August 2011 Grocery Challenge

Need2bthrifty

sock-knitter wrote: »

hi everyone, please may i join in this thread for september please. can someone give me a target for the first month, so i have something to aim for. i live alone since my sons moved out, but am on a tight budget, and need to start controling where my money goes

I am also on my own and as this is my first challenge I have set my target for £50. I have a small freezer which has enough meals for approx 2 wks which I intend living on so that I can clear it to defrost and start stocking up in prep for winter. I shouldn't have to buy any household items/toiletries this month but need to budget for re-stocking these.

Good luck with your challenge.

166million

seductivesmile wrote: »

Thank You So much,
I am so silly, i don't know why I didnt look on the web in the first place. Duh - sleepy moment there i think! Looking at the price of tuna there i am sooo glad dad stocked me up with it! I cant believe how expensive it is!
I think i may need to do a store cupboard challenge, and in the new year stop hoarding! Then i may have the space to store all the jam I bet i'll be making. . . and the damson gin for the xmas hampers.

Thank you again!
SS x

I know!!!!!!! I don't buy tuna so it was quite a shock for me :eek:
Don't worry I like fantasy shopping

quintwins

morning all, it's the end of the month i'm declaring £145.29 not great but not bad only £115 for sep but we will hopefully manage it if i can come in under the £100 mark i'm gonna buy myself a new coat so that should keep me motivated

i had a rough nigh with the kids who all have colds i'm thinking of putting the heat on but i'm gonna wait and hope it warms up like it did yesterday, also about 2 put the dryer on which should warm the house up, lunch is leftover quiche and cheese rolls a made with the extra pastry, dinner is gammon roast and a cheesy taties bake, i defrosted 2 gammons because they were stuck togeher with no intention of spliting so were having gammon for the rest of the week, gammon egg and chips tomorrow night, and pasta with gammon on fri mighty evven manage a few sandwichs


you can buy tuna in poundland 3 for £1 but it's in brine i rinse it in my colander and it's fine for pasta or tuna mayo

we discovered a blackberry/raspberry bush in our garden last night i know that sounds silly but our gardens been neglected and it must have been behind our shed when we moved in but it's overgrown now so when there ready we'll make some jam (altho my kids love berries so they might not last) hoping to get some apples, pears and spuds from fils garden (there my seed taties so were sharing cause hubby didn;t dog my veg plot over intime so they were all planted up there)

sparklysaver

sock-knitter wrote: »

hi everyone, please may i join in this thread for september please. can someone give me a target for the first month, so i have something to aim for. i live alone since my sons moved out, but am on a tight budget, and need to start controling where my money goes

I live alone too and have set £50 for my first month, but like Need2bthrifty I have a lot of food already in, and I can feed myself entirely out of my storecupboard if I'm getting near to my budget at the end of the month. That might be a bit tight if you usually shop as you go I suppose.

I went through the freezer and storecupboards yesterday in preperation for this and discovered that I have 33 meals in the freezer, enough flour for 28 loaves of bread and cat food to see us through to February. :rotfl:I'm sticking at £50 because it's my first month, but I'm super-secretly hoping to come in below that. :A

CompBunny

Chloris wrote: »

CompBunny It wont help the waist line but if you bake your own cakes you will probably eat less as hm is always more filling as it contains real food not just chemicals.

Thanks, my boyfriend enjoys baking cakes (I suffer from CFS so find it hard to cope with cooking meals, let alone standing up long enough to bake on top of it!) so maybe I can encourage him to make some more :rotfl:

His cheese scones are to die for!

Elisheba

Eeek. August was not a good month money saving wise! The £500 for everything plan was a disaster. So will go back to how I did it before. Could you put me down for £300 for September please? For all household stuff. Lets see if we can stick to budget befoer I start redusing spending.

sproggi

Can I please join in? I seriously need to get my grocery spending back
under control :eek:
I am going to aim for £400 for September as a starting point for 5 of us, myself, OH, DD1(22), DS2(12) and DD2(10). That will be for all our food, cleaning stuff etc, but will not include our dogs main food (diet stuff for her liver), will include any extras for her though.

Sproggi

kersplatt

Hi can I join in for September please?

My official DMP allows for £280 for household expenses including groceries, nappies etc but this month is financially tight with the last car payment so put me down for £100 in September that's for me and my 7 and 3 year old as well as visitors. My cupboards and freezer are reasonably stocked and I enjoy a challenge

Gorgeestwo

Had to go to Morrisons to get milk, honey & sugar, stocked up on the kids innocent juice drinks as it was on offer, so got enough to take us through September and beyond.:D also bought 3 x 4pints of milk as on offer so spent £12.24, off to add that to my signature
Hope everyone has a good day.

[Deleted User]

First off never,never, ever say your a failure, you are keeping an eye on what you spend and even if its a bit over what you estimate it could be for many reasons .One being the cost of food rocketing anyway.I have been away for two weeks on holiday and on Monday I had to go to the supermarket to get a few bits (and I mean a few bits as well and it came to over £17 which I could hardly believe.So what ever you spend it may be not always over spending that's at fault
I live alone and have reduced over the past year or so my 'food purse' from £200.00 per month to £100.00 and usually have a small amount of cash left over which gets put away at the end of the month towards next years family holiday.I draw my 'food puse money' on the first of the month and everything I buy from the shops for eating,cleaning ect comes from that purse.Its suprising how you can spend less when you see exactly where its going.A debit card is painless as you don't see the actual cash going out of your purse .Its really going back to the days when I had a set amount of housekeeping(in 1967 £8.50) to last me and when it was gone that was it until next payday.Making sure that ever pound is a prisoner and adapting what you have in the cupboards instead of buying even more is a knack that will come with time and practice.So roughly £25 per week is my 'allowance which is around £3.50+ per day.as I can cost out 3 meals for myself for less than that I know I can live within my allotted amount.Luch of a jacket spud and some cheese or scrambled eggs comes to around 50p,porridge for breakfast is also reasonably inexpensive which leaves me with at least about £2.50 for a main meal.With practice (which I have had a lot of) I can live very well on suprisingly little