February 2010 Grocery Challenge

aplaceinthesun

katenut - I am new this month (although did try to join in last year) - I would personally treat the very kind £150 as a treat/bonus. Possibly you could ammend your budget downwards slightly to accomodate some of it over the next few months if you want to include it ???? Enjoy , what a fab boss!

ikkleosu - grrr at DH , very bad !! I wouldnt include cards/bottle in your budget spends personally, in fact DH told me last night that I shouldnt even include DD's birthday cake in mine but I think I will as we are well stocked up this week and dont need to spend our usual amount on shopping so I should be able to keep within this weeks budget, hopefully.

Spends this week so far:

Monday - Co-op £3.59.
Tuesday - Asda £4.85.
Wednesday - Asda - £10.98.

Hopefully today willbe a NSD.... !

Lastly congratulations to ragz on the birth of baby Abigail!

monks

katenut wrote: »

Hi everyone, hope all your challenges are going well. I just wanted to pick your brains about the grocery challenge, i have a small dilemma!
My boss gave me £150 of vouchers for our local farm shop for Christmas (possibly the best present I got!) and we are going at the weekend to do a big stock up, then to Lidl for the usual bits and bobs. Would any of you include this in your grocery challenge spends, or look upon it as an added bonus?
We will be buying some of the stuff at the farm shop that we normally get cheaper elsewhere (such as meat, cheese etc - its not the cheapest farm shop but lovely food) and some extra treats - so I'm thinking this will totally blow my budget if I include it in my challenge?! But if I dont include it in my challenge I'll feel like I'm cheating! We dont have to spend the whole lot at once so I might try and spread it out over a few months.
Its lovely to have a nice dilemma for once, rather than working out which credit cards I need to pay first!

Hi i would use vouchers as a added bonus,it was a gift, if boss had given chocolates, wine, hamper etc this wouldnt be deducted from grocery money so enjoy guilt free . Dinner at yours we think!

cw18

katenut

Last year I treated vouchers as 'free food', but have changed the game plan for this year.

During 2010 my intention is that every time I use a voucher (either from a survey site or one that came in the post/newspaper), I'm going to put the equivalent amount (less the cost of a paper if I had to buy one for the voucher) into my Sealed Pot savings.

Whilst I didn't have anywhere near as much as your voucher in the whole year, it does seem to me that one way to play it may be to use some of it (perhaps a third?) on luxury treats, and the rest on what you'd normally buy - then use the money you would have otherwise spent (possibly at your normal prices) to clear some of your debt (reading your post I assume you have balances on credit cards that need paying off, so throwing an extra chunk at them - even over a few months - would save you more money in the long run)

NJW69

Had all home made meals all week so far. Yesterday made Chinese Style Pork in the slow cooker and served with some rice noodles I have had in the cupboard for ages. OH and DS loved it and both had seconds (means none left fro the freezer but probably as well as I have no room in there now!).

For lunch I made mushrooms on toast, mushrooms sliced and cooked in spray oil (trying to do WWs), add splash of balsamic vinegar, small splash of emlea single light and black pepper when mushrooms are cooked. Served with half a toasted panini (whoopsie on Monday) and fresh parsley from my garden herb pot. It was delicious.

In London today and I've made all my food to take with me which I don't usually. Not particularly to save money but to control what I eat for the diet. Just had my ham, cheese and mushroom panini on the train and a satsuma.

Going to have a NSD today, third this week. :j

CRANKY40

Congratulations Ragz and welcome baby Abigail

Just nipping in to report a spend of £26.73 in Asda on Tuesday. I need to go back for milk, bread and a few other bits tomorrow, but I should stay in budget this week hopefully.

loulou0327

NSD for me today just me and OH for tea tonight as kids are at friends house and have everything in for that already.

Moniker

Just got back from Mr S having bough my week's supply of F&V and Milk plus a few extras like some really nice braising steak to do a casserole at the weekend (MIL is coming to lunch!) and I am pleasantly surprised to have only spent £28.98 - and it included a bottle of wine! No cleaning materials or toiletries though which I find bumps things up. So quite optimistic about reaching my target this month.(Hope I haven't spoken too soon).

Good luck everyone - keep up the good work.

Moniker

mijm0t77

Went to Mr S this morning for milk and a few bits £7.47 spent. should be ok till sunday now

Congratulations Ragz! _party_ _party_

taffy1969

Should be a NSD for me today - I'm skint!!!!! I've decided not to take money out of the bank unless I really need to. If it's in my purse then I spend it, so I have decided to just get some out on Sunday for school lunches, breakfast club, etc and a little extra and hopefully this will curb my spending.
I want to move house. We were in the process of moving 2½ years ago and then it all went pear shaped!!!! We decided to stay where we are for a few years, DH said about moving in 2011/2012 but me and DD1 are desperate to move NOW!!!!!!!!!!! She's found the house, which obviously won't be the one we will move to as it is up for sale for £600,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bless her, nice to dream though.
Have a good day everyone. Taffy x

poohbear59

:mad: DH has just been to the PO for bread and milk and had to pay for three weeks. It came to £37.90! I was really annoyed as I have so little left for this month.

ETA. I have just realised that two of the weeks should have come from last month's budget.