August 2010 Grocery Challenge

~moneysavingnovice~

Haven't posted in a while as moved into my very first owned home 2weeks ago! Mega expense (and a few naughty takeaways) later...

As takeaway are a diff budget, still on track to come in under budget this month but got 2 more weekly shops to do this month and have OHs whole family coming 2m so need to buy lots of BBQ stuff tonight- any ideas how to feed 8 on a BBQ shoe string?!

Spiggle

Hello all,

We had a lovely meal out last night. Thanks again for your kind wishes. Loved the singing hamster! :rotfl:

OH has just got back from doing the food shop for the party. Bit miffed as DD took him to A**a and I never shop there (whole other long story ). Anyway the damage there was £69.68 and I've updated the sig. I have a horrible feeling though that tomorrow there will be more spends.

That leaves us with only £42 for the rest of the month. There's no way we'll keep under now. Cat food alone will be £12.99. I may 'play' a bit and take the cat food out again for this month and include it from next month instead. It was pretty stupid of me to include it this month knowing we had so much extra expense. :doh: We'll see how it goes.

Hope you all have a good evening and weekend in case I don't get on tomorrow.

Take care,
Spigs

guccigoo

hi all, well i had my mr t shop delivered today which came to £60.50 :eek: i will be glad when the kids are back at school then hopefully the shopping will come down a bit

My carrots are growing nicely and my spring onions but not ready to be harvested yet. The onions should be ready in about a month, so looking forward to eating HG veg

scruffypet

Have been looking at this thread for a while now but havn't joined as have been scared to find out what i actually spend. i am going to give it a go in september so please put me down for £400 that month. There are 5 adults in our house so we do go through a lot of food ,but i'm going to try to get more organised with menus etc

MadamMim2013

Only a small spend today topping up on milk 4x 4pts (2x 4pts for £2 at As*a), some grapes and some woopsied special chipolata sausages (planning on cooking tidgy toad in the holes for tea tomorrow :cheesy:) so £7.18 on the total, not bad as I'm only at £148.14/£250 and only 10 days to go!!!

suzybloo

yee-ha!!!! another day with no spends! I am really pleased with myself. In the office we have decided to buy in bulk between us. We have ordered 2 boxes of chicken breasts direct from the local factory. These are huge and are too big to be used by the leading supermarkets the last time we got these we paid approx £1 per breast - two were ample for a casserole for 4, and in each box was approx 20-24 breasts. We also contacted the local butchers and asked if there was a discount for buying in bulk, which means if we put in an order for over £150 we will get 10% which means we should all save about £5-6 each - not much but a help at the end of the day. The butchers have said they will make everything up into 1lb packs, and deliver, so it will be easy to sort out. We are now looking at veg wholesale on a fortnightly basis but just waiting to see price wise. Its possibly an idea others might like to look at? The young girl in the office went to the papershop this morning and bought 8 Sun newspapers and the woman questioned why she wanted so many!! hope your all well, and have a good weekend!

Hippeechiq

scruffypet wrote: »

Have been looking at this thread for a while now but havn't joined as have been scared to find out what i actually spend. i am going to give it a go in september so please put me down for £400 that month. There are 5 adults in our house so we do go through a lot of food ,but i'm going to try to get more organised with menus etc

Hello & Welcome scruffypet :wave:

The most important thing is that you want to take part, and that in turn will help you watch what you spend.

We are a 4 adult household, and we used to spend best part of £500 a month on food, and often, probably nearer £600. I'm trying to cut ours down to £275 because I lost my job and that's all there is available for food - well, maybe £300 at a push, and also because I wasn't happy about how much I used to spend.

Menu planning will be one of your biggest friends and one of the best ways to help you cut down and minimise on food wastage, which in turn, will minimise your food costs.

The other biggest help for me personally (apart from all the help and advice received from everyone on this thread) is online grocery shopping for my "big" fortnightly shop. I still by my bread, milk and fruit and veg locally, but shopping online, for me, means I have complete control over how much I spend. If everything I want to buy comes to more than I have to spend, then I remove the thing that I need the least, and it has to wait until the next "big" shop. It also stops impulse buying.

Others may have different views, but that's what's so great about being part of this thread.....finding out what works for other people, and then giving it a go to see if it works for you.

You'll need to follow us over to the September thread when it starts (we have a new thread every month) but it will be easy enough to find

Hippeechiq

Mrsgibbs1503 wrote: »

Only a small spend today topping up on milk 4x 4pts (2x 4pts for £2 at As*a), some grapes and some woopsied special chipolata sausages (planning on cooking tidgy toad in the holes for tea tomorrow :cheesy:) so £7.18 on the total, not bad as I'm only at £148.14/£250 and only 10 days to go!!!

suzybloo wrote: »

yee-ha!!!! another day with no spends! I am really pleased with myself. In the office we have decided to buy in bulk between us. We have ordered 2 boxes of chicken breasts direct from the local factory. These are huge and are too big to be used by the leading supermarkets the last time we got these we paid approx £1 per breast - two were ample for a casserole for 4, and in each box was approx 20-24 breasts. We also contacted the local butchers and asked if there was a discount for buying in bulk, which means if we put in an order for over £150 we will get 10% which means we should all save about £5-6 each - not much but a help at the end of the day. The butchers have said they will make everything up into 1lb packs, and deliver, so it will be easy to sort out. We are now looking at veg wholesale on a fortnightly basis but just waiting to see price wise. Its possibly an idea others might like to look at? The young girl in the office went to the papershop this morning and bought 8 Sun newspapers and the woman questioned why she wanted so many!! hope your all well, and have a good weekend!

Well done you two :j and I think that's a fab idea suzybloo

If I still lived in Suffolk where my family and friends live, I definitely suggest that to them, but I don't know anyone I could do that with down here. It's a fab idea though all the same :T

Herbyme

Hi all, £323.56 so far, which is much better than July even allowing for 5 days away so am pretty chuffed. OH still not fully on board but getting better. Rigorous menu planning, regular forays into the freezer and store cupboard and blinkers on while shopping are really helping. But did blow £3.95 on a bright green nail varnish, coouldn't resist ;-) !!!

notjustlaura

I was scared to try the challenge and therefore find out the true picture too, scruffypet. But I'm doing it this month and it's actually rather fun. Best wishes to you for September

Buying in bulk with your colleagues sounds an excellent idea, suzybloo - almost makes me wish I was back working!

I had one spend on cold meds yesterday (sig updated) and may buy the TV paper today if I fit enough to walk to the shop and get it - will see how I feel when I've done the essential things around the house like litter trays and DW. It's on 50p but I'd rather add another NSD to my total than money to the 'spent' side of my sig!

Hope you all have good, MSE days