March 2010 Grocery Challenge

aliadds

Sunnyday wrote: »

Hi,
we are feeding 2 adults and 2 dogs and also 1 cat for less than £40 per week. I budget for £40 but over time it works out at a bit less so it seems as if you are similar to us. Our dogs are big eaters too and it seems to work out just right

Good luck

SD

Thanks Sunnyday:T...reassuring to know that I'm on the right track.
I've spent another £4.20 today on fresh fruit. We do eat lots of fruit and I find that accounts for quite a bit of the budget!

angelatgraceland

You are so right-it is important that unless out of necessity that we set out budgets to our own comfort zone and don't deprive ourselves or our families of essential nutrients. Myself though I still find that the fruit and veg along with other "real" foods are cheaper than buying convenience foods. Sometimes cooking a meal from scratch is more expensive than buying a jar of some sauce to add to your meat. The ingredients you use yourself are far better and more filling though and you know what you are eating. If planned properly you will most likely get more servings or some spare homemade sauce to freeze.

emilyka wrote: »

Good Morning,

Please sign me up!

This seems like a great idea- currently I spend around £150 on my tesco online shop (and a little more on fresh bits in between- say £40). I'd like to get my tesco shop down to £140 this month, in view of decreasing £10 a month until £100. There are only two of us so this should be acheivable. I will be keeping the 'fresh bits' at £40 as this is fruit and veg mainly and I dont think it would be healthy to cut down on. Hopefully come summer this will decrease anyway due to the lovely veggies growing in the lotty!!

Thanks very much

Linda32

Hello all,

Late start but have kept all receipts, trying for £300.00 for the month

Started 3rd March, to enable me to keep a track I'm surposed to do a weeks shopping in one go so I did one on 3rd March so should finish after I've done the weeks shopping on or around 24th March.

I've had an idea of making a shopping list from my receipts this week/month so I can see if its worth buying in bulk or anything thats I buy on a small receipt, this means I've had to "nip to the shops" for something.

So Far

Sainsburys £38.82
Tesco £24.66
Co-op £24.04

Total £87.52

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

A NSD yesterday and today only spent £2.43 in Sainsbugs on choc treats for the children after swimming, and some whoopsies:

450g pack of casserole veg - 30p
BGTY caesar salad - 30p
200g diced onions - 20p

All except the salad are in the freezer ready for use later in the week. Will save me some prep time at least.

78% of my monthly budget spent so far, so think (hope) I will come in just on target. Need to make amends for last month!!

You're all doing great - keep up the good work.

Coxy
xx

PennyGrabber

NSD for me today - still not managed to find the receipts from the weekend though. Must try harder!
I like Coxy's idea of putting down the percentage spend - that way, we're all the same, so easier to compare who spends what at what time of the month, IYSWIM.

However, if I were to put my %age for this month, I think I would be very embarrassed! I'll check it in a minute and edit it in.

Nothing to do with this thread at all, but just found out this morning that I'm pregnant! Very happy with that, although bf goes away tomorrow for a while (he's in the RAF). Think my intake of fresh fruit and veg will go up now - i normally struggle to remember the 5 portions, but now i need to! Will have to accept that i'll go over this month, and up my budget next month. When i was pregnant with my son, i had a major craving for freshly squeezed orange juice with bits in (but not the cheap ones!!), so who knows what i'll crave this time - and how much it'll cost!

Have a good evening all,

PG x

PS - seeing as how my budget is £100, the %age is really quite easy to work out! I make it about 86%, with only 50% of March gone! Hmm, maybe it is doable?!

Snow_Angel

First of all...congratulations PennyGrabber on the exciting news :T

I'm having a couple of pretty successful grocery days. Yesterday I made me and boyf mushroom stroganoff for dinner with half a pack of Mr Ts value mushrooms and some cream that needed using up with rice. Work lunch today was pasta with 2-4-1 pesto and leftover veggies and dinner tonight was a whoopsie 25p plaice fillet (bargain ) with mash potato and defrosted cauliflower cheese. So 25p on grocery budget spent in 2 days!

miss_saveapenny

hi all, spent £138 out of £280 budget so far, which am quite pleased with as I work my month from the 25th to the 25th so nearly half way. I have to say this has been a great exercise for me as it makes you realise just what you can live on.:D
Had a great risotto tonight, here is recipe if anybody is interested
EASY RISOTTO WITH BACON AND PEAS
1 onion,2 cloves garlic, 6 rashers of chopped streaky bacon, 300g risotto rice, 1litre of veg stock, 100g frozen peas.
Fry off chopped onion and bacon, add garlic, rice and stock reduce heat and cover, cook for 15-20 mins until rice is tender stir in peas for last few mins, season. serve sprinkled with parmesan.
(I also added a few mushrooms as they needed using up and substituded some of stock for white wine as needed using up too)
I would say it was a cheap & easy dish and went down a treat.:)
good luck everyone, stay focused

scotdebs

:dance:Congrats pennygrabber

peedie

Hiya
Many congrats pennygrabber.

Have had a not to successful time on the budget front, aimed to spend £40 a week in Feb, all was going well till I hit sainsbugs then I think I over spent. not much about £35. The only time I went out with a card, so theres a lesson for me. I was religiously saving all recipts and had noted down all the odd and sods. Mum came round at the weekend and was 'helping' me to have a sought out and declutter....before I knew it she had chucked all the recipts on to the fire. I had not yet done my sums or looked to see were I might have gone wrong:(
So will have to try again and aim for a spend of £40 a week. £31.40 spent so far

jackieglasgow

Morning,

I'm afraid I lost control of my spend last month and lost control of keeping tally, Can I rejoin this month for £300 again? I don't know how do-able this will be as we now have a dog in the family too, but I'll give it a go.

Jackie X:xmastree:

Oops Xmas tree is flylady isn't it? Never mind, I'll leave it in because it looks so pretty!