February 2007 Grocery Challenge

Molly_M_3

Hi, this is my 1st month on the grocery challenge. I'm aiming for £100 for me and DH for food, cleaning stuff and toiletries. Have been averaging about £35 pw for the last couple of months so I'm hoping to cut back on that. We're cutting out alcohol this month so that should help.

the_optimist

:j :j I did it, I did it :j :j
Got my budget down to £200 instead of £250 and went below it, by £6.50 exactly, am chuffed to bits, but couldn't have done it without the storecupboard challenge and cheap recipes on this site.
Thank you everybody :A and my budget for February will be £200 again (don't dare to go below that - yet! )

rach

i went about a tenner over my budget, but still have cupboards and half a freezer full of food! to try and do better this month i am gonna do a full menu plan. i reckon except for fresh stuff and perhaps a pack of sausages i can pretty much eat out of the freezer and cupboards!

JoKay_2

Hi, would love to join in!

Since facing our debt on 2nd Jan, we've limited ourselves to £150 per week, to cover groceries, petrol and anything else. We've pretty much kept to it, which is a vast improvement from before our LBM! but I still want to try to get the grocery bill down.

We get our meat from the farmers market at the beginning of the month, which is likely to be around £80 (eek), but we have started to eat more veggie based stuff (bean curries etc), so am hoping this might last 2 months.

So, my challenge is to spend £50pw, plus the cost of the farmers market - now I've written it down, it seems more real and achievable!!!

Peem

Hi

I'm back in again.

I was going to try to go down to £250 from my standard £300. But mum was here last week and she always seems to suck any confidence/willpower from me. I revert to little kid. Anyway, ended up going off meal plan for two nights while she was here (she did buy lunch in the pub for me and dd one day though, thanks mum) Also meant we had extra wine/beer while she was here.

So I'm keeping this month to £300.

Here goes - need to update my sig.

Emmzi

£9.47 for the week in Lidl inc alcohol and veg to make the best curry ever!

Just need to resist b/f luring me to pub/ carry out now.

EagerLearner

I'm in at £120 for the month - bought an online order with Tesco of just over £34on 31st Jan which is included in Feb budget, but this will last ages as it's essentials like tinned goods, rice, pasta, cereal etc.

Also got 6 washable microfibre cloths for £1.60 (so I can stop wasting money on kitchen paper towels) and bought soda crystals in that online Tesco shop, which should save on household cleaning. Also have been using Stardrops for months now and that has saved loads on sprays etc.

loulvj

Hello everyone,

This is my first post after some months of lurking.

I'm going to try and stick to £200 this month and see how it goes.

So far:

1 x large tim tomatoes £0.84 which I used to make pasta sauce for today's lunch and future lunches (in the freezer!)

mcardinalblue

I'm going to aim for £200 this month, have spent £20.09 so far. Big shop at Lidls this weekend, which should cover most things for the month.

Janeryan

Janeryan wrote:

I'm up for a challenge-last February I spent £275.00 on food so this month I am budgeting for £50.00 per week.

First week started on28 January & I spent £47.03

Second week have got to pay for organic fruit & potatoes box delivery which will be £9.15 which leaves me £40.85 to spend at the store.

I really find that meal planning in conjunction with the weekly offers sheets helps a lot & I try to buy one extra meals worth than there are days in case of emergencies(or running out of money before end of month!)

Good luck everyone!

Update for week 2

Sainsburys £29.71
Iceland £9.75
Organic Box £9.15

TOTAL £48.61

Am LOVING going shopping with a meal plan-it makes it so much quicker and I have so much less to carry!!

Hope everyone else is enjoying the challenge!