January 2007 Grocery Challenge

jcr16

new month for us started on tuesday. but it has all gone a little pete tong. as i was feeling incrediably ill tuesday when i done the shopping. ( pmt , first in 2 and half years due to pregnancy soz if tmi) i felt like i could kill someone, my son wouldn't stay in trolley and although he was happy , it hard pushing a trolley , holding on to an 18m old, wearing stupid 4 inch high boots , tummy feeling like it was gonna fall out , old people and silly people just getting in my way.massive queue to get out checkout and half way through they changed till operator. and the pair of staff decided to have a ten min conversatation about someone neighbour. they did say sorry for the hold up. and i replied ' oh don't worry i got time in the world' while under my breath wanting to scream. so it went all wrong. i spent £57 on i don't know what. did buy a huge bar of galaxy tho. ( so not all bad) i just felt like i could cry when i got home. as i felt such a failure. i was determind to be better. so anyway i am forgetting that shop in this months budget. as it wasn't really a good shop that we could live from it. ahhhhhh so annoyed with myself.

but on a more positive point. i have done a months shop online at tesco for £115 and then i will have £10 a week for fresh thing's. and i have got loads of cleaning bits in it , and washing powders and cat biscuits. don't need tooth[aste as for some reason i bulk bought this on tuesday.


also i cooked a chicken on wednesday and made chicken fried rice with leeks , onions , mushrooms , peas , sweetcorn, red and yellow peppers and they was enough meat left on the bird to make 13 chicken pies from freezer so very impressed there.

but i do need to buy some more freezer storeage as i put some in dishwasher to clean it and it kinda came out an odd shape.

LJM

forgot to say monday will be start of my new month so hopefully febuary will be better,as i already have done a big shop,have loads food in will only need top up bits over next couple weeks and im hoping i can keep it to £200 or under this month

millionaire_in_training

I am amazed at how everyone is doing (cept me ) I have overspent at end of my month BUT I have not used my credit cards and used to practically buy all my groceries on these so I am well chuffed. Also managed to pay a good bit more than the minimum on them so woohoo!! Going to start my February budget on 31st January. Will set it as £180 for food and £300 for overall spending. Might manage it this time. Well they say practice makes perfect so I will treat this month as a wee practice xx

Cazzdevil

I didn't actually join the challenge when it was put up, but my OH and I have kept all our January food receipts in an envelope. I counted them up last night, we budget no more than £30 a week for the two of us, and we've actually spent less than £70 in the whole of January!! I'm so pleased.

For the next couple of weeks we're going to try and use up everything in the cupboards and start afresh so we get a better idea of how much we spend in a month. I think we have about 3 weeks worth of food in the cupboards.

Redbedhead

Well, done the last shop of the month and while we haven't managed to stick to budget, we were not too far over and the fridge and freezer is overflowing! I didn't really manage to go through that many store cupboard ingrediants but I have been loads better at ensuring I use up fresh foods (we have had quite a few different types of soup!).

Total budget for Jan £180
Total spend for Jan £202.29

Overspend by £22.29


What I have decided to do is a 2 month challenge!! I am going to try and recover from my overspend this month by underspending in Feb. So my 2 month budget will be £360, of which I have spent £202.29, with £157.71 left to spend.

I have realised where I have been going wrong - we have been spending more than we thought, mainly due to the little mid week shops that actually aren't that little:rolleyes: In total over the month we spent £130 on our regular weekly shopping and £70 on the little shops:eek:

So, am going to be much more careful with the little shops. Have also resolved not to get my fruit mid week from M & S. Although it is the closest to me it is too expensive.

So - hopefully we have learnt from this month and next month we will recover!

fairy3

Hi everyone seems to be having a good month.

LMJ I think it depends on what you decide are groceries, personally I include all food, toiletries and dog food as I would just get confused with the budget as I keep it in a separate money pot. Occasionally I will get toiletries on offer with my boots points and not include that as think of that as a freebie.

My month is doing okay but runs til Wednesday and am aiming for a £100 underspend, first month so will have to revise that because of extra stuff I had accumulated over xmas on my massive spend.

Last push so good luck.

J
X

lil_me

Just spent £12.75. Need £6 for this weeks milk money. So thats £18.75. Added to total is £223.07 so as long as I resist spending any more, that's over £30 under budget and well under half what I spent in January last year. Going to put what's left into a seperate purse and then whatevers left on the 1st goes in the savings tub

I might try and take the budget out in cash this time and just spend from that, as several times this month I have used my bank card and not even thought about what I have spent until afterwards! That is when I have bought extras I shouldn't have really etc.

Looking forward to February challenge now, going to try and reduce my budget again I can't spend as low as some do, I spend about £12-£15 on fruit and veg and £6 on milk so there is around £20 before I start on the rest, but will get it down a bit further

Anwen_2

Hmm, I think I'll give this a go in Feb. Will try to keep an eye out for the new thread! I *think* my current grocery spend is roughly £175-200 for the month for myself and DD, I know I could get it quite a bit lower but I would be happy to stick around £150 as I try to buy organic/free range etc when I can.

earthmother

Well, my month is over today, and seeing as I don't need to shop again until hopefully mid-week, I've done my final figures.

Budget was £320, we spent £442.80, so are £122.80 over :eek:

Not too bad however if you take the bulk shopping out (worth about £70-£80 and done because of various deals too good to miss), which has given us a freezer full of bread (about a fortnight worth), a fridge full of packed lunch contents (again about a fortnight), and a 2 month supply of nappies.


I can live with that - it's closer than I was in October and November, but I'm aiming next month to get even better.

Think it's the meal planning that is causing the issues - and too much of a tendency for certain members of the household to midnight snack on the next days' packed lunch contents - but we're about there.

EagerLearner

Hi all - I pay my monthly money into our joint account on 28th of each month to cover bills/groceries etc - so I am wondering if for the purposes of the challenge, I should only count up money spent on groceries until the 28th? Because on the 29th the joint account has a new lot of money from me.

What do you think?