November 2010 Grocery Challenge

rosieben

de1amo, can I suggest that you keep note of all spends for a month or so; breakdown the totals into types of spends - eg 'dial in food', fresh fruit/veg, meat etc and that would give you a clear picture of what's spent where; there's little point in you comparing with our prices in order to set a reasonable budget for the present, but it might be interesting to compare what your wife pays against what is paid for food at work, for instance?

you need to have your wife on board if you're to make substantial reductions in spends; as others on this challenge have found, if your partner doesn't understand what you're trying to do or why you want to do it, then they're not able to co-operate

katholicos

No spendy day today, home made yoghurt and cereal for lunch (had a bit of a lie in ;-))...pastrami sandwiches made with homebaked bread for tea.

niksyg

Evening all!

Just in to update.
Mum has been visiting and likes to spoil us so have been out a couple of times.
Just left her watching eastenders on iplonk while OH and I did a dash around A$da.
Haven't been to the big one for aaaaages, we have been regulars at Mr Ts for a while and was really chuffed to only spend £23.33!!
Saved £4.76 altogether in deals - happy with 2 chucks for £6 - that's about 8 meals worth, maybe more if I make stock for soup.

All seems to be going well - feeling much more positive about the challenge now!

wssla00

Good evening everyone! Hope your all well. I know I said no spends but I treated my mum and myself to a dine in for a tenner this afternoon so am looking forward to that this evening, with x factor. I will update my budget in a mo.
I am now starting to think about christmas and my budget. I'm hoping it wont be too much more than usual but I know I will need to have some goodies in for the visiting masses.
The weather is getting ready for stews and soups so at least they can go in the slow cooker and I can forget about it until it's ready. With some lovely home made bread of course!
Anyway.... I'm off to try and plan my meals for the month starting at the end of next week....

Have a good un

wssla00

LOL Katholicos- I think I may need my eyes tested. Read that as paracetamol sandwiches!!!!

guccigoo

had a spend today in mr s and spent £11.35.

Didnt get round to making toffee apple crumble today but will be tomorrow :j Off to watch Merlin now

sharronej

rosieben wrote: »

you need to have your wife on board if you're to make substantial reductions in spends; as others on this challenge have found, if your partner doesn't understand what you're trying to do or why you want to do it, then they're not able to co-operate

You are so right Rosieben, my oh drives me insane - I work really hard to keep our food shopping (and everything else tbh) to a minimum yet he calls into MrT's almost daily for alcohol and nibbles - It doesn't come out of my budgets but infuriates me that we're supposed to be working towards the bigger picture!

OOh nearly forgot managed another NSD and hopefully will be the same tomorrow - defrosting the bacon tonight for our brunch after marching with our Cubs tomorrow...please God don't let it rain...20 wet and cold children are not happy children!

karmachilovething

Some spends to declare for the past couple of days:
£12 on my veg box
£2.22 on smoked mackerel
£19.35 at the farmers market this morning, some bacon, sausages, stewing steak and these great large chili peppers which are between sweet peppers and chilies

Onto my previous total of £13.86, I'm now up to £47.43.

Want_to_be_free

de1amo wrote: »

i am not at all stern with my wife--i am on a mission finding trek!!--my wife has always just picked up shopping etc as the week goes along. i am trying to compare her 'shops' with the bigger supermarkets that i lean toward because of my 'englishness'--i will use my supermarket link --i didnt know it existed!--i like to think of myeelf a savvy shopper but my wife is typically Turkish and just buys what is convienent in the shop she is in--she tops things up almost daily and i am trying to tell her it is better to do it at an out of town market but i need prices ideas to convince her--there is no my supermarket on the net for turks as supermarkets dont compete--they have a supermarket that is owned by tesco and a carefor but they dont 'fight'--they are out of town and we need to go to buy a bulk which means stopping the daily buying. Also my wife is too trigger happy with dial in food-its not junk food but its costly!

Hello de1amo, since you live in Turkey, and me reading your messages including the ones in weight loss challange, I wanted to write to you about Turkey.

Food prices will depend on where you live. Same thing will cost you 2x in the city, x in a town. Cost will change dramatically for the same food from one shop to another. You just need to find the best one because the cheap is not always good.

You can not haggle in Supermarkets but you can pretty much every where else including food shopping. ( Not that I can ever do, too shy for that) Actually supermarkets do have competition but nothing like we know in the UK. I remember ''Gima'' as a supermarket... But I know there are several biger ones now. They usually print their deals and you can pick up their leaflet and compare prices, sometimes it comes with newspaper.

To be honest , I would not bother going into supermarket when in Turkey because you can buy absolutely everything for nearly half price in the market - 'pazar' . Where I used to live, there was one on evey week days in a different area. You just need to know where they are... They don't only sell food and cloths but I would just stick to those. With time you will get to know where they are, and what to buy where, and from whom. You can buy quality , organic foods for nearly half of the supermarket prices.

I would never buy cereal, because most Turks don't eat it and it is ''hype'' thing hence very expensive. I miss the breakfast with ''Simit'', type of Turkish bread with sesame... Oh and bread , fresh bread? They are everywhere. When I was there the cost was about 20p:T But I don't know now...

For meat, I would always go to the local butcher ''kasap'' and if possible make friends with him. Well you might not get the cheapest meat but sure you will get the best pieces.

However, within Turkish culture, keeping up with Jones is quite important. What people say about each other, what people think about each other is quite important. I don't really understand the mentality sometimes but never the less I accept it. To some, going to a market , even though it is better option then supermarket, is a status symbol and they do it so other people will not talk about them. Are you sure your wife has the same financial mentality as you? Are you sure she is not trying to use the power of buying as a status symbol? Ah an another thing is, Turks thinks that Europeans are loaded, maybe she does not want to lose the face?

Have you heard about Turkish prices and Foreigner prices for the same goods yet?

I love Turkey. It is a beautiful with very friendly, kind people. My advice would be not to shop at malls, -although I do enjoy browsing and eating lovely food, don't go to supermarkets if you can avoid it, don't buy electricals while in Turkey but buy lots of cloths and always use ''pazar''

Please drink ' 1 kadeh raki' for me too :beer: :o

elf06

Morning all. Well had a bit of a spendy day yesterday . Had a small spend of £7.37 (was a bit more but the papers were for mum and she gave me the money for them) in Mr T and another spend of £14.27 (only counting £13.27 though as I had been refunded £1 from last weeks BBFL order).
Mr T was a total of £7.37 but this included some great whoopsies -
Bag cooking apples 49p (which have slow cooked with sultanas and mixed spice and will be crumbles for soup and pud night )
chicken goujons £2 reduced to £1.35 but will do about 3 or 4 meals for me
bananas loose 63p
chicken burgers 25p pack of 2 so will do 2 meals
bbq lamb with mint and rosemary 25p pack of 3 so will do 3 meals
grapes reduced price 1.49
strawberries not reduced but DS has been asking all week for some and they dont seem to be getting reduced at all
smarties for DS 45p
new toothbrush for DS £1

All in all not too bad but more than I wanted to spend. Shouldnt need anything much for a few days/next week but I might go to Mr T tomorrow to see what I can get on the buy one get 2 free offer as so far I havent had the change to get anything on the offers!!

Will update my Sig - hope everyone is well