February 2010 Grocery Challenge

pammyj74

went in just for milk and bread and decided to top up fruit and bits for pack up next week rather than tomorrow but might pop back tomorrow for whoopsies!

spent £79.90 this month so far but freezer is getting low now

Spiggle

Thanks Sunny, I've just been looking through the toiletries thread and am just off to write a list of everything I have which will be hugely chastening I think.

I've set my budget now for next months groceries and I hope it's not going to be too restrictive and I can keep within it. I thought it would be good to set myself a strict target for the year too so that will be interesting to see. Fingers firmly crossed!

SunnyGirl

Spiggle Good luck! Keep posting it certainly keeps me on the straight and narrow!

rosieben

Hi Spiggle, welcome to the GC :hello:

As others have said, its up to you what to include in your budget. How about if you include the dry cat food, but keep it as a separate subtotal; as already suggested you could increase your budget for the months when you know that spend is due.;)

we're lucky to have a really good butcher in the village so I buy all my meat from him; I've never bought supermarket meat since I moved back to the village.

PennyGrabber wrote: »

... However, i refuse to go without certain things, as life is for living too. ...

Absolutely :T

another NSD for me, I've been steaming and mashing the last potatoes from the farm sack; I've put ice cream scoops-full onto greased baking trays, and flattened each scoop with a wooden spatula and put the trays in the freezer overnight - I now have a big plastic bag of mashed potato 'discs'

winterfrost

Just spent £14.35 on the last big shop of the month, plus £7.86 yesterday. That brings this week's total to £22.21 so far, which is under my £30 budget. I'll probably need to get some more cat food at some point, but should hopefully stay under budget if I'm good and don't buy things I don't need! Still over for the month, though as I spent more than £60 in the second week.

Sunnyday

Hi everyone,

just updated my sig and i`m £2.44 over BUT this month i`ve not included the dog and cat food and i`m certain that i`ve forgotten to deduct some from the receipt from last week so i should be under by a couple of pounds. I`m not going to scratch around for the receipts now so i`ll call it over instead.

I decided not to include the dog and cat food in this months challenge so that i can cost it better as i`ve been changing their diet but when i add up what i`ve spent on them seperately its about the same as normal so next month i`ll go back to including it again. I did a similar thing about the same time last year if i remember rightly and the result was the same.

That reminds me i`ll add a note onto my running total to reflect this as i need a true figure at the end of the year as i want to try to beat last years total if i can despite the price rises.

Heres hoping that i keep out of the shops for the rest of the week good luck everyone.

Ooh almost forgot - welcome spiggy :hello:

SD

Moniker

Hello everyone

I am running perilously close to target but still have about a fiver left. I will probably have to buy milk this week but hopefully that will be all till my new month starts on Thursday. I will be really chuffed if I make it! Have updated my signature.

Good luck everyone.

Moniker

freakyogre

CherryPie wrote: »

Can I ask, is this just for you?? If so, I'd love to know how you get down to this. My budget is double this at the mo. But I suppose it depends on what you include.

Hi Cherrypie. Yes, this is just for me. I'm not really sure how I do it, I tend to buy things on offer then work out what to do with them, unless I want something inparticular, rather than buying the set ingredients for meals. I find I end up trying more new things this way too.

I do include toiletries and cleaning stuff, but they seem to last a long time. I'm just thinking and the last lot of washing powder/tablets I bought was in October :eek: and they were on offer at the time! I do wash my clothes, honest but as it's just me I only run the machine twice a week (once for clothes, once for bedding) and only use one tablet per wash. I tend to buy toiletries when they're on offer and then stock up (although could kick myself as Herbal Essences was on offer last week and I didn't get any...doh! Just noticed they have the smaller bottles on the 4 for £3 offer at Asda so may have to stock up on that next month!) I also include newspapers/magazines, but only get a tv guide once a week and the odd local paper.

I don't include takeaways, but they're quite rare anyway. I think i've only had 4 takeaways since i've been living here (about 15 months now). I also don't include meals out as they tend to be for birthdays etc. Every so often my dad/stepmum and I take it in turns to take each other out, so that works out quite well!

I don't eat breakfast and only take something like fruit and a packet of crisps for lunch (I bought a box in the cash and carry, so they worked out cheaper) so this probably saves me a lot of money. I don't do it to save money in case anyone thinks I do, I just can't face breakfast and have never eaten a big lunch. I also don't drink alcohol, so that helps too. I'm quite happy with a cup of tea!

I've improved a lot (thanks to this site) as I used to meet my sister almost every week and just wander round the supermarket for hours buying whatever I wanted, a lot of which didn't last so went in the bin. A lot of it I still have in the cupboards now and still wonder why I bought it. I will still pick up things when i'm shopping that aren't always on my list, but I know I will use it in the future or sometimes I just want it.

Sorry that was longer than I expected it to be!!


Just to keep it kind of on topic...no spend for me today. I went to see my dad and stepmum earlier and was greeted with a cup of tea and a sandwich which was nice. My dad also gave me 3 packets of rice which he says is lovely, so that's a nice (free) addition to my cupboards

shell2001

I really, really need to get back into this. I was a regular but then started back at work and never seem to have the energy to keep on top of things - that has to change.

We are a family of 4, Me, DH & 2 DDs (7 and 5) plus our dog and 7 goldfish! We have a budget in place for everything with £450 being allocated to all household cleaning stuff, toiletries, dog food and groceries (also any takeaways). I have stayed to this the last couple of months but I am sure it can be cut down with a little effort on my part. So I plan to join in with March's challenge and get back to the meal planning and baking biscuits/cakes etc as the girls love doing this so family time plus cheap!

Would be good to shave £50 off next months so think I shall go for that.

slowandsteady_2

Hi all,

MIA for few days with work and being a busy bee! Have been shopping, but with at the shopping centre where my sister lives-huge mistake as i like the market!

Will update sig but this week i have bought things like sausages from the butcher man-huge thick fat ones yummy, milk, bacon,biscuits, tinfoil, sugar, a huge pie, amongst other stuff! DH has also been spending on essentials while ive been stuck at work, not sure if to include that as he didnt ise GC money just his. Will do though, should give it him back too really.

I am working long days Sun and Mon, early Tues then on a course rest of the week so shouldnt spend anything much on groceries but will on bus fare as i have to travel to city centre hospital for my course but cant park on staff car park even though i pay cos im not based there:mad: so i either have to take chance on getting free spot or spend money on buses-am very angry about this as i wont get reimbursed for my travel and its money we can ill afford. In the past this wouldnt have bothered me but i hate parting with pennies now!

Never mind. Have done some rubber chicken today and a huge pot of soup with the stock i did from the carcass in the sc, very nice-stock, loads of carrots, red lentils, pearl barley and a few leftover frozen casserole veg, also have some pie and sausages cooked in fridge so plenty for dh and dd to eat while im at work.

Probably wont be around now till end of week so see you soon!