February 2011 Grocery Challenge

destroyerofdebt2011

a spending diary is so enlightening!

Ive been keeping one since 1st Feb i originally posted that i would budget for a £40 spend total for this month... and the good news is got a fair amount of food in cupboards and nothing atm is going to waste freezer i topped up with "Coldland" freezer stockers £9 worth to be presice which will actually last me the rest of the month. But when you to up on milk/bread and a couple of tins & packets of stuff at £3 something a shop its scary how these add up. So far if you include the smelly candle i bought from QD as a cheer up item to myself after the dentist. ( I already buy Value Ranges only!!!)

The bad news is ive spent exactly £40.00 since the 1st. This is all food items bar £1.35 dog treat and the £3.99 candle and a £1.99 Breakfast bap(technically food but classed to me as a luxury) when i was on a training course. Im detirmed not to go over my budget when i run out of milk squash or bread and hopefully not loorolls:o i will just have to have something else from the cupboard. But it does mean for the next 14 days well technically 16 days (get paid in 13 tho) i have no food budget to allow and this is eating into my debt repayment ability quite literally.

On a really positive note tho i seem to have more cash this month and realised the council tax payments is not this month so currently i got this mnth and next to work on this budgeting and planning. Any thing left in the Account at Payday will be going into the debt repayments.:A

Will let u know if i spend any more on food shops or whether i am a true cupboard raider eating stuff on the way round the supermarket come the 1st of March. On a plus note i seem to have dropped 7lbs since xmas yay!

spend so far £40:o

quintwins

well i've had a lovely day , got my washing machine, went for a drive stopped in te$co and spent £11.64 but noticed they'd put something reduced in at full price so got £1.50 pack at CS, then made chicken sandwichs from a lovely hot cooked chicken (reduced) in the car then went and feed the ducks, then oh helped his grandad with a new t.v and he gave him £10, then had dinner at the inlaws, and i just found 50p on had pulled out from under the washer, so i now have more money than i started with this morning (not counting my washer lol) and i had a lovely unique lunch and have 2 loafs of bread, a wheaten bread, 2 pots of cream and 4 packets of sausages in my freezer don't think i'll add to my sig today i'll call then a little bonus

Baileys_Babe

Sending hugs to everybody that needs them :grouphug:

I've managed to keep up with this thread but I'm planning on updating my spending once a week.

Yesterday afternoon I did a mammoth shop whilst OH took the children to the theatre and a lego activity session.
I visited:
B&M
Aldi
Bodycare
Home Bargains
Wilkos
Sainsburys
Asda
I made a list and checked prices on my supermarket before setting out, some things I already knew were best bought in a particular shop (toothbrushes in Bodycare etc) but everything else I bought if cheaper than the guide price I'd found on my supermarket. When I returned home I checked what I'd saved and found it was over £100 :money:. This probably seems a faff but as I try to only do a SM shop once a month I feel it was defiantly worth it for the savings. I didn't buy any milk as we still have 16 pints in the freezer which we are hoping will last us to the end of the month. I will do my next SM trek when we run out of milk.


In addition to SM tarting, we have a weekly fruit box delivered and as and when we order veg from the same people, we buy our flour, oats, sugar, juice, oil, dried fruit, from the wholefood wholesalers and we buy our meat in bulk from the butchers.


This weeks spends: £163.15
OH on prescription, OTC medicine & bits for work £11.98
Yesterdays expedition £151.47


Total spends for 2011 £567.04
I'm pleased with this as I feel we are on track and have plenty of food in.

Today I have made microwave lemon curd and have ChocClare's no cook Apple Chutney, it looks great, I can't wait until the end of March when we can start eating it. Thank you for the recipes everyone. In the next few days I'm planning to bake scones and make Broccoli & Stilton soup to use up some bits and pieces that are going over.

nickynoo08

Evening,

did a mini shop to tide us over till our big shop gets delivered next wed. So another £11.23 to add to my total.

Running annual total - £261.46/£2000

fingersxed

Hi folks

NSD for me!! Only cause not been near shops. Been across allotment so spending was under control!

Hope everybody bearing up and having a gd weekend

freakyogre

Had a lovely (and rather productive) day today Went to see my dad and stepmum this morning. We went and did some shopping, then for a walk, then back home for lunch, followed by baking a tart and washing my car!

£6.16 was spent in Lidl.

I got 3 bags of the grated cheese that was on offer, a pack of meatballs, some cherry tomatoes (ours had plum ones too which looked a lot nicer, so got them), garlic baguettes, biscuits and some jam and butter.

The jam and butter was for the tart (blackberry and almond) and it was rather nice. Tasted a bit eggy to me though?! Nevermind.

Came home and have made soup, fishcakes, potato wedges and some savoury flapjacks for the freezer and am now going to relax and watch Dexter

rosieben

SavingJane wrote: »

... Asda *are we allowed to write shops names as keep seeing fully ways of writting them* ...

the reason some of us don't put the proper name is that it can help improve their search engine rating

karmachilovething

Baileys_Babe wrote: »

Today I have made microwave lemon curd and have ChocClare's no cook Apple Chutney, it looks great, I can't wait until the end of March when we can start eating it. Thank you for the recipes everyone. In the next few days I'm planning to bake scones and make Broccoli & Stilton soup to use up some bits and pieces that are going over.

Oh, can you post up the microwave lemon curd recipe, sounds amazing!

OK, did a stock take of my cupboards. No big surprises, and nothing too much OOD. And then £1.50 spent in s@insbury's on beans (3 400g cans for £1.50 if anybody's interested). Off to update sig.

SavingJane

rosieben wrote: »

the reason some of us don't put the proper name is that it can help improve their search engine rating

Ohhhh i see, thank you for explaining

On a different note saw someone post about checking eggs in a jug of water to check if they was still ok to use or not.....do they need to float or sink to be fresh

Thanks

Jane

Baileys_Babe

karmachilovething wrote: »

Oh, can you post up the microwave lemon curd recipe, sounds amazing!

OK, did a stock take of my cupboards. No big surprises, and nothing too much OOD. And then £1.50 spent in s@insbury's on beans (3 400g cans for £1.50 if anybody's interested). Off to update sig.

Here is the recipe I used it came from the MEGA indexed thread
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=897184#post897184
(sorry forgotten how to do embedded links, again ) Think I may go and have a slice of HM bread and some HM lemon curd for my supper