June 2010 Grocery Challenge

elizabunny

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

Good Morning everyone! I have enjoyed catching up with the thread and really envy those of you who are eating so well from theier gardens. I always say that I am going to plant loads of veg but get put off because of the amount of snails and slugs we always seem to have in our garden. Anyway I am going to give it a try and over the weekend plan to sort out some tubs (I've got loads in the shed) and plant up some herbs and salad stuff and see how I get on. I have just totalled up for June and have completely blown the budget and I am so angry at myself! It started when I bought a load of stuff for making cakes for DD1's fundraiser and that brought me over my limit and then I just went into my normal "Oh you've blown it now so start again next month" mentality. Anyway I have bulging freezer, cupboards and fridge so am DETERMINED to do better next month. I wasn't going to declare a figure for June but think I should - it's £555:eek::o. Can you put me down for £400 for July please?

Don't be put of by slugs and snails. If you encourage the Birds and Frogs into your garden they will sort out the problem for you without the need for chemicals. Our garden used to be full of slugs, they were everywhere but we put in a small pond and encouraged the birds with seed and now the problem seems sorted. We get the occasional snail but haven't seen a slug for ages. I won't use any chemicals in the garden because we have dogs and a grandchild and prefer to let nature sort the problem for me for free. We grow potatoes, runner beans, french beans, broad beans, carrots, beetroot, swiss chard, sprouting brocolli, pak choi, savoy cabbage, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, radish, apples, redcurrants strawberries, figs and loads of herbs. I can't tell you how much this saves us on the GC. We only have a smallish garden, but grow flowers and veg mixed up together.

I need to shop today but will be sending DH instead for just milk and cereal. I am holding off as long as possible and still managing on last weeks te*co shop. I think we will have some sort of Prawn Stir Fry today, but all this heat makes me not want to cook much. I will probably have to have a proper shop tomorrow. Yesterday was a NSD.

Have a great day everyone!

spendaholic

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I have just totalled up for June and have completely blown the budget and I am so angry at myself! It started when I bought a load of stuff for making cakes for DD1's fundraiser and that brought me over my limit and then I just went into my normal "Oh you've blown it now so start again next month" mentality. Anyway I have bulging freezer, cupboards and fridge so am DETERMINED to do better next month.

I ALWAYS used to be like that. It takes a bit of re-education, but now I say "Oh, I've blown it for this WEEK, must do better next week". Took me a while to get there, but I did.

A big help for me is stuff that comes out of a different budget but that still comes from the supermarket, like a box of sweets for Father's Day came out of the recently formed "gifts" budget, so it went at the end of my shopping and I got the cashier to do a sub-total so I could see how much my grocery shopping came to. If I buy an item of clothing, it comes out of the clothes budget (being in a debt management plan forces you to allocate funds for things like this too), but a pack of knickers, say, will come from the supermarket (if I like them) and go after the sub-total again. I've even been known to pay for things separately so I have separate receipts, and pay with different bits of cash from different sections of my purse, or several times on the same card.

Do they still do a store cupboard challenge on here? I think the freezer contents come under that, and eating from the freezer really does bring your shopping bill down. Try a meal plan, just for the next week, where you use something out of the freezer every day, then anything you don't already have can go on the shopping list.

wssla00

Morning all have two weeks left but have run out of chips and dry cat food so will pop to the shops for those a wee bit later. Should be ok though have done really well methinks...but that may be where I go wrong! So we'll see!

Ugh my house looks like a pit so will need to clean up a little bit later.

Hope you are all ok, and having a good thrifty day

earthmother

Afternoon

I've now done my last shop for the month and finalised my totals - I am £10.18 over, but that is entirely DHs fault for tempting me at the deli counter today with a nice piece of fresh cod for tea, along with some meat and cheese that I wouldn't normally pick up.

But, to be fair to him, it's the first time in over a year he's not had to take his wheelchair into the shops, so I thought why not have a treat to celebrate

So, my end total for this month is £290.18

greent

earthmother wrote: »

I've now done my last shop for the month and finalised my totals - I am £10.18 over, but that is entirely DHs fault for tempting me at the deli counter today with a nice piece of fresh cod for tea, along with some meat and cheese that I wouldn't normally pick up.

But, to be fair to him, it's the first time in over a year he's not had to take his wheelchair into the shops, so I thought why not have a treat to celebrate

Most definitely! Yeay!!:T:T

kayjay1809

Declaring June at £400 spend, budget £300 - getting better but not there yet

I need to look at what we are spending out money on and see where savings can be made. Onwards and upwards as my school motto used to say :rotfl:

newroadahead

newroadahead wrote: »

Sorry Im late.

Please put me down for £240.00 this month although things have already gone a bit haywire.

Hope everyone else has a good month.

NRA x

Ok confession time. It has been a bad month and as my month runs from 21st to 20th (due to pay day) I am already in July.

I aim to keep a spend diary and all receipts again this month.

Hope everyone else is doing better.


NRA xxxx

Hippeechiq

earthmother wrote: »

But, to be fair to him, it's the first time in over a year he's not had to take his wheelchair into the shops, so I thought why not have a treat to celebrate

That's fab news earthmother:j

To those of you who have come in under budget this month Well Done You! :T
To those of you who haven't - "Rome wasn't build in a day". You're all noticing that you're spending a lot less than you were, which in itself is a great achievement, so Well Done You Too! :T


This month, for the 1st time I've created a little document in Notepad to record the months spends, and I was feeling a bit disheartened at how much I'd spent so far when I was adding some receipt totals today, when I realised, that for some reason I started my month with the 31st May.......not taken me long to notice, has it? :rotfl:

I've no idea why, as my month has and always will run from the 1st-30th or 31st inclusive (unless of course it's Feb ) so the upshot is, that I've spent £73.18 less than I thought I had, because I had an A$da delivery on 31st May and also popped to Te$cos - so I'm well chuffed. Brings my spend so far this month to £181.58 with 5 days to go!

That is soooo much less than I was spending before I was made redundant , which was best part of £400 a month.

I realise that having a food delivery on the 31st May has helped this months budget, so now I've just got to decide what realistic amount to budget for in July, and then I can join in properly for the first time next month

Hippeechiq

You probably all already know this -I'm not trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs - but I'm still learning, so just in case anyone else it too....

Food portion control can make a lot of difference to your shopping. I have read (somewhere in the last few months but can't think where off the top of my head) that a meat-eating adult only needs 100g of meat per day. Well we all used to eat a lot more than that!

SS & DD are fussy eaters, so I cook separate meals for them, but my OH and I have reduced our intake to 100g meat per day, and I'm basing the following example on using the meat I bought below for the two of us.

£idl had an offer of 1kg Pack Of Chicken Breast this week for £5.99 or two packs for £10. My weeks budget would only allow for the £5.99 pack. The pack contained 5 Breasts, and in the 'old days' I would have frozen them and got out two at a time for our meal (1 each)

Now I cube it all, and divide it into freezer bags containing 200g Chicken Breast each.....this also means that it doesn't matter that some breasts are smaller/bigger than the others. Before the pack would have done 2½ meals, now does 5 - that's one heck of a saving!

Also, last month, we started to have a meat-free day each week, this month, I've upped that to 2 days a week, and that has also been a saving.

We're never hungry, we're eating a lot more healthily, and I don't need to take Senokot anymore!.....Happy Days :rotfl:

boultdj

Sorry about not being able to put total in colour intr\erweb still playing up! Now up to $236.77 for this month.