October 2011 Grocery Challenge

Kimsmum

May I please join, Put me down for £130 for Oct.
Thats for two of us.
I dont need to buy any toiletries or cleaning goods until well into the new year.
Thank you

Flat_Eric

New month = new start.

I have not really been keeping track of food spends for the last few months. With 3 months left to the end of the year ?!! I want to get into the habit of planning meals and shopping accordingly.

I have half planned for the week ahead and shall try to finish this today.

I need to sort out a food shop - this will either be a home delivery or a visit to the local store which is a metro so if I end up going there, I shall only buy what is needed.

I bought spuds yesterday on BOGOF except the offer had finished :mad: I hate that. Nothing more annoying then picking something over another product because of the offer only to find that the offer has finished. As it was, I complained to a member of staff because the stock was stickered BOGOF and I got a refund. I felt embarrassed though particularly when he said that the offer had finished and they would have to remove all the stickers !

I haven't caught up with this thread / nor the last one and wonder what fellow posters think about the price cuts Mr T have announced ? When I was looking online at the grocery store, there were quite a few items I buy that have been price cut so I will save money BUT as Martin Lewis has said - what they give with one hand - they take with another - because the loyalty scheme goes back to one point per pound from the end of the month. What do people think about this ? My points have been adding up quite nicely since I have been doing the majority of my shopping with them and it will be a shock ? to just get the one point per pound.

dreamingofmoney

Hiya All

First big shop for me yesterday £70 spent and got loads. Am hoping/desperate for a good month so have already planned this weeks meals, have got plenty in, so fingers crossed, Am a bit bored as i tend to stick to same meals, so might have a trawl of recipes on front page, am after a sausage pasta bake recipe, am sick of sausage casserole (we eat alot of it in our house).

So off i go to trawl

Take Care

Dreamer

WelshWoofer

Did the Mr T shop last night instead of today and managed to spend £31 from a £30 budget.
I didn't see a lot of evidence of the price drop thing on items I buy though:( (apart from Pal dog food).

I have enough main meals for 2 weeks and should only need to get some fresh stuff next week so the little over spend will hopefully cancel itself out.

Interestingly (and annoyingly) they didn't have any value chocolate digestive biscuits at all (big gap in the shelf) and the lady told me that they had to ration the free bags at the checkout as "they didn't have any" - is this the start of the free bag withdrawal? I usually take some of my own but had forgotten and ended up using a box, buying some of the bags for life and getting 2 very thin free carriers that broke before I got them to the car.:mad:

cheapncheery

Hi everyone. I'm new to the challenge and eager to change my wasteful spending. Please put me down for £350 this month. Great ideas and tips from everyone - looking forward to a new thrifty me!!:p

franby64

Morning everybody and a big thank you to Zippy, Pink, Rosiben and Helen Jelly for running the thread.

Please could you put me down for £380 again for October.

jpscloud

I'm planning an NSD for today to start the month as I mean to go on! Lots of garden tidying today, and trips to the tip to get rid of accumulated rubbish from doing the kitchen up. Later I'll cook the pack of cumberland sausages that were bought and frozen a couple of weeks ago (better than half price) and freeze some cooked. I'll also make a large amount (some to freeze) of carrot and parsnip mash with the whoopsied parsnips at 19p a bag.

Sausage and mash with pearl barley risotto/a variety of vegetables for main meals this week! Not exactly suitable for the strange weather but I'm not laying out hard cash for salad stuff when I have my freezer chock full of planned meals.

[Deleted User]

Hi all first day of a new month for me and £100.00 sitting in my food purse.No shopping needed today, so it will still be there tomorrow.Just going to make some cookies and cakes for the week and the tins are empty.I have some apples that are a bit wrickly so I may make an Eves pudding for tomorrow to take to my DDs at dinner time.Hope you all have a fairly frugal month as it won't be long before Ch*****s is looming over us .
Cheers chums
JackieO xx

MissOrganised1972

So, I have done my meal plan for the month, made my list & started to shop.

I make my list, within my budget, and include all the T*sco prices on my list. Then I start to shop, begining with the cheaper stores like Ald*, B&M, Home Bargains & Lidl. I go to the stores when I am in the area or have some other reason to drive that way so that I am not flitting all around the town, wasting petrol. If I can get the item cheaper than Tesco I do. Then when I'm all done buying the cheaper products I go to T*sco to finish off the list. That way, I nearly always have a little leftover because I got items cheaper. Those savings are used for my treats (wine :beer:)! However, I must say that we purchased 2 bottles of wine with the new budget before we'd even started any other shopping!! Ooops! We can only get better!

Have spent £44.16 so far - signature updated.

Meal plan for this week:

Today-Out at friends
Sunday-Meant to Roast chicken but with 26degC forecast, may use up the ends of the BBQ supplies in the freezer instead.
Monday-Chicken & vegetable pie (meant to be chicken left overs but may have to use up a couple of breasts from freezer if we have BBQ
Tuesday-Pasta carbonara http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/recipe-pastacarbonara.html?opt=rall
Wednesday-Baked potato with cheese & beans
Thursday-Gammon, egg & HM postato wedges
Friday-We're out with friends so will probably give kids fish fingers or something equally quick!

Have a good month everyone!:)

MissOrganised1972

Ooh sorry another quick post!

Meant to say, I managed to get to 2 'Heat keeper food jars' - like thermos flasks for food. I paid only £5.99 each fro Aldi (£19.99 for equivalent in Lakeland)!

Have send the kids to school with them twice this week with leftovers in. They tell me their food is still warm 5 hours later! I didn't buy them until they had seen them in case they refused/stropped about taking them & I'd wasted my money. 7 year old jumped at it & 5 year old bowed to the pressure of 'copying her big sister' & had one too. They tell me they were the talk of the dining hall! Their friends want them too! I put that one down as a success! :j