September 2010 Grocery Challenge

katholicos

suzybloo, how lovely to buy your onions in this way. How fun!

Well, i went in the Co-op today and bought 3 x blocks of cheese because they were half price. I shall grate them and bag them up and sling them in the freezer.

katholicos

~moneysavingnovice~ wrote: »

Grr! Want a bit of a rant...

I'm on a work trip this week and work aren't paying expenses. So, I've been bringing my packed lunches with me which was fine until today at lunch one of my colleagues said to me, "I can buy you a drink at least if money is so bad you have to bring your own food with you". Made me feel so carp, and put a downer on all my good GC savings. I can afford to buy food from the ridiculously overpriced cafe but I choose not to cos there are better things to spend my money on, like my credit card bill!

Stupid people! /rant over!

Surely you should be eligable for expenses if it is a work trip! Crikey!

I must say that i think your colleague extremely lacking in the manners department. How very rude :mad:

You have every right to tell your colleague where to shove their offer of a free drink, but since you are probably far nicer than your colleague, you may opt to be the bigger person and not stoop to their level.

Personally, i wouldn't make up any excuses about being food intolerant or having allergies etc because there is no reason on this planet that you have done anything that needs to be excused.

Sue14

£16.46 spent in Morrisons today. Had a nice surprise when I checked my receipt at home, the milk I thought was 90p was only 50p, and a jar of dill, shelf price 79p, was also only 50p.

cw18

aliwali wrote: »

Hi again

Just to clarify my £280 budget does not include formula or nappies at the moment, it does include toiletries. I do buy a lot of own brand/value food, have done for a long while. I only have a couple of must haves and that is at least Willow Farm chicken or free range from mr T. Finest sausages and decent bread. I live about 15 min walk from Tesco, not sure that this is a good thing!! Do find a few whoopsies but obvioulsly need to try harder. We do have a home bargains in town and often get bits from there.

My grocery budget is £1.70 per person per day - and the people I've been counting were/are all classed as adults. My toiletries and cleaning budget works out at roughly 40p/day for the household (£144/year) - but DS bought his own toiletries on top of this.

But I rely VERY heavily on Whoopsie items and App F00ds purchases, and don't buy any alcohol having chosen to give it up completely in Nov 2008 (never drank much anyway, so wasn't worth buying any in as it tended to sit around until it went off!!!!).

There are only a couple of items where I won't drop to the cheapest options (brown sauce doesn't even get to stores own) including tea-bags as I find the value ones don't brew any stronger than dish-water so I was using them 2 at a time meaning they were no cheaper, coffee which I rarely drink so doesn't make much of an impact by not dropping below store own-label and toilet rolls though I only ever stock up when they're on a good offer, so the type I buy changes regularly.

In 2009 I spent just under £1328 on groceries, with just under £430 of that going on Whoopsies/App Foods orders for goods that would have cost £1573 at full price (but what I haven't taken into account is that if they hadn't been cheap I would have bought cheaper versions or not bought them at all).

My toiletries and cleaning spends ended up at £142.65, but this included a heap of reduced cleaning products when our local C00p closed down in October (I try and use the Eco ones, and I got £46.74 worth of the C00p own branded ones for just £22.85 so shouldn't need to buy anything else until at least the end of next year - think washing powder will be the first thing to go, but I also have a huuuuge bag of soapnuts to go at which will eke it out in line with my toilet cleaner, washing up liquid and surface cleaners - the last of these being supplemented with my supply of St@rdrops )

I live a 10 minute walk from Mr M, and have the reduction times down to a fine art. I admit this is helped by the fact I've worked there since last November, but a lot of the staff recognised me from my Whoopsie hunts when I turned up for my first shift (some even when I went for my interview!) - not sure if that was a good thing or not, but I now have a couple who give me the 'heads up' during my afternoon shifts if they're about to reduce something they know I tend to pick up from the mark-down sections



So I would say it IS possible,though you may have to be adaptable as to what meals you're going to make based on any offers/clearance items you manage to pick up. (I currently have a meal plan to the end of the year, with all meat, fish, pies etc already being in my freezer - so I'm hoping to claw back some/all of my current GC overspend by 31st Dec )

Even if I counted your 3 children as the equivalent of 2 adults (given their ages, and the fact one is on formula which isn't included), then I'd be looking at a food budget of £210-£211 for a 31 day month. My toiletries/cleaning budget would be £12.40 for the same period, so even assuming the toiletries were £8/month (which mine doesn't come anywhere near) and you needed to add this on for another 2 adults (as I was only buying for one) this would mean I'd be looking at no more than £28/month (given you're excluding nappies). This makes for a total monthly budget of around £240, giving you some spare for your chickens, sausages and bread (and speaking of bread, have you tried making your own?)

loulou0327

Carolinerunner hope you dont mind me butting in but there are a few things we do whch may help you. ( I shop for 2 adults, 2 kids(who eat adult sized meals), a king shepherd (basically a huge german shepherd) rabbit, parrot, budgie, tropical and goldfish and add all toileteries in the budget).

- We try to shop monthly mainly, making a list of everything we have in before ordering.

- flexable meal planning i.e. I make a list of say 10 meals that we like and buy the ingredience to make enough for 3 meals of each for all of us within the monthly shop.

- Never throw anything edible away ( a recent thing we started and it's saved us loads)

- Dont cook 1 meal cook 3 and freeze the rest not only does this save time on future rushed days in saves on gas/electric as you only have the oven on once. (cook 10 recipies, have 20 days off!)

- Buy bigger pans and oven trays (comes in handy for the above)

- don't buy to much fruit or veg that is out of season

- Make at least two whoopsy hunts a month ( I find Monay and Tuesday evenings the best, it varies but usually better around 6-7pm near us) set yourself a budget and only take that amount of cash with you and no cards.

- Use FF for bread (2 for £1) and milk (2 2ltr for £1.50)

- Forage, me and the kids love blackberry and damson picking which funnily enough grow in the middle of a new housing estate near us.

- Shop by per kg not by pack price (funnily enough tesco's grated cheese works out loads less per kg that tesco's block cheese)

- Bulk out everything, use loads of veg, pulses, lentils and beans if you like them.

- Buy potatoes by the sac (make lots of potato bakes and shepherds/ fish pies, freeze mash etc)

- Use value herbs i think they are 19p? instead of italian seasoning Mr T's is mainly oregano and basil anyway.

- do you have a slow cooker? these are a godsend!

- Make very good friends with anyone you know who owns an allotment.

The first couple of days after the big shop you feel a bit like a headless chicken but once you have your freezer stocked up with meals it's great to say "oh we'll have a freezer night go and pick a meal out of the freezer kids and nuke it!" you know the 'ready meals' have all the veg and meat they need they just cost a hell of a lot less!

I could go on forever but wouldent wan't to bore you ridgid, lol
BTW if there are missing letters in my text i do appologise my keyboard is playing up but i'm resisting the urge to replace it ( i have a feeling this weeks 5000 word essay is going to be very tedious!)

welshkaz

Another nsd day for me woohoo x

scotsaver

Did anyone watch the TV programme on Channel 4 last night "Food" - turns out that the cheaper unwashed Maris Piper potatoes are from the same Farm as the twice the price potatoes - the only difference is the more expensive potatoes have been washed and are all a larger/similar size, They said the same applies to Carrots etc - don't know about you but I don't mind having to wash my veg and I'm not fussed if it's a funny shape - I have an Allotment so I'm used to digging up veg that doesn't all come out the same size.;)

Anyway, back to the GC - I'm afraid I'm going to be over budget. The kids are back at School and I've had to pay out for School Dinners, they have an automated system where we load money on the Internet so they don't need to carry money around. They have packed lunch most days but they feel they need a hot meal on the days when they have sport/after school clubs, so loaded that up for the month and also had to buy fruit, milk and some meat for the rest of the month.

Prices are rising too so I'm going to see how it pans out this month and next month and then I may have to increase my GC budget.:o

I would take School dinners out of the equation but I think this should count.

Dinner tonight will be Sausage and mash, will dig up some spuds from the Allotment today and pick the last of the beans to go with it.

Have a good day everyone.;)

sparkleisshopping

scotsaver wrote: »

Did anyone watch the TV programme on Channel 4 last night "Food" - turns out that the cheaper unwashed Maris Piper potatoes are from the same Farm as the twice the price potatoes - the only difference is the more expensive potatoes have been washed and are all a larger/similar size, They said the same applies to Carrots etc - don't know about you but I don't mind having to wash my veg and I'm not fussed if it's a funny shape - I have an Allotment so I'm used to digging up veg that doesn't all come out the same size.;)

I find that the unwashed potatoes also last for longer - I think the soil on them protects them and as they haven't been tumbled around in some sort of industrial potato washing machine they don't tend to have bruises or bad bits on them.

I spent £35.16 in lidl last night, including £15 on booze for my friend's party at the weekend - crate of lager for him and a bottle of port for me My total for the month is £155.04 which I'm more than happy with!

LannyLee

EllieA wrote: »

Oh weird and wonderful things

4 tins of Coconut Milk.

Pinenuts??

Massive Bag of Cooking Apples (i have made tons into pies/crumble and apple filling but still have loads left and the freezer is full)

couscous i know i should be able to use this but tbh i find it abit boring and tastless but refuse to bin it.

Green beans and cherry toms from the garden, getting abit sick of them now tbh, frozen loads but need some good recipes rather than sidedish/butty's/salad because if i serve them again i thing im gonna have it thrown at me.

Cracker bread thats been there for at least a year

Banana Chips?

Oh and a serious amount of mixed seeds (things like pumpkin, sunflower etc) i occasionally have some as a snack but i have so many i really could do with getting rid of some.

Rice and balsamix vinegar i bought for a recipe at some point and have never needed again.

Can you not try a thai green curry wth the coconut milk & green beans, you could even serve it with cous cous instead of rice?

adelight

Lots of good worthwhile stuff on approved foods 89p for bread mix for 13 loaves, mix for 60 dough balls for 99p, 3kg grapefruit segments £1.50... i love fresh bread, eat grapefruit daily and BF loves dough balls, and it's cheap. I might buy...