February 2010 Grocery Challenge

keggie

Hi
I followed the January thread and had a go at menu planning etc. Amazed my family with how well we budgeted after an expensive Christmas. So now to try for real.

Please could I set my budget at £300 for february.

I'm not sure how to enlarge the text; sorry.

lou1981

Could I join you ladies, we really need to make some savings this year and I have been put in charge of the grocery budget finally!!
This month I will have £400 paid into my account for groceries for the 4 of us but I would like to get that down so this month I will start with £350.
Any savings are going to go on a savings card or in the savings account for our childrens birthdays and to lighten the load a little at christmas.
Tonight I am going to go throught the freezer and cupboards meal plan and then tomorrow I will be hitting the whoopsies shelves.
Thanks
Louise x

BigMummaF

Casperthefriendlyghost wrote: »

....that Sainsbury's is now stocking it ....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....Casper x x

To be fair, MrS have had a pretty good range of their own GF things for some time. It used to be that you could go to the customer service desk & ask them to order things in for you, especially if you are going to buy them regularly. My suggestion is to find a friendly-looking assistant, ask for the Grocery Manager & have a word with them to see what's available. Otherwise try their web-site to see what they have, print it off & take that with you for 'ammunition'. Remember to look in the frozen section too, as they had pies, pizza & things. Good Luck. x

Liking the idea of putting eggs on top of 'my' creation ChocClaire, particularly as two of us will eat eggs & the other two don't :rotfl:

saffouri

Please put me down for £180 for February Mrs M. DH and I have just decided to change what we include in our spend for the month so now it will be all groceries including all food for having friends round, toiletries, kitchen/cleaning stuff and takeaways (not that we do a lot of takeaways but we want to limit that to one per month max). We have a separate small budget (£50/month) for meals and coffees out - again, not so much because we do that a lot, but just to keep it under control and be aware of what we do spend. Will be interesting to see how this month goes.

The other thing we're doing starting tomorrow 1 Feb. is writing down EVERY bit of money we spend - not just on groceries - again, curious to see what we find out at the end of the month.

saf

Sarah_Joanne

Hello all. I'd like to join this thread for the first time too please. I'm expecting a baby sometime in Feb (due date is 16th) so now my wage has dropped it seems like a good time to finally get around to starting the grocery challenge (been saying I was going to for ages)

I have no idea how much we spend as not kept any receipts yet so I'd like to start this month with a target of £250 please. I have quite a few meals in the freezer ready for after bubs arrives so hopefully we can get off to a good start.

Can I ask do you guys include take-away spends in your totals?

Long_tall_sally

Casperthe friendlyghost - thanks for that info on g/free food. I've never seen g/f oats before. I'll have to have a look in my Mr S as DS really misses having flapjacks. I get him Glutafin Select Fresh Fibre bread but someone was telling me the other day that that Genius bread is lovely but I'm not sure if it is available on prescription yet.

Liz3yy

We spent a pennies over £30 today, which I'm determined to make last for most of the week. I'm making lasagne tonight which will last two days plus leftovers for lunch

Moniker

Hi folks

Just a quick visit to update my signature. Did my mega shop on Thursday and have now spent £142.42 leaving £127.58 for the rest of Feb or just over £40 per week - must be do-able!

Off to Brum shortly for SIL's graduation so eating out tomorrow. Will catch up when I get back.

Love Moniker

pammyj74

thank you can you add me for another £120 this month

managed under budget just last month

Casperthefriendlyghost

BigMummaF wrote: »

To be fair, MrS have had a pretty good range of their own GF things for some time. It used to be that you could go to the customer service desk & ask them to order things in for you, especially if you are going to buy them regularly. My suggestion is to find a friendly-looking assistant, ask for the Grocery Manager & have a word with them to see what's available. Otherwise try their web-site to see what they have, print it off & take that with you for 'ammunition'. Remember to look in the frozen section too, as they had pies, pizza & things. Good Luck. x

Liking the idea of putting eggs on top of 'my' creation ChocClaire, particularly as two of us will eat eggs & the other two don't :rotfl:

Thanx for that, the two stores near me have always only had three small shelves of GF stuff and it has been shrinking for some time now, both have 3 frozen products only and it takes up one shelf in the freezers in both. Will be asking when I go in again. I usually go to the Whole Food Store in High Street Kensington for most things, so it's nice they're finally expanding the range.

Cheers
Casper
x x