March 2010 Grocery Challenge 23 February 2010 at 6:24PM edited 28 February 2010 at 10:01PM in Old Style MoneySaving 998 replies 74.3K views

S_Wales_Saver

Superb effort rachb :j

rowsew

Another horrible month, beset by people charging me for Feb stuff at the beginning of March (due to short month apparently) as well as the end - nursery, phone people, etc; a birthday for one of the smalls; and a general lack of funds. Total in the bank yesterday before my husband got paid was £3.62. I am determined to get in under budget at least once every three months, can't understand why I managed in December, but have totally fluffed it since then. Declaring for March at £262.03. Hoping for April £230. Fingers crossed!

rachbc

unfortunately we've had to spend the saving on a very dull new windscreen wiper - but at least its not gone on a credit card!

My new fav bread recipe is very simple (http://teandwheatenbread.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-12-28T07%3A09%3A00Z&max-results=7)
and I've been doing it by hand rather than in the machine - I make 1kg of flour worth at a time and make a large loaf and rolls for pack ups - the biggest discovery for me was finding a good place to raise the dough as my house is draughty! I use the oven with just the light on to provide a draught proof slightly warm place.

Oh and discovering extra strong allinsons flour (currently on special at Tesco)

savingforoz

Well and truly failed for March! I'm declaring at £79.31. Must do better for April!

mothershipton

i have crashed and burned this month £419, and as my signature says i literally have no idea how that happened. apart from shopping in Tesco rather than Morrisons. Have also been popping into shops for marked down bread so if that pushes bil up by that much will have to stop that.

Angelfeathers

Bit late, but declaring March at £295.47/£320 - mainly low because we ran out of money altogether. :-)

I think I've got the grocery spending under control now, though, so I don't think I'll be taking part in the challenge here any more, especially as I never seem to have time to read the thread anyway! Will still be around the boards though. :-)

angelatgraceland

Declaring rather late at £589.89. A big overspend but a lot of it was booze and easter eggs! Also bought a lot of good protein foods(lots of fish) for my new die starting April. As I had a month under its not so bad-hopefullty evens out over the quarter. I will update sig and do the calculations!

angelatgraceland

Kornishkat wrote: »

Thanks for all the support and ideas on this thread I have completed my 1st ever grocery challenge and came in within my budget which amazed me! My final total spend for March £318.36. Well done everyone especially rachb :T. By the way which is your favourite bread recipe, is it one from the recipe section on MSE? I make my dough in the BM then bake in the oven but always seem to end up with really dense bread - if I can only figure where I'm going wrong I could save more on bread too, as it is i have to buy bread for the rest of the family and only I eat the hm stuff . Anyway, see you all over in April GC

Try a little less yeast and slightly warmer water-it works for me!

laurasavon

I've spent another £5.83, taking my total for the month to £196.34, so £21.34 over budget. I'm putting the budget down to £150 for April to try and make sure I use up some of the extra food in the house.

Off to make lunch now and a cottage pie for tomorrow!

Taadaa

My March spend was £282. It was really hard work to stay in budget, am thinking of upping it a little. Will see how this month goes.