July '06 Grocery Challenge

Mrs_A.

hows everyone going with the challenge then?
i'm not doing too badly as its my first attempt i budgeted for £300.
two adults, 3 teenage sons 18,17,16 so really i suppose thats 5 adults one fussy old cat both indoor and outdoor fish.
not including take aways as they are such a rarity these days. including cleaning and petfood, not alcohol or petrol
regards
Mrs a

fizzel81

ouch i have gone somewhat wrong with my budget was doing well but lost all will this week and yesterday today it went somewhat mad.
70.00 in tesco
15.45 in lidl
7.20 market (1st time i have ever bought from a market quite impressed)
where i have overspent big time i have only 66.46 till last untill 25th july :eek: ouch!!!(and thats for everything and anything we will need, as for dh he spends whatever he has within 1st week of being paid)

skint untill dh gets paid thank god cupboards/freezer is full:o

Shortie

Right this in my first Month of the Grocery challenge. My month runs 19th - 18th of the month.

We put aside each month £200 for 2 adults, a 3 year old and 2 cats. We usually go over this so I'd like to firstly get back in control and spend no more than the £200 and ideally shave off £60 so we're only spending £140 a month :eek:

So I've checked out my cupboards, fridge and freezer and boy do I have so much more than I thought I had, it's a real eye opener!

This month, as I've realised I have so much in I'd like to try and spend only £50, but I expect it'll be more like £100... Let see what I can do eh?

newleafer

This is my first month trying the shopping challenge!!!:rolleyes:

I have been through my cupboards and freezer, there is so much food in there!:j

I have set it at £150 (for 2 of us) and most of you will say thats high for 2 and your right, but my OH works away from home 4/5 nights a week staying at his nan's so every shop has to planned for cheap meals for one! Twice!! He also works shifts that start at all hours of the day so some days he wont have brekky, but others he will have 2 big hot meals in the day, so its a real pain, especially now by looking at th OS board we can see so many ways to cut money, if he was in a job near home.:(

We also have friends staying as we are all going to the same wedding! for 1 weekend.

So hopefully when hubby gets a new job nearer home my slow cooker will come into its own!

Anyway I hope all goes well for other challegers this month, I shall report back as we go along. I started today by doing a shop for the month, with only fresh stuff to buy later in the month, and I did it terco delivery so I wouldn't be tempted!!!!!:T

I will be a shopping challenge angel:A

Shortie

Let OH know my plans for the £50 max spend last night and he thought we were spending nothing as we had so muvh in the cupboards! We need to buy cat food, nappies (DS still wears them for bed :rolleyes: ) milk and bread so there's no way it'll be a spend free month. Porr guy gets the brunt of all my 'ideas to try out' and all bar one, he's gone along with

Couldn't believe how easy that was to persuade him we'll spend a quater of the usual shop! :T :T :T

Bring it on! First shop tonight...

jayarr_2

spent £30 so far this week, including some reduced chicken thighs, and a couple of treats
but then............slow cooker broke....! I can see that any saving thats made this week'll get swallowed up again that way!

Icemaiden

Well only have £3 quid left in my budget:eek: and have still 2 weeks to go!!
I know exactly where I went wrong, popped into asda on sunday and Hubby came with me. Ended up with a load of stuff not on my list as they were what ' he fancied ':wall:

Still got to pay £8.40 to the milkman and will need fresh fruit again next week so will probably end up going about £20 over. Men:mad:

brokenwings

i have one more petrol tank to fill and one more grocery shop for this month

petrol costs £30 ( unless the whole israel thing pushes it up even higher ) - so that leaves me £20 for just fresh stuff like milk,veg and fruit

im pretty sure i can meet my challenge this month thanks to emptying my freezer and store cupboards!! woohooo!!

nicki_2

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, even had to raid my penny bottle to find 10p'a and upwards Tried hard but it's been one of those months where I've had unexpected costs, things going off faster than usual and OH still owes me £15 for groceries but he can't afford to pay me back so he's going to give me a Debenhams voucher for £15 instead which I can put towards a breadmaker or food processor :rolleyes:

Maybe next month while DD is off school, and we're away for 2 weekends we might do a bit better. Once I've done my big August shop (where I will be stocking up on flour as I've run out ) I'll be able to make biscuits, bread, cakes etc with DD to keep her busy and supply snacks...see I've got it all planned for the next financial month, pity about this one :rotfl:

rchddap1

Going to go over this month...but we are having a couple of female teenage ganets with us for a couple of weeks. So I'm not too worried about it...this time.