April 2010 Grocery Challenge

slowandsteady_2

Hi all,

updating sig, had a small spend yesterday in Quality Save and Cool Trader (dunno if these shops are nationwide, but Quality Save bit like HB and Cool Trader is a discount freezer shop, can get some great bargains in there.

However my GC and my money in general has been well and truly messed up. When i was checking the internet banking last night, there was money gone i didnt take out, or at least dont remember taking out, so rang the bank and after half an hour of being on hold, explained that i wanted some clarification of exactly when and where i had taken these sums of money out, and it turns out my account is the subject of a fraud investigation:eek: it appears my card has been cloned and the criminals have practically emptied my bank account:eek::(. The bank has stopped my card, frozen my account etc and are investigating. Obviously with it being bank hols ive got no chance of an information untill Tuesday. The lady on the phone couldnt even tell me where the money was taken out. Im fascinated as to how they decide that a transaction is fraudulent but im glad they keep a check!

Luckily (?) there is enough left to cover the last couple of bills as most of them had already come out, think its just British Gas and car insurance left. I was so glad i moved extra spending money into another account on pay day because we need to pay for two MOTs, so all that was left in the account was a lot less than could have been.

They say i will get my money back if it is found to be fraud (if?) but dont know how long that will be:(

Never mind, i already took my GC money out of the bank and put it in a different pot so i have that physically at home so at least we wont starve, i have my few savings and FIL has given us a bit of money as a gift, which is a coincidence it was certainly the right time for a little extra, not much but will see us through, am very grateful to him!

Sorry to waffle, im just so upset, i feel so vulnerable, scary what people can do to you.

Have agood Easter everyone xx

wssla00

Hi Slow and Steady, I used to work in a bank and they are pretty good at stopping unusual transactions. The computer has an idea of where you spend your money, how much etc and will decline or investigate any fraudulant claims. They may even be able to put on an overdraft until the money is returned back to you. Give them a call on Tuesday and see what they can do. I remember once my card was cloned and someone kindly spent £500 in tifanys!!!!!!!! Luckily they declined it as they know the most extravagant place i shop is john lewis lol.
It's so rubbish but it really pays to cover your pin wherever you are. I have heard of pin hole cameras on cash machines which record your pin and clone the card. Once they have that they are away. Usually they will try a few small transactions to see if they will work then go on a blow out until all the money is gone or the card is declined.... whichever comes first.

Hugs! I know it is awful but it will be ok HUGS to you!

Nakashima_Miharu

Found some tuna steaks in the freezer last night but didn't have any fresh veg to go with them so popped into SBs and bought:

Mange tout & baby corn: £1.70
Baby-leaf spinach: £1.50
Fresh ginger: £0.26
Mixed chillies: £0.53

Bad thing was there were lots of nice looking puds on offer so bought 2x lemon sponge and a pot of custard : £1.00+£1.25. Worst thing for me was the offer on hot-cross buns on show as you walked in the door so fell for that one too: £1.00 (actually, 12 HC buns for £1 is quite a bargain on reflection )

Won't go shopping hungry again though

Anyway, whilst baking the tuna steak for 30mins, made up my own stir-fry sauce with honey, lime-juice, soy sauce and mixed seeds from the store cupboard, fresh ginger and chopped chillies. Fried all this with the mange tout & corn for 10mins and then mixed it with the baby spinach and egg-noodles (from the cupboard). Then popped the tuna steak on top. Was delicious!

Also spent last night making soup to freeze for work lunches for the month. Didn't buy in anything for this as used left-over veg from last weekend and store cupboard extras :T Made two varieties of soup - Curried Parsnip and Sweet Potato & Coconut - had to stop OH polishing off the curried parsnip before I could get it in the freezer so must have been successful!!

Need more soup pots as going to make a Watercress and a Carrot & Coriander later (my favourite). Obviously need ingredients for this also so will update on my hopefully successful shopping trip tomorrow.

TTFN

shell73_2

Hey All

This is my first month of the grocery challenge although have been a budget food shopper for a while.
My first spend was today when i went to Mr T
Heres my breakdown:
total shopping after savings £75.79
overbought £15.75 not included in my grocery challenge
coupons £6.61
weekly shopping total of £53.43

I have stocked up though on tea bags (320 for £5), baked beans(branstons 2 pk4 for £2 so 8 tins in total) so shouldnt need these for a month.

I joined tesco crimbo clubcard savers club last year and so far for 2010 i have nearly £20 to come back in November total £80 worth of clubcard deals. Which i am going to use to take my little one out in the school hols of 2011.
For 2009 i got the same amount as im upto now and i managed to get a day trip to legoland, n 2 extra days out for me and little one but if we go out with dad it will cost us about £6 cash for the 3 of us!!

Shell x

Welsh_Poppy

Slow and steady
Big hugs it is horrid but at least you do have money and not wiped out completely but it does feel persona;l when it is not really hope they sort it out.

Arggggggg went to mr M for fresh fish for hubby as good Friday and it is on offer half price.... so how come I ended up with
36 charmin toilets rolls for 8.00...great offer
bott;le of NZ wine , fresh bread and more sensations......then not in budget cake tins, pizza pan, baking sheet, mixing bowl all half price non stick with 5 years garantee.
Need to work out what is out of grocery budget...hubby just did this 12.00 so not bad really.
right NSD here I come......please Mr M and Mr S dont tempt me with your offers satan get behind me!!!:j

lizzyshep

Slow and Steady, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles, it's horrible when things like that happen. A few years ago I got a call from my bank about my credit card, to ask if I'd been spending large sums of money in India! Luckily they refunded all the money that was taken.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty chuffed today. I got my delivery from Sainsburys and they were late, so I got a £10 voucher for my next shop, and they'd accidentally given me 2 bags of bread flour but only charged me for one The driver was a really nice bloke too, and brightened up my day with his friendly smile. The only problem was some of the things they substituted - I don't know who does these, but I'm not sure that they really think about it properly. They had cheese on offer, £3.65 each or any 2 for £4, they only had one type in stock and they substituted the other with something completely different so I couldn't take advantage of the discount. I would have thought it was obvious I was going for the special offer. They did a similar thing with the loo roll too. Oh well, it doesn't matter cos I sent it back with the driver and can always pop into the store when I'm passing to pick up some more.

I've only got £28 left of this month's budget so things will be tight, but all being well I will only need to buy milk and fresh veg, so should just about manage.

Doom_and_Gloom

My budget is going to be going from the 1st of April to the 30th of April £108.
This is for my fiance and me and 2 old rats .

We went shopping yesterday and spent £101.76 :eek:. However the fridge, the cupboards and the freezer are all full :rotfl:. So we have £6.24 to last us the rest of the month for fresh fruit and vegetables when needed (he has some milk in the freezer so that's not a worry). It is alot of money for two people BUT this was our first food shop for our new place so we decided to buy basics like pasta, rice, noodles, tea, coffee (500g!) etc that we won't be buying every month anyway.
I hope I can get back into this as it's been a long time since I did this challenge.

**sde**

hi every1 back for my 2nd day, spent £23 in tesco yesterday, got a lot for my money though and im quite optimistic even though this is my 1st month. even if ive got my budget completely wrong at least im more aware of what im spending on!:j

Long_tall_sally

Spent another tenner today on beer for tonight, some coke & some chocolate for OH, seeing as he presented me with a box of Ferraro Rocher last night!

Slow & Steady - I had this problem a few months ago when somebody cloned my card & used it in Italy but have to say that my bank, HSBC were very quick to refund me the money. Hope yours will be!

Winchelsea

Been to S**nsb*ry this afternoon, and just bought the few things we needed. And, instead of buying a newspaper tomorrow I spent 40p on a cheap TV magazine - a load of rubbish basically, but I do like to be able to flip through to see what's coming. Some weekends the paper sits there virtually unread apart from the culture section, and we can always read that on line. Total spend was £7.90. Add the £2.09 I spent on the food budget yesterday, and £9.99 has gone so far.

Just missed the bus home, so popped across the road to Boots and topped up my PAYG mobile. I think it was on here somewhere that I read the tip about using Boots and your Advantage card for top-ups. I put £10 on, enough for the month, and I see I received 40 points! It says on the slip "With this transaction you received 1 x Earn save 2 ss" - whatever that means!

Am writing this while waiting for dough to rise - will make big pizza, enough for a couple of days.