December 2006 Grocery Challenge

miggy

A word of explanation - school dinners make a dint in the budget.
Schools charge about £1.65 per meal (I missed the decimal point when I typed that - £165 - now that really would wreck the budget!) and are into healthy menus.
I have three kids:
1) would rather play footie than eat
2) is with friends who don't have a culture of eating at lunchtimes & go to the shops after school
3) hates the smell of school dinners (can't blame him) and would rather play footie than eat
So with the great idea of teaching them to budget, I gave them £5 a week each so they could buy dinners when they wanted, take packed lunches the rest of the time and would hopefully realise that by taking lunches they could save money.
If it were as simple as that it would be easy, but sometimes they buy food, sometimes they save up - and who knows how much junk the older ones buy instead of 'proper' food?
Well that's my excuse for going over-budget so far this week. I meant to take the money out last week and didn't get to the bank so it came out of this week's.
Not eligible for free school meals, and doubt the kids would eat them if we were.
Off to plan tonight's menu.

miggy

squeaky wrote:

I blew my admittedly tough target yesterday. Did my month's shop on line with asda and spent £87.

Mind you ... another twenty was on booze for the festive season. (All I've got to do now is find a way to hide it from myself!)

Would it be cheating to add any booze you manage to keep till Christmas, to the budget for that week?! As in, you bought it early but not for this week so it doesn't belong in this week's budget.
Alternatively you could give it all away and take the money from another budget? (Only joking!) (Ducks and runs)

freyasmum

So far I have spent £5.00 of my £12.50 budget.

I forgot to say, this is for two adults and a baby. However, my freezer is stuffed full of food, I have enough nappies to build a mini mountain, I will probably have enough cleaning/personal hygiene products to last 'till next december! and we eat at our parents at least once a week, sometimes twice. Wow, I didn't mean to say that much!

Linzi

Hopefully we all succeed!

Linzi x

miggy

Me again... went to Tesco for milk and bread (okay, and apples (reduced) and teacakes: last day of BOGOF).
Spent 2.88 and was given £6 in (easily useable) vouchers :-D

newlywed

miggy wrote:

Me again... went to Tesco for milk and bread (okay, and apples (reduced) and teacakes: last day of BOGOF).
Spent 2.88 and was given £6 in (easily useable) vouchers :-D

You're good. I went in to get bread, milk and loo rolls and ended up with £24 bill!!! Although most was for things on my meal plan.

squeaky

miggy wrote:

Would it be cheating to add any booze you manage to keep till Christmas, to the budget for that week?! As in, you bought it early but not for this week so it doesn't belong in this week's budget.
Alternatively you could give it all away and take the money from another budget? (Only joking!) (Ducks and runs)

That wasn't my weekly budget it was my monthly one!

I'm pretty well stocked up and should only have to buy milk from now on.

And chocolate

domestic_goddess

Am I too late to join in for this month? My OH gets paid tomorrow and I am sick of wasting so much money on shopping. On paper we should have enough money to see us through the month but always end up over. I looked through my bank statement and you would not believe how many times I visit a supermarket each week.

I am going to try for £180 this month that will feed 2 adults, one 4 year old and one 2 year old.

My first shop will be tomorrow the 7th December so fingers crossed for me.

squeaky

sickofhavingnomoney wrote:

Am I too late to join in for this month?

No problem

Different people have different paydays so generally just join in with the current thread once it has been posted:)

miggy

newlywed wrote:

You're good. I went in to get bread, milk and loo rolls and ended up with £24 bill!!! Although most was for things on my meal plan.

And there I was thinking you stocked up on essentials to the value of £24 to see you over Christmas and avoid any unplanned shopping trips <g>
I notice you
a) have a meal plan and
b) stuck (more or less) to your list
... so Brownie points winging your way!

Emmysmum_2

I have been doing about 320 amonth including the milk and fancy cat food and litter. I am now trying to reduce this to about £80 for the entire month incl thye christmas dinner nd boze

I have a £52 Asda order coming tomorrow and taking another £30 out in cash to get the christmas dinner and wine and spirits and the remainder of the month's milk. there are 4 of us at home and 2 cats.