September 2010 Grocery Challenge

Long_tall_sally

Well declaring at £472.34 for the month of September, £22.34 over budget. I haven't been updating my total as I bought, so possibly my spends are actually even higher but I now cannot check as I no longer have a note of my spends at the market. I have this amount scribbled in pencil on a piece of paper near the computer & remember writing it a few days ago but can't actually remember if I bought anything since that so I will have to go with that amount! This is yet another failure, although less so than other months so slightly pleased that it was under £500 but also dissapointed that yet again I didn't meet target. For some reason I seem to think that if I am virtually spent up witha week to go to payday that somehow I will pull it off & unfortunately that never seems to happen.

We had a few cheap meals this month aswell like burger, chips & beans & I did find that whilst they tasted ok,they didn't seem as fulfilling as what I would call a proper meal. But we also had quiche a couple of nights which is half price at the co op at the moment (£1.19) so I have bought another couple of them for the freezer as one of these does 3 of us for dinner with chips or potatoes, sweetcorn or coleslaw or maybe salad.

Been to Lidl & Aldi today but will add these onto October's thread when that is up & running.

p.s. great tips as per usual Spiggle!

jintyb

Spiggle wrote: »

for?

Top tips:

Avoid shops - shopping is not a leisure activity!;



Spigs

Spigs, it took me 40 years to finally realise that!!!:o - so NEWBIES, welcome aboard and dont be too hard on yourselves:j

EvieSaver

thiscanbedone wrote: »

Hi, I'm a newby, can you put me down for 300 for October, this will be a big thing for us as I usually spend about 700ish (hangs head in shame). Is it ok to feel quite exited about doing this, I do love a challenge

Hi thiscanbedone I am nearly at the end of my second month of the GC and I am still excited about it, so I hope it's ok!:D Good luck with your target as a £400 per month drop is going to be huge!

claire1234

hi everyone,

just done a online shop with tesco so that brings my total to £192.57 spent this month,
my aim was £180 so over spent by £12.57 but we have eaten very well this month & have plenty of tins/packets/pasta/rice in the cupboard, 8 months supply of dishwasher tablets.

it was my first attempted at a proper grocery challenge so im rather pleased i didnt go way over.

we live in quite a rural area (snowed in every year) so it doesnt feel quite right when im not stocked up so ive been trying to find a balance between a weekly shop & stocking up, i always end up spending more on tins/toilet rolls etc then fresh stuff for that weeks meals so think i need to conentrate on meal planning & sticking to it.

will defo be following this thread & joining in again in october,
hope everyone`s doing well

rosieben

Spiggle wrote: »

... shopping is not a leisure activity!; ...

I'm with jintyb on this one, if only I'd learned that lesson 40 years ago

Great advice, as always, spigs :T

need to double-check but I think I've had about 20 NS days this month and hoping for more this coming week; I shouldnt need anything except maybe a couple of bananas on monday, have enough milk, veg etc to last till 30th

onward and upward girls! and boys too of course if we have any

Spiggle

jintyb wrote: »

Spigs, it took me 40 years to finally realise that!!!:o - so NEWBIES, welcome aboard and dont be too hard on yourselves:j

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: jintyb!

I'm lucky in that I can't stand shopping so it helps a great deal. Mind you, that's why we were spending £600+ per month for just two 'cos I just left it to OH who will freely admit to being carp with money. Until we started this he really did believe the only purpose for money was to spend it. He also did not understand the difference between a real saving (bargain) and something that was extortionately priced being reduced to a slightly less extorionate price (defo not a bargain).

Long tall sally, you have not failed you just didn't get within the budget. What do you think you would have spent otherwise? I suspect it would have been £:eek::eek::eek:!!! Sending you hugs as you should not beat yourself up so much. :grouphug:

Great result claire1234, I'm glad you're going to stay with us.

I forgot to update for us earlier too, so forgive me. I went to MrT yesterday after work to get the final sm things we need before the month end next Thursday.

I stuck to the list apart from one real saving. The 42 wash size of Persil S&M was £12+ a few weeks back. Currently they have the 28 wash bottles on 'offer' at £4 but seemingly no sign of the large bottles. As I was walking away from the shelves the very top one caught my eye (I'm only 5' 4" ) and sitting there with no yellow offer tickets were some of the large 42 wash bottles at £5 each. :T I got two as stock ups (and two of the huge MrT conditioner at 2 for £3 one I need the other is stock) and so have not included the cost in this month but have instead added £5 to October and £6.50 (including conditioner) to November on my spreadsheet. It's strange being in deficit two months in advance but I won't get near opening these before then.

So after deducting those the shop in MrT came to £32.71.

We both had to see the doctor today (I have chest infection, probable shingles and on top of everything else OH now has a kidney infection :mad:) so we decided to do all our town bits of shopping today and save going out tomorrow. So, £3.15 at the greengrocer, £14.46 at the butcher and £3.66 in the Sp*r. All have been added to the signature.

Very, very close to budget now with only £7.02 to last until Thursday but really should be doable as we have loads in.

So good luck all with the final push and take care,
Spigs

laloopi

Today's organic box delivery and spends at £land, local Spar and organic shop mean I have only got £8.50 left to last a week! We've plenty in so should only need milk and a bit of fruit, I'll be so pleased if we manage it!!

greent

Dangerously close to target here (albeit a greatly reduced target) after a trip to Mr T's today. However, before month end I should only need Sunday's Observer and one or two loaves of bread. If I can manage that then I'll just scrape in under budget!!

Have a weeny weeny bit of space in the freezer. Am resisting the ureg to buy anything to fill it as I have no batch cooked meals in there - just ingredients to make meals - and I want to make a batch of chilli and a lasagne - both of which will take up more room than the mince that I'll take out of there to make them! Also have 3 carrier bags of apples and 1 of pears that I'd like to prep and freeze for puds (there's only so much chutney I can eat/ give away!! ).....

Almost there, folks!

Longtallsally - well done - that's pretty close to budget - don't be too hard on yourself

BlimusOreilly

I'm so excited - I just went to a fruit picking farm/orchard and spent £6.91 on:

A ginormous pumpkin £1.00
A large round courgette 50P
An XL savoy cabbage £1.00
4 sweetcorn cobs £1.00
Bag of different varieties of apples (21) £2.00
Bag of different varieties of pears (8 pears) £1.00
And a punnet of plums 41p

Then spent 80p on some Rocket at Mr T's. And checked into Mr A's for deals and spent another £3.18.

Will go and update sig now.

hex2

Blimus - I like the sound of that scheme.

I haven't had a veg box for the last two weeks as we have toms/courgettes/runner and french beans. I bought some veg in Alid/lidl instead, it does me good to do this every so often to make me appreciate how much better and fresher the relatively expensive veg box stuff is. Also a £20 spend in the co-op at lunchtime today - timed it right and got RTC melon, meatballs, salmon, prawns, sausages and sirloin steak plus the stuff I did want of lemons, double cream and on offer cheese. 7 family meals in the freezer and tonights menu for DH and I of king prawns with melon, griddled steak with green beans, and tarte au citron will go down very nicely. Lots of things to integrate into October meal plan. As it stand I have a good third of my budget left with 6 days to go. Unheard of!