February 2011 Grocery Challenge

debtfreewannabe321

quintwins wrote: »

well i spent £15 on fish and chips yesterday and £5 on happy meals, tbh the week i've had as made me relise there are alot of things more important than money so i will still be doing the challenge but i don't care if i go over, next week is going to be very stressful aswell so i will prob get a few treats then aswell, hope your all well

I agree quin! i ended up getting my kids a pizza take out the other night, as one was being sick everywhere, one moaning and I just couldn't be bothered. I ended up spending £15 :eek: but it was worth it! AND i was also glad i had made a seperate budget for eating out/take out meals that we may 'need' :cool: Hope all is well x

kitschy

I think I've done my last shop for this budget - famous last words, eh? A*da didn't have the cheese I wanted, but it wasn't the be all and end all, will check after work one night to see if they've restocked it. Also seem to have a lot of stuff still in the freezer, so will have a stock check and think I can go for a lower budget next month

laineyc_2

Won't manage a NSD. I have to get some naan bread and onions. We are having chicken tikka massalla, chicken pakora, meat samosas, rice and naan bread this evening. I have some apples that need using so I will make an apple crumble.I am baking some twinks and some scones. I am at work in the morning and the boys are all off for half term so they won't last long.

martafdz

I have a confession... I went to MrT and MrS and spent too much!!
£16.12 in T and £12.12 in S. Total £28.24 in things I did not need, just wanted, such as stuff for baking and making desserts (gelatine, chocolate chips, spices, wine vinegar, etc) plus some sausages that were not on offer and other petty stuff. I need to be better at this!!! NEW TOTAL £248.76 / £210. So £38 over. I am still kind of happy with this, since I bought £90 worth of items to stock up, so I guess that will be a saving in future months. And I used to spend around £400+ in food for two, so I am quite happy with this total. I just wish I had not put it down from £250 so I would be still in target lol. Anyway, I am saving loads, I am eating better and I am learning to cook properly so everything is good.

muffin_man_7

Hi all im back g/c for me not going so well but im putting it down to not being able to get on here to keep track of everything so totall disaster for january and hopefully by end of feb be back on track ready to hit march with a big shock to the system i hope it seems to me weve all had a bad start to the year one way or another lets hope march brings us all some much needed success and some warmer days too it so cold here today oh well lots of catching up to do might be a while

muffin_man_7

martafdz wrote: »

eveie, i am sure mothership can elaborate better as it was her idea and i am not following it, i am only attempting to explain it because i just read m's posts and thought that maybe she has been a bit worried and busy and has not seen eveie's post yet. I hope you don't mind!

As i understood it, it goes like this:

1) put your gc money into your purse, this is your normal/first purse.
2) put £10 or £20 in one purse for stocking up, this is your second purse.
3) add a little pen and a pad/paper into this second purse too.
4) when you see an amazing offer on something and you think "hey, i might buy 6 of these and stock up", buy this with the money in your second purse. Write down the name of the item, the price you paid and the original non-reduced price. Imagine now that whatever you have bought from that 2nd purse goes to a "virtual store" in your cupboard.
5) when you need to use anything from that list, you "pay" for the item at the original non-reduced price. The money goes to the 2nd purse. So you end up adding more money into the purse than you actually had spent from it because you buy offers with it and you pay back full price. This means every now and then you can move any excess to a possible "3rd purse" for treats. Like a savings account purse for whatever you want. This 3rd purse is optional.

As i understood it, it would work like this:
Let's say you have £10 into your 2nd purse. You see bags of 1kg rice at 50p reduced from £1 and you decide to buy 12 to last for the whole year. After paying, you will have spent £6 from the second purse, since these are items to stock up and not for this month's gc, and have now £4 left. Ok, so now you have 12 bags of rice. You bought them for 50p but in a way you have put them in a "store inside your cupboard". Next time you need rice you have to go to that store and buy it from there but you will have to pay full price (£1). After using all the bags of rice you will have paid £12 into the purse, so you will have £16 in total in there. It's almost like putting away all the money saved by offers and using it to buy more offers plus treats, but a bit more organized than that. The second purse is like a wholesaler who buy everything in bulk at good prices but sells at normal retail prices.

Please correct me if i am wrong and i hope you do not mind i have replied this. I just read all that m is going through and thought i could try to explain this. I hope tears become less frequent unless they are of joy, m.

thanks for this it came at just the right time ive been using up stok cupboard and was really dredding the cost of refilling it but if i try this it might not be so bad i use to do something similar years ago when i had nine at home now its just me and 2 teenagers i seem to of got out of the habit of restocking the purse that stocks the cupboards and i do like the idea of putting the full price back not the reduced price after all if it not in the cupboard id be paying fuul whack any way thanks again to all will be working this into march some how not too sure how yet funds very tight march budget will be my lowest yet so hopefully this will help thanks all

martafdz

muffin man, the second purse (and optionally 3rd purse) is mothership's idea. It is great indeed, she has said that she eventually had so much in the purse that they could afford to buy a TV they always though it was not within reach (I think it was a TV).

Catslovelycats

well i've updated my siggy
spent 5.81 in T because i used my clubcard vouchers
yippee
still noy sure how it is I haven't bought so much food this month - but then I've been trying hard to use what I've got in the cupboards/d=freezer etc so maybe that's what's made the difference

I like mothership's 2nd purse thing but still don't quite get it - doesn't it only work if you've got the extra moneyto put in the purse?
I need to read the posts properly. I'm sure it's explained there!

boysma

Grr busted my budget again:mad: Just spent 21.45 in Mr T's but then i did get lamb chops, steaks and doughnuts (not for me:)) in the reduced counter so not all bad.

I think I may have to up my budget for next month or stop spending:o Signature now updated.

Hippeechiq

catslovelycats wrote: »

I like mothership's 2nd purse thing but still don't quite get it - doesn't it only work if you've got the extra moneyto put in the purse?
I need to read the posts properly. I'm sure it's explained there!

I'm another that doesn't quite "get-it" - then again, I can be rather dim at times

Unless I have misunderstood - you start the purse with say £10, and continue to add £10 to it each month, so that you accumulate money to buy offers with?

My problem is
a) I don't have £10 spare each month to do this
b) Even if I had.......Say for example I took a jar of Kenc0 from my "special offer stock" paid for from the 2nd purse. I bought it for £3 but the non offer price was £4.88, so £4.88 is what I should pay back to the 2nd purse, which leads me to my third problem, in that
c) As I only have £25 cash available to me each week (excluding my meat envelope money) I wouldn't have £4.88 spare to pay the 2nd purse back.

I may, and probably have, got that totally wrong of course but either way, I think, that if you have just a little bit more money available to you than I have, that it is a truly inspirational idea :T