April 2011 Grocery Challenge

goodgirl80

Trim_my_budget wrote: »

We have a Spanish friend coming to stay for a week next Saturday, so any ideas for nice meals that aren't going to break the budget would help! Have just about managed this month feeding hubby and 2 hungry teenagers on £70 a week and dont want to go back to old ways!

tortilla/ frittata

Rebekah24

I'm vegetarian(now slowly reintroducing fish after 16 years), have a pretty limited diet and a lot of health complaints - so have a lot of problems eating etc. Making meals for all of us would be pretty much impossible.

OH is on strict south beach diet, he trains 6 days a week, we have kids two times a week, they are older , they eat snacky bits at ours but not main meals.

The divvying of the who buys who/who pays for what was becoming the issue so I think it should be easier this way. Me being overly generous and getting extra bits was costing me too much!! Often I can barely eat anything for long periods of time

I usally do a big order online to get in value sparkling water and basics, offers, fish on offer for freezer etc.

Thank you so much for your reply, know its a bit unusual!!

Trim_my_budget

Thanks! Got some minced beef from M&S yesterday which was on offer and bunged in the freezer, can use that!:)

martafdz

Hi! I am a bit AWOL but I am still doing this, I just cannot report and be here as much lately
I hope you are all ok, I have not had chance of reading back as yet. The month is finishing and I still have not reported anything! :S

My fridge is dying and I cannot keep there anything but drinks and food that is going to be eaten within hours, apparently is warmer than a drink cooler/chiller so that is why I kept throwing stuff that was going off too quickly :S But the landlord has to decide when and how is going to buy another one, so unfortunately that means that I cannot do big shoppings and now that I have so many bank holidays I don't know what to do! I should have bought that chest freezer last month! Lol

My account says that I have spent so far £168.40 in food but I think there is a shopping missing from two days ago, I am sure that goes closer to £200. However, considering that I had to go shopping every couple of days I would have expected it to be much more! I will update again if it is wrong once I find all the receipts.

I have seen an offer from DR and I finally decided to buy some meat, I am going to try the mince meat, sausages and sirloin steaks. How big are the packs of mince meat? In my offer sais that at least 400g but they were offering me 4 packs for under £6, which I thought it was a bargain. Also bought 12 sausages for around £7, which is a bit more expensive than what I would normally pay for premium sausages but if they are good then it is worth. I received the offer by mail, I guess it was after someone here registered me as a referral, idk. I am looking forward to try it.

Pink.

Hi Rebekah,

Like rachbc I agree that it might be best to pool your shopping with the rest of your family as it will almost certainly work out cheaper.

If you feel that you should be making more savings on your personal budget it might help to look at Martin's article on Supermarket Shopping which has lots of hints and tips on saving money on groceries.

You've said yourself that you may get more help in the April 2011 Grocery Challenge so I'll add your thread to it later as you'll get lots of advice and support from the regulars there.

Good luck with cutting back.

Pink

jintyb

Hi folks, havent been on for ages - sorry:o
Just popped in to say my April has finished - I was £15.79 under:j so that makes me £51.07 under for my Y-T-D,so I am thrilled!:j

Mrs MacM - can you put me down for £160 for May please when the time comes. We are off on hols in three weeks so I'm hoping to trim off a bit here and there;)
First shop of May today - £68.29 but that included a good stock up and a trip to Costco - pretty restrained I'd say! ( For me anyway!)
Got a load of Lurpak in Lid£ - 500g for £1.99, 81p cheaper than A$da, bargain!

123budget

Last shop for April done and a whopping £137.98 over budget:eek:
Did include 2 bags of bbq coals £6.00 and also 2 legs of lamb that wern't on shopping £15.88 and also ice cream £3.00 (it is bank holiday after all!!) The lamb is in freezer for next month.

So thinking about next month can I set the budget for May at £450 please (was going to make it £400 but can't see that happening).

On a positive note (and after my lightbulb moment in January) since joining MSE the household account and my own account have not been overdrawn at all (taken me god knows how many years to achieve this) and am making double the minimium payment on CC after switching it to 0%:)

Rebekah24

Checking in for May's challenge! We are keeping our envelopes seperate

will be tallying seperately amounts but will put the goal as overall total

for me - £30

for OH - £140

total £170

Bexstars

Id really like to join in next month, I have no idea how much we spend, I would guess around £150 ish for 2 adults, 2 children and 2 cats, I could be way way off with that amount though, Im trying to get a better handle on things so any advice would be very much appreciated! I shall keep an eye out for the next months thread x

123budget

I have a couple of questions -
1. What do people mean when they talk of a second purse?
2.How do most people pay for groceries - to you use debit card and just add up receipts or do you draw out cash weekly/monthly and make it last.

At moment I just use debit card but am thinking of drawing out money for month and putting it in envelope and then hopefully not using the household bank account for the rest of the month . (we have a joint account for household bills, food etc, and each have our own bank accounts for petrol and other personal expenses/ kids expenses).