January 2010 Grocery Challenge

KITTY_2-2

A NSD yesterday, mainly due to snow. We have about 6 inches outside the door. Made hot chocolate last night though so need to go out for milk today.

Have to go anyway as picking DS2 up from respite. He's been snowed in since Monday and I can now get close so should get him home today. He has an operation tomorrow so I hope we can get to the children's hospital. Have to be there for 07.30 so fingers crossed we don't have too much more snow.

Hope your DH is feeling better, Helen.

Take care all and stay safe in the snow, Kitty x

SunnyGirl

Good morning from the snowy depths of Manchester :rotfl: I hope that everyone is ok and if you can please check on any elderly neighbours. It makes such a difference to them and is a real help.

I've been shopping this morning and it came to £58.98 which I'm pleased about. We ended up with a vets bill of £122 last night as our Labrador, Susie, wouldn't stop being sick & retching. We were very worried that she may have eaten something that she shouldn't have & it had got stuck :eek: It turned out to be kennel cough that she must have picked up while we've been out walking :mad: The bill means that I am trying to be super skinny with the budget now as it's a massive chunk out of our money.

She is insured but it won't cover the cost of the emergency consultation with the vet which was £82.25 of the bill :eek::mad::eek:

Oh well onwards & upwards and off to put away the shopping. How obsessed am I that I like to post my totals before I unpack :rotfl:

dizzydolly

well ! if theres anything good to be said about this rotten snow ,its that ive not been able to get out and spend apart from 2 pints milk , although ive had to fork out on bus fares to get my son to school because couldnt get the car out ....happy days !!!!

GemmaBuckle

Hello! I’ve been MIA for a few months, but only from a posting Point of View – I’ve been working hard on my moneysaving and have paid off nearly £1000 of my debts since September. Woohoo!
Anyway, Grocery Challenge. I’m going with my usual £150 again, which covers all food and cleaning type stuff for me and OH. I’m sure I can cut this down but I need to look REALLY closely at what I’m doing. OH is a carpenter and often works long hours doing physical work, so he eats a lot. Unfortunately he’s also quite picky so I have to be quite sneaky! He will eat peas and carrots, but all other veg must be hidden in things like cottage pie or soup. I was a veggie for nearly 10 years so might go back to some of my yummy veggie recipes like carrot and lentil dhal for me. I figure I can batch cook these cheaper veggie things for me and some more traditional meals for OH and defrost one of each a couple of times a week. Should help my waistline too as I have a sedentary office job and don’t need to fill up to the extent OH does!
Anyway, goal for this month is to rein in spending on PETS. 10-month-old labrador (AKA Puppy-Dog) is rather spoilt (seriously – you should have seen the amount of christmas presents he had!) and I need to stop myself buying him unneccesary toys. Also have 4 rabbits and an aviary to tend to. Presents for the birds usually involve apple branches pilfered from friends so no cost there. Rabbits, again not too bad but do occasionally buy them new toys too. Usually because Puppy-dog has managed to steal (and subsequently destroy) toys intended for the rabbits. Previously if I bought pet things with my grocercy shop it got recorded under the grocery spend, but from now on I want to separate it out and give pets their own budget, which will mean that my GC figure should drop in February.
I’ve rambled a bit, haven’t I. Hmm. Sorry about that…
G

*Jellie*

First shop of the month was just a few essentials to top up the storecupboards
£16.28

thriftlady_2

I'm anticipating next Monday's shop and wondering if there will still be snow and ice about. I hate driving in this weather so I've placed an order with Ocado for next Monday. I've doubled up on a few things in case of more bad weather. I'm low on things like washing powder and soap so I've ordered extras. I've also put plenty of flour on my order for bread. I've added extra milk so that I can have some in the freezer.

It's messed up my budget a bit, but hopefully the following week can be really frugal.

Of course if the weather is really bad they may not be able to deliver anyway. That'll be a pain, but we have a Tesco Express round the corner and a big Tesco 20 mins walk away -not keen on lugging boxes of washing powder around though.

emmie26

I am also trying to cut down the shopping spend, I have found that fruit and veg is much cheaper at aldi, although perhaps won't keep as long so if there is one near to you then it might be worth nipping in a couple of times a week - at the moment pears are 49p for a pack of 6 and kiwi are 39p for a pack of 6, I think at tesco it is 4 for £1.
Veg are similarly cheap, I am trying to just nip in for veg and then go to tesco for all of my usual things, money saving is a little bit more effort but I am desperately trying to spend £200 a month on shopping I have 2 small children the eldest is 4 and has just started to take packed lunches saving me £40 a month on dinner money :T I'll keep an eye on your thread to see if any tips come up which will help me keep on track;)

daisy1973

((((hugs)))) to helen jelly.hope all goes ok for you tomorrow kitty.
Well done gemma buckle on paying off a good chuck of your depts.:)
I will add my spend for this week later,not home right now to work it all out.
Take care all you people out in the snow today.x

Trinny

Hello Threebabies

I am quite new to the site - i used to find the long threads really intimidating.

For saving money - i made a storecupboard and freezer inventory - with a list of everything i had in each. I pinned the inventories on the inside of the larder and on the outside of the freezer. It helped as i was then able to make meals out of what i have rather than - have a freezer full of food and no idea what to make.

I did join Grocery Challenge - where you set yourself a budget for the month and try to keep your spend within those limits. I realise you dont want to do a challenge - it did help me to keep an eye on costs. I started by keeping all the reciepts for the groceries i bought for a whole month. That gave me an idea what i was spending per month - and as you can see from my sig - the monthly target is going down - albeit very slowly.

Sticking to a budget and using what i have in store has helped the most. We also switched to Aldi/Lidl for basics.

HTH

Trin

Happuch

Hi guys, I have no idea if I'm writing this in the right place, sadly I'm hopeless on a computer and this is the first forum I've ever had the courage to try and join. (had to ask my son how to change colour of money and font size!)
I read a lot of you taking this challenge last year and picked up some helpful tips. Due to low income we have been on a tight budget for 2 years now, but my younger son now has to have a milk free diet meaning I need to watch what we spend even more.
I aim to spend £40 a week this month, but hope it will be less than that. We are a family of 5, 2 adults 3 children with the youngest still in nappies at night. Sorry I've warbled on for so long and I just hope this goes to the right place.