February 2010 Grocery Challenge

JayJay14

Hi - I am now £63.80 into my Feb budget and I've newver done a big spend at the beginning before, I just hope I can keep from buying stuff for the rest of the month.

OH will be signing on tomorrow as his latest contract finished last Firday and he doesn't have another to go to yet. Am trying to be really positive as he's more that a bit depressed about it himself. So I am now buying as little as I can get away with this month. Mind you with 6x2l milks in the freezer, about 5 loaves and some rolls (woopsies) and enough other food to feed and army it shouldn't be too hard.

To all newbies, I am about to start my third year of theis challenge (and I haven't nissed a month:D) and I can't tell you the difference it has made to my finances. OH has been temping now for nearly 3 years since he was made redundant and this bunch of luverly people has kept me sane, not o mention I now spend miles less than I used to and we eat sooo much better.

I am in the process of making my first curry from scratch so wish me luck......

franby64

We had the first food delivery of Feb this morning and it was about £110 - a quarter of the budget gone already:eek: but well stocked up.

Good luck to everybody in February!

mijm0t77

As promised, i did a meal plan for Feb. It is abit repetative but i am pleased with it as my first attempt.

I think i will be having a good look through all your great recipes to help me plan for next month - when i sat down to plan, my mind went blank - but still at least i have done one!


My next job is to do an online shop in accordance to the plan - will tackle this later and have it delivered early next week. hopefully this will stop me "popping to the shop" (this and not taking my purse out!!! :rotfl:)

good luck (planning:)) everyone!!!!!

Ps. anyone else wake up to snow this morning?

SarahNeedle1872

Spent £83.93 yesterday although I have to admit it wasn't the most savvy shop I've done I did get two whole chicken which I'm going to roast, strip then freeze but really I don't know what I spent it on!:mad:
I did get OH some beer, as this will be the last time we will be able to afford to for a while (budget getting VERY tight due to OH no longer having a job) but otherwise I don't know!

Grrr!

Sx

Allegra

Hello I would like to join the challenge this month again - having gone awol from last year's (I was attempting an annual challenge) when I realised I wasn't in with a chance of making it.... Could you put me down for £210 for February, please ? That's for all food for two adults and a soon-to-be 13 year old girl, booze, household and toiletries and cat food.

My month started on the 25th Jan, and this year I am doing things a bit differently - I have abandoned once-a-month big shop followed by weekly top-ups, as it wasn't really working for me (it became once-a-month big shop followed by weekly big shops and a couple more top-ups each week), and am doing a weekly shop instead, and trying to steer clear of all top-ups unless absolutely necessary. I am still doing monthly meal planning, as that seems to work really well for us. To make things nice and simple (not!) while I run my GC on a payday-to-payday basis (payday usually falling on the 25th), I meal-plan on the calendar month basis.

So far this month I have spent £50.36 - £4.17 on a milk, coffee, emergency bread and cat food top-up on the last weekly shop in January, and £46.19 on the first weekly shop in February.

Good luck to all !

laurasavon

I haven't quite finished for January yet (need some bread and milk today) but I will definately be under budget - the batch cooking really does work!

Please could you put me down for £175 for Feb (bringing it down by £75 from last month)

EC12345

Hello, please put me down for £180 for February. Failed last month, so am going to do my best this month. Many thanks.

PennyGrabber

Hi all. Wonder if ragz has popped yet?!!

I spent another £4.57 in T (no Mr!!) this morning, which takes my total rocketing up!!!!

I think i'll do well this month, as bf and i sorted out the freezers yesterday, and wow, did we find some stuff i'd forgotten i had!! Have sorted out all the trays as follows: indoor freezer - top shelf bread-type products, 2nd shelf veg and potato stuff, 3rd shelf stuff to use this month in the meal planner, bottom shelf puddings and icecreams etc. Outside freezer - top shelf more icecream (:o) and puddings, 2nd shelf batch cooked meals, 3rd and 4th shelves meat and convenience foods organised in date order (!!) and the bottom shelf has a ton of whoopsied sausages that wouldn't fit anywhere else.

Having established that a, i can feed the 5000 for at least a month and b, there are some things getting close to their dates, i have adjusted my meal plan accordingly. Feels really good (?!?) to have organised myself in this way, and it also means i shouldn't need to go out to the outside freezer except for monthly meal planning time, at which point i'll transfer the stuff into the inside freezer!! Makes sense to me anyway.

Have a good day all.
PG x

helen_jelly

Hi - can you put me down for

£200 please MrsM

lots of people are still posting on the Jan challenge - I wonder if they know that the new thread is up and running as Pink hasn't posted the link yet:)

We are really short of money this month as DH has been paid incorrectly and we are massively short, oh well, the challenge is the fun part of life

I'm going to try and remember to post when we go shopping as its an incentive to me so I don't get carried away.

Well done Pink, MrsM and Rosieben on doing the thread and thank you

I'm due a delivery from MrA on Tuesday night as I had a £10 odd voucher for them so that will com in at about £44 but I'll update my siggy when I know the full amount.

Good luck everyone and remember no-one fails, we look learn and move on

Helen x

Casperthefriendlyghost

Thanks for the shiny new thread MrsM, Pink and Rosieben

Just posted my total for last month on the old thread, but will post it here too. Last month I managed a spend of £40.68 which was 68p over my target lol, but that's ok by me.

This month I'd like to pledge £40.00. I have already spent £15.03 but found some great bargains!

I buy Genius Gluten Free Bread and got an email that Sainsbury's is now stocking it and went last night on the way home and found a surprise or two. The shelf price was £2.89 per loaf, but I was so happy to find bread so easily that I bought 3 loaves for the freezer. When I got to the till I noticed one loaf was marked down to 79p, went to check but there was only one reduced, and also noticed on my till slip they were only £1.44 each for the other two, but as I only have room in the freezer for 3 loaves I was very pleased with myself and now have enough bread to last ages!

I also found a GF and fish free (they usually add anchovies for flavour to all Thai Green Curry sauces) bag of Thai Green Curry Sauce for £1 and GF Steak Pies (2 per box) reduced to £2 (usually £3.99 each) and Freefrom Oats (another bonus) £2.24 as it's £3.99 for 500g in Waitrose and now that Sainsbury's stock it too I can get it cheaper here.

So all in all a great result. Sorry bout the essay, just thought if there are other coeliacs on here they might benefit too x

Cheers
Casper
x x