October 2010 Grocery Challenge

Chloris

Dozen free-range eggs £1.70. Feel like I am managing the grocery budget quite well. Payday is the 27th so we have just one more main shop and then the top-ups. Problem is its been a spend heavy month in other areas:eek:. May call November a skinny month :cool:.

mongmoney

Long_tall_sally wrote: »

I have COMPLETELY lost the plot this month! Bought some of the half price weetabix boxes from Mr Ts (to add to the ones that I already had from Asd*s and tinned tomatoes, plus milk, toilet rolls & chocolate bars from Farm Foods & bread, tuna & ketchup from Iceland so all in all another £34 spent. I used to log all my grocery spends individually to work out where was usually the cheapest place to buy things from so I have started going through all my receipts, doing this again and comparing to my log from a year or so ago. I know a lot of things have gone up in price but to be honest, so far from the receipts that I have done, I am still paying the same price for a lot of things. Some examples of these are
2 Warburtons wholemeal loaves for £2 - I know Hovis is cheaper at Farm Foods but I am not that keen on it.
Robinsons squash - two for a £
Nicky toilet rolls from Farm Foods - £2 for 9
Toothpaste - never nore than a £
Chocolate bars - around 25-35p each bought in multi packs
various margs - spreads - around 50 -70p each
Gluten free cereal - £2 a box
Weetabix - lately at less than £2.50 for 72, i.e. less than before
wine - no more than £4 a bottle
Individual Walkers crisps - £1 for 6
Sensations large bags - £1
Orange squash - 59p Farm Foods
Porridge - much cheaper now as used to buy a brand name
2lt Coca cola - around £1 - £1.50 a bottle
Fairy wasing up liquid - £1
Fruit & veg - have always boughta lot of this from market or Aldi or Lidl
Cheese - lately less than £3 a packet
Baked beans - around 25 a can
tuna - £3 for 4
Milk - £1.50 for 2 at Farm Foods
Mince - just bought some at £1.19 but generally £1.99 each at Lidl where as I used to pay £5 for two at Mr S
Shower gel - never more than £1

So why is my shopping bill more than it used to be?! I did used to achieve £450 a month sometimes a year or so ago!

Sorry for the long post. Off to catch up on the previous pages now. x

Long Tall Sally- I'm so pleased that most of what you have found, I have too. However, got to go mr T's for the wetabix now..
Mongy

mongmoney

Just got back from Mr T, only really went for the weetabix but ended up spending £25-40. However, I only bought was on offer:-the 5kg of basmati, dolmio sauces, monster munch, shower gel, toothpaste, and of course 3 boxes of weetabix. Couldn't believe the silly price of £2-39 for 72. I'm still well within target this month and my freezer is full to bursting. Should only need milk to last me the month now. Really pleased.
Keep up the good work peeps.
Mongy
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October grocery challenge £95-94/£160
NSD's 13/10

hex2

Long Tall Sally - I do sympathise, and have a similar number to feed, teenage steps, etc. Mine was creeping up and up and I took a few painful decisions. BH weekend the steps went through 16 lites of coke (the months order), and all of the months crisps and I finally lost it. We now have cordial and value pop and if they moan they can buy their own branded coke out of their pocket money - they have yet to take me up on this. Packed lunch crisps are hidden away, and the basic ones are put out weekly. Sweets go into individual named tubs, you run out - tough. Is it worth trying to educate any of them about what things cost? I have HM soup for lunch most days, DH left to himself will have a tin of beans, mixed with a tin of tuna, and then grate 4oz cheese on top (yuck, and think of the calories!) - I can make a weeks worth of soup for that money but he had it in his head that these things are cheap.

I hope things get easier for you soon.

katholicos

NSD today. Yesterday i pulled 9 kilos of parsnips from one of my raised beds so i have been peeling,chopping, mashing roasting that all afternoon...right up to about 20 mins ago actually...phew!

Anyway, i made a couple of pizzas this afternoon and we are going to have it with bucketloads of buttery mashed parsnips and watch the last couple of episodes of Lost Season 6 that we have borrowed from my parents. Never watched it when it was on tv.

Rightio, best go check on my roasting parsnips!

~moneysavingnovice~

Does anyone else find themselves making some slightly odd dinners??

Tonight we're having beef casserole, swede mash and homemade chips lol. OH is on board tho so we'll give it a go!

cw18

~moneysavingnovice~ wrote: »

Does anyone else find themselves making some slightly odd dinners??

Tonight we're having beef casserole, swede mash and homemade chips lol. OH is on board tho so we'll give it a go!

apart from the swede (yuck!), I can't see anything wrong with that.... I used to love beef stew and chips (especially after 'mashing' each chip into the gravy to soak some up before eating the chip in question )

Hippeechiq

cw18 wrote: »

I used to love beef stew and chips (especially after 'mashing' each chip into the gravy to soak some up before eating the chip in question )

That is just so wrong :rotfl: I'm with you on the swede front though _pale_

My idea of being able to come in on budget if I spend £4.47 per day, fell at the first hurdle. Spends of £6.53 today on some F0rmil Bio Washing Liquid, Bacon, Yoghurt's, Chocolate Mousse and Ice Cream. I'd forgotten I needed the F0rmil for OH's white shirts and would have been on target if not for that.

The Pork Loin Medallions that £idl had on offer had sold out - that's the 2nd time I've done a 1½ mile round trip on foot to get them and they haven't had them, or the 400g pack of Middle Bacon for £1 :mad: so the particular dish I was buying that for will now be off the menu, cos I ain't paying full price.

I've spent £223.41, so have a remaining budget of £51.59 divided by 12 gives me a daily allowance of £4.29 per day now

I need to get me some of those 72 Weetab!x for £2.39 while the offer is on - offers like that aren't to be sneezed at

Longtallsally - in answer to your question....all I can think of, is that you're buying more items because you're finding them cheaper possibly, so it still ends up costing you more overall maybe?

This month for the first time, I've created a basic document in Notepad (still haven't gotten around to d/l that proggy wssla0 told me about) and I'm listing every item I buy this month as and when I buy it so that I can see just where my money is going. I intend to do this for a few months to give me a clear idea of what my biggest expenditure is. It's very basic, but it'll do the job. I've entitled this first one Groceries Bought In October - genius eh?

cw18

I've logged grocery spends at what/where/how much (and orginal price if bought in clearance) level for around 2 years now...

At the start of this year I did some 'crunching' on my 2009 spends, and it was frightening to see how much I'd spent on 'junk'/luxury goods such as cakes and cream - even if almost 100% of them had been Whoopsied to 50-75% off :eek: (I bought at full price for birthday treats, but that was about it other than a couple of packs of cheap biscuits once every few months)

Have a nasty feeling that 2010 isn't going to fair much better on this either

But 2011 has to if I'm going to keep the 2 stone I've lost off for good However I'm expecting my grocery budget to see a substantial increase at the same time, as my diet has changed considerably (and I'm actually eating a lot more than I was - don't seem to have been eatng enough, especially since I started running back in May!!)

Hippeechiq

Wow! 2 stone!! That's one hell of an achievement. Well done :T

I envy you your many whoopsies, I don't think I've ever bought one.

The only two big shops I'm near enough to walk to are £idl and Te$co. I've never seen a whoopsie in £idls and Te$cos are sooooooo miniscule that they're insulting.

I expect to get more than a few pence reduction on items that are just about to be past their best or use by dates.

So any money I save has to be when things are on special offer.

Must be interesting to see what you've been buying for almost 24 months - you must have seen a lot of increase in prices.

When I download a proper program, I'd like to create something (I wont say spreadsheet, as I don't know how to do a spreadsheet) where I list all the months of the year, all the items I buy and the price of each item listed under each month...................it'll give me something to whinge about if nothing else..........I really need to get out more :rotfl: