July 2010 Grocery Challenge

kirstygem

Not huge spends today for me £5.84 Aldi and £2.27 Tesco neither were strictly necessary or needed today but had 2 child-free hours so took the opportunity to go without my girls-sure other mums on here understand!! Also quite pleased as only got exactly what was on my list instead of adding in things on offer or clothes for girls. Feeling quite pleased with myself so far and keeping looking at meal plan and seeing just how many dinners are sorted - hope it lasts!!

£100.61/£250

Souk08

Hey all, spent £31.39 so far and only £8.61 to go til the 29th. EEEK! Bought some butter and beans from Aldi today. Got loads in so need to meal plan later to see how to spend as little as possible for the rest of the month now!

raven-333

Hi everyone i have been shopping twice and between both i have managed to spend £55.50 :eek: i have never noticed before how i spent my money. i haven't really got much to show for it. i didn't get anything to start making a store cupboard either. i do have some mental health problems which can make things hard although i'm not trying to make excuses but i have good intentions and then forget them. one big problem i have is i have to eat the same things every day DD thinks that should make things easier. the problem is i never know how long that will last sometimes for one week and the longest has been three months many times i have bought a months worth of food only to not be able to eat it so i do my shopping weekly now. another problem is buying things for a store cupboard if i buy anything different i feel like its wasting money as i cant eat the food. sorry for the long post sometimes i get so fed up of myself i'm just not sure what to do.

Hippeechiq

ralloctiger wrote: »

went to shop and bought OXY WATSIT!!!! the pink one , oh my I would never buy that, but I was soooooo embarrased. Have offending shirt in soak better work for £4.49:eek:
xx

Would be interested to hear if you find it works for you ralloctiger....I tried it a couple of years back and thought it was pants. OH wears white shirts for work and although I've tried various brands to wash them in, I've never had much success in preventing them from 'greying'

lynne1307 wrote: »

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

It's not a daft question at all I've been menu planning since about April. I started with a weekly one for about 6 weeks to get the hang of it, but now I do a 28 day/4 week one. It can be a bit of a mission doing the monthly ones, but it is so worth the effort. I don't rotate all of the menu either, as I don't necessarily want the same meals every month. I'm trying to try a few new recipes every month so that it not only builds up my choice of recipes to menu plan with, but also I can now plan 28days without repeating a meal, and we're eating all the better for it.

It's all about seeing it as a new challenge, rather than a chore imho I also do my main shop fortnightly, and online, as I find it to be far more cost effective. Then buy fresh f & v/milk/bread in between.

Anyway spent £10.50 in £idl, Te$co & Icel@nd yesterday, but had a NSD day today and Tuesday making 5 NSDs so far for July :T

Total spend so far is £113.25 out of £275 which I'm happy with, as I wont be doing another big shop until w/c 19th July

Billie-jo

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Would be interested to hear if you find it works for you ralloctiger....I tried it a couple of years back and thought it was pants. OH wears white shirts for work and although I've tried various brands to wash them in, I've never had much success in preventing them from 'greying'

I'm with you on this one, think it rubbish and a waste of money tbh. Hope we are proved wrong though

Did a T*sco shop today and couldn’t find a few of the items that were on the list so ended up buying other things resulting in a larger spend than wanted. Total spend was £42.76 which leaves us with only £104 for rest of the month. and we have a guest for a few days at least so not sure if this is doable this month or not - we will see.

Actually spent quite a lot more than stated above but it was on some clothes so not in the GC budget or else there would be none left. As far as I can remember they are the first clothes brought this year. I am not one of those people who HAVE to go shopping in the sales and to be honest even when have tried it I have never found the bargains that others say they have. A*da and M*t*lan do cheap enough clothes imho anyway and they are good enough for me and DH although DS is a bit of a ‘label freak’ but on the whole he buys his own. Thank goodness as he thinks nothing of paying £50 + for a T. Shirt.:eek::eek: Definitely likes his clothes does DS :rotfl:

JayJay14

lynne1307 wrote: »

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

Lynne - if you google 'menu planner' you will get quite a lot of printable planners and excel spreadsheets (freebies most of them.) They might come in handy - I find if I have something to fill in like that I'm more likely to do it.

poppy-glos

only one nsd so far this month, but have managed to keep within my spending level, currently 8 x 1/31st of my budget, currently 18£ up notionally. This seems to be stopping me spending ahead most of my money so very happy with the strategy.

bought the 3 pepper pack in lidl for 49p, and some fab vine tomatoes for £1.20.

best wishes to all

poppy x

ralloctiger

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Would be interested to hear if you find it works for you ralloctiger....I tried it a couple of years back and thought it was pants. OH wears white shirts for work and although I've tried various brands to wash them in, I've never had much success in preventing them from 'greying'


Sorry bear with me this is the third time I have tried to ans your q's .I keep loosing my post!!!!!!!!!

Back to the Pink one. I was pleasantly suprised at the results. Both shirts in hot water two scoops (nothing to loose) overnight longer than the rec 6hr max and then washed in powder and another scoop (couldnt hurt) rinsed with vinegar and they look white not new white but no greying so I would use ir again. Have put DD1'S fencing kit in withit tonight. This had choc on the seat of the breeches. aaaargh.

Took DD3 to T's this eve soooooo distracting!! I spent 99.56
Take off
£12 for leather school shoes DD3!!!!!!!
£4 sale shirt for me:T
£2.16 A4 paper
50p plastic pockets
20p paracetamol
28p ibuprofen = £19.14

99.56-19.14=£80.42 thats just 42p over weeks food/clean/toiletries budget (week)

Am quite pleased with the shoes I know I will have to get another pair by xmas but I now have more money to buy the school shirts she wants. The other two pairs of shoes will come one at a time out of the next two pay days before school in sept.:T
hapy shopping
xx

Long_tall_sally

raven - 333 - I can understand a little of the problems that you have as I have a friend who is a little simalar. It cant be easy.

Well done to all you people having so many no spend days. I had one yesterday but have been shopping today to the market where I spent £7 on f & v, £1.50 on 12 cobs, plus about 310 in Farm Foods on orange juice, milk and chocolate bars plus about another £16 in the Co Op as they have new offers out every other Wednesday. Today they had half price pasta (the One beginning with "N" which I can't remember the name of at the moment!) and Cathedral cheese for £2 and BOGOF on Utterly Butterly. Just going to update signature now.

lynne1307

Thanks for your replies guys.

Will have a look through the cupboards and do a weekly plan to start off with