher - and I was concerned that all of the BOGOF offers in the trolley meant that, even though the scanner (I superscan) was reading €120, I was going to be under. So I added a bottle of wine that we like that isn't too expensive (€8.39) and it was just as well - there was €1.39 off that which I didn't expect, and I actually spent €101.70 in total! Overall, I got exactly €30 off, between saver offers, bogofs (like 6 free range eggs, or 1lb beef mince - so sensible ones), and my €10 voucher.

We got 2 M&S dine in specials too. 1 for Friday night (saved us from takeaway), and 1 for Sunday dinner (largest whole chick I could find, with stuffing as the other sides didn't appeal, and an apple pie we'll have tonight with guests). And 2 quiche and sausage rolls on the 3 for €7 offer - so sausage rolls for lunch a couple of days, quiche for dinner Thurs and a spare quiche in freezer. And some cheeses for lunches too. The chick was big enough to give us Sunday dinner, with sambos today, dinner tomorrow and possibly another day's sambos too (and I put the bones in the crockpot last night for stock).

This week's dinners:
Sat - Chilli con carne with HM guacamole
Sun - Roast chick with stuffing, HM roasties, HG roast parsnips, HG steamed brussels sprouts
Mon - Shepherd's pie to serve 4 adults and 2 kids (with a spare in freezer and 2 single portions in fridge for my gran)
Tues - leftover chick with a jar of curry sauce
Wed - Beef stew in crockpot with HG beans and last of HG leeks from freezer
Thurs - Quiche and salad
Fri - whatever nice food we find on our romantic weekend away!!


Ooops, just realised I had forgotten to add Fri's M&S into overall spend. So redeclaring at €343 for the month. Still, that's a saving of €157 to put towards my annual spend for another month.