April 2010 Grocery Challenge

elly2

Morning all, can i set a budget of £70 per week. My first week started on the 29th of march and so far I have spent £45.43 so not doing too badly so far, I will need more cat food,milk and some treats for the lo's unless I decide to do some baking . I have a full inventory of both freezer contents to work off so i should be doing a meal plan but find that i cook the same things all the time :mad: so will have to have a look at the recipe thread to find some new ideas.

Changingme

Please can you put me down for£260 in April,I always seem to fail at this so will try extra hard this month.

Thanks and Happy Easter to everyone:icotbaske.

HowlinWolf

Last month did not go well for me at all and there was some major overspend and a total loss of control on the grocery budget. So I shall try and recoup and am aiming for £200 for April but I'm also including a week from March in that 200 as I started the shopping and eating last Friday. I will post what I have spent so far when I find the receipts. I am aiming to eat lots of things from Weezl's plan and also a lot of things from the cupboards and freezer before the end of the month. Happy easter all.

Spiggle

missy_dee wrote: »

Good evening all.

Can I just check if you all include wine in your grocery budget or would that be classed as entertainment.

Many Thanks.:)

Hi Missy Dee,

We don't normally include wine in our shopping budget. OH likes a drink far more than me and so when we started last month we allocated £15 each of pocket money per week. OH buys his beers from that and if I fancy something then it comes out of my pocket money. Saves the hassle and grumbles from me if he buys and drinks more than I think he should.

This weekend is his birthday and so we have bought some wine and martini but did not include that in our grocery spend as it is strictly speaking entertaining.

I mentioned yesterday that your household is the same as mine and my two hungry cats get fed W*****s and a special dried diet food for Hairball from Hills Science Foods. I include the W*****s in the grocery budget but keep the Hills separate (costs about £26 per month). But the cost is worth it as my tom cat doesn't give me near heart attacks when I think he is dying! :eek: He has longer hair than his sister and simply cannot deal with cleaning himself without this. As he is a very big cat the vet recommended this food, he was very very stressed and really was putting himself through tremendous strain, and it really has done the trick.

As I was told when I joined last month, it is up to you what to include. It is your budget and your challenge. You must do what is right for you and your household. Imho as your budget is low I wouldn't include wine but as I said, it's up to you. Good luck :A

Welcome sde :hello: and good luck with your challenge. You can't do anything wrong so don't worry, you must do what is right for you. Keep your receipts, keep posting and reading and the fantastic support on here will help you no end.

Happy Easter all,
Spigs

alipops1986

Afternoon all!

After a week away with work [in france with school!] i am SOOO pleased to be home haha.

Popped to Mr T this morning because I literally have nothing in the house plus i had a spend £30 get £3 off voucher i needed to use up.

Grand total spent minus the £3 = £33.90

Quite impressed as i have had to restock a fair amount of bits and bobs!
I shall now update my signature!

wssla00

jintyb wrote: »

I've always fancied trying this, is it easy? And how do you make the fruity bases? I eat tons of yogurt!
Thanks in advance!

Yeah it's really easy- if I can do it anyone can. I made strawberry and raspberry yoghurt yesterday by adding a blob of home made jam into the plain yoghurt and mixing vigorously until it was combined. It looks and tastes yum.

The base is going to be a tin of peaches with some sugar added and boiled until it resembles a runny jam and then will be placed in the bottom of the little plastic pots I have and topped with plain yoghurt. Or you can mix it in if you want it like a normal yoghurt.

Pretty good stuff really. Especially as im using Smart price peaches!
Spend for this week- Asda delivery, £43.00 to be delivered on Sunday

vodkawitch1

spent £22 yester mostly on basics like coffee/fruit.veg. going to try really hard this month as I went over budget last month. NSD today as I am working.

Billie-jo

Had my first spend of April today and only got items from my shopping list written out after had done a menu plan which for me is brilliant.:D

Total spend was £41.89 and hopefully dont need anything until Tuesday at least.

Sent D/H back to get some salad cream while I was in the que and wished had gone myself as he picked up the dearest squeezable one costing £1.89 while the one I would have got would have been 87p :mad:

msgnomey

ok it is Easter Hols now so not at work and a good time to sort out my finances
am setting a target of £75 per week and will go shopping tomorrow so today I need to

0) inventory the cupboards and freezer
1) do a menu
2) make a shopping list
3) stick to my list!!!

will aim for £75pw-should be do able !!
off to check what I actually spent LAST month

msgnomey

OMG OMG OMG spent £781.86 on food last month arghhhhhhh, right this has got to stop!!!!!!
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

even more determined to stick to £75 pw now

mind you some of that total will be clothes from sainsburys and tesco as I often pick up stuff when I am food shopping