January 2012 Grocery Challenge

MumOf2Beasties

Yuck at my spends do far ate out for lunch with the OH and Kids on wednesday, and then me and the kids had drinks and cake in a cafe yesterday after a lovely walk on the beach and an explore of the castle ruins:D the total for these is £24:eek:

Had a fantastic time out but that money is now going to have to come out of my GC I wouldn't normally count it as GC but I just can't resist clothes for the kids, idiot!! so spent £37.55 in M&Co on 5 pairs of jeans all half price or more, plus 5p for a bag (hadn't planned on any purchases so didn't take one out!!)

And then today stopped by peacocks looking for school polo's and do you think i could resist looking at the sale stuff, NO!!

So i got a new coat for DD, redued from £18 to £5!!!she's just had a new one but it's gorgeous, and to be fair when my daughter outgrows it, it will be passed onto my one year old niece and then my great niece heehee

And i got DS's coat for next winter, this was reduced from £16 to £5 and is lovely, he likes it too so its tucked away in his wardrobe.

Although i'm cross at myself, the £10 on coats is less than i would spend on a new one for DS at the start of next winter, heehee check me out trying to convince myself it was all necessary spending:rotfl:

Anyway long story cut short, money for extra's went on clothes so eating out must come from GC:cool:

GC spends up to £75.27 as also got bananas today!!

£144.73 left for the month eek

Sorry for the ramble, off now to catch up on posts while dinner cooks.

Happy No-Spending folks xx

Brassic_Park

Spent 91p on showergel in the end.

To those who do big shops, how do you manage this? My last Mr T's order was for two weeks and everything went off within a week. So I froze some stuff but OH and I don't really like the texture of most things that have been defrosted. I love online grocery shopping, but obvs not the delivery charge! Don't know how best to manage everything.

bupster

NSD for me today as too knackered to go and spend anything! Cycled 12 miles pulling a trailer full of food on two flat tyres, and spent two hours in between cooking and prepping! (also a few hours sitting on my backside in a meeting ). Anyway, enough leftovers for four or five meals, plus made a profit on the day of at least nine quid plus pretty sure I'm owed a few quid more. Will put my squids in my saving pot and take the leftovers into work so don't even need to do any cooking till Wednesday. Just conked out on the sofa for 20 mins though! I suspect I'll be having a very early night tonight.

Still, if anyone wants a surefire way of not spending any money and getting plenty of exercise, I recommend loading up a bike trailer full of food and taking it for a spin. For best results, make sure you don't know where you're going, both tyres are flat and there are lots of hills :rotfl:

pixiedust09

unfortunately had to spend some money today :eek: £32.00 on animals double :eek:. And popped in the co-op which is a big one and convenient but so overpriced and because I had OH with me managed to spend £16.62 how I do not know but did get some reduced richmond sausages. Still need to do this weeks proper shop but will be very careful and only buy what we need. Have a good evening folks.

LondonDreamer

Brassic_Park wrote: »

Spent 91p on showergel in the end.

To those who do big shops, how do you manage this? My last Mr T's order was for two weeks and everything went off within a week. So I froze some stuff but OH and I don't really like the texture of most things that have been defrosted. I love online grocery shopping, but obvs not the delivery charge! Don't know how best to manage everything.

I only do big shops for the things that will last at least few weeks or freeze well - e.g. tinned/packet items, household goods, meat, hardy fruit and veg, etc. I shop weekly for bread, soft fruit and veg plus anything I need for my meal plan for the upcoming week, and buy milk just as and when needed.

I find milk and bread freeze fine, but don't have enough freezer space to store these - which is why they're not part of the monthly shop.

janiepopps

We needed bread this morning for our bacon butties (and I was too tight to go to the shop!) but managed to find half a loaf in the depths of the freezer which was promptly defrosted and toasted and was fine.

We then had a gorgeous roast chicken dinner with the parents which mum bagged us up some leftover meat.

I now have a loaf of soda bread in the oven to make chicken sarnies for tea.

I'm feeling sooooo virtuous :A

Long_tall_sally

Phew, finally caught up on the last 21 pages!

Didn't have a very successful shop yesterday. Purposely went to Mo**isons to use the £5 off £40 voucher I had and then forgot to use it! For a few minutes today, I confess that I did think about going again today & spending another £40 just so that I could use the voucher but managed to talk myself out of being so silly!

Also went to Lidl yesterday where my receipt got completely screwed up in the printer and only showed 6 items rather than the 20 odd that I had bought. In typical Lidl style, the cashier was onto serving the next customer within seconds of handing the screwed up receipt to me. As well as missing several of the items, it appears to be saying that my spring onions cost £8.48! I queried it with the cashier as she serving the next customer and was basically told that there was nothing she could do to get another receipt as only the Area Manager could produce one and he wasn't in that day but if I had said something before she had started serving the next customer, she would have been able to! Left my name & telephone number but I am not holding out a lot of hope to be honest! One of the disadvantages, I guess of not shopping in one of the big 4 supermarkets who would have been able to reproduce the receipt easily.

Hope everyone is doing well.

angelatgraceland

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

I'd suggest taking out of Jan's budget but reduce Feb & March's by the relevant amounts to compensate IYSWIM?

It's actually one of the reasons I've switched to an annual budget as I do bulk buy (mainly due to distances to places) so I'd overspend in Month 1 but then not reduce the budget in Month 2 & 3 to compensate - so I was still overspending.

I nearly added in my post that it is also my reason for going "annual". You can after all be on an annual budget but "allow" yourself a guide budget each month which is what I do.

redkids1972

Totted up my spends to date I now stand at £126.61 but have enough food for the week. Went to M and S with my mocs and staff discount and combined it with the 342 offers on frozen and the 3 for £10 meats so freezer is full. Went to Morrisons again armed with Mocs and got pet food fruit and veg yogs and lots of other basics. Determined to come in budget this month and also eat well and healthy. im quite lucky MIL sends lots of food bits our way and feeds the 3 kids and DH on a regular basis which allows to keep a low budget.
Hope everyone is doing ok with their budgets

Spiggle

Spiggle wrote: »

Afternoon All,

Welcome and good luck to our newbies! And good luck to everyone of course!

I'm not sure if the following will help any of you but here goes anyway ...

I hope my fellow regulars won't mind me posting this again but it may be of some help to all the enthusiastic and excited people joining us. I believe it has helped others in the past. So here goes:

We all have different budgets that suit our households. The most important thing to remember is that you set yours according to your needs and finances. It can take time to get to where you want to be too so don't knock yourself out if you go over in the first few months. We are here to support each other and it is not a competition.

I thought it might help to outline where we've come from and the top tips I've learned.

When we started in March 2010 we had spent in excess of £600 in the previous month. :eek: This had to stop, (there's only me and him and our two beautiful black cats) something which thankfully my OH completely agreed with so I have been lucky that he has been on board from the start. He gave me his debit card voluntarily and I still keep hold of it until he needs to get something for the home. At the same time we set up a system of pocket money (pm) at £15 each per week which doesn't count towards the GC and which we can each spend as we wish with no comebacks or complaints. OH predominantly uses his pm on his beer and I ferret mine away mostly. :rotfl:

The next step was to set up my own spreadsheet which is absolutely simple onto which I put all spends so that I have a continuous running total for the month and for the year. We initially set our budget at £280 per month and brought it down to £240 where it resides for most of the year it is occasionally increased to allow for extras e.g. Christmas to £260.

The important 'tools' we found greatly helped and continue to do so now are:

Stocktake cupboards, fridge, freezer - make lists and ensure that the older products get used up first. You'll be amazed at what you find squirrelled away and it will help with your shopping list as you'll realise that you don't actually need so much.

Before you go shopping check staples - running out of milk, bread, butter, etc often leads to going into a shop for one thing and coming out £20 lighter. Always check these and if they'll run out tomorrow buy them the same time as getting other things.

Always make a shopping list and stick to it - the supermarkets (sm) try every which way to get us to spend so having a list and strong resolve is the only way to beat them.

Keep every receipt - and then note it down on your spreadsheet/spend diary so that you always know where you are.

When tempted, ask yourself do you NEED it or just WANT it - now this advice goes with two things. Firstly, the things you see in store when shopping that APPEAR to be bargains - if you hadn't planned spending the money then its not a bargain. Secondly, the sm send us loads of vouchers for £X off a spend of £XX - if you had no NEED to spend £XX then have you SAVED anything???

Use my supermarket to compare prices (limited to four of the biggies) - The site may be used to actually do an online shop at whichever of the big four offers the best value or, if you have the time and sm availability, to make up lists for visiting each of the stores so that you can purchase all you need at different stores thus getting the best possible value. (I'd add, do a 'shop' virtually on this site and take the list you create on it with you, whichever one you shop at, it will help keep target prices in your head and allow you to spot bargains. MrM is not included but you can do a virtual list on their website so you know what you're going to be spending.)

Always have a list - this is just as important when shopping online as shopping on foot.

Use Approved Foods online (with a list!) - if you don't mind out of date things (ood) or you can search for only in date items. The only drawback is storing the goods as far as I can tell. Oh, and watch the delivery as it's done on a scaled charge for weight so keep an eye on it. You can of course do an AF order with friends, family, colleagues or like minded neighbours. Other GCers use Big Br*nds 4 Less too.

Invest in a breadmaker - we have saved so much by making our own bread. The prices in the shops are extortionate for bread these days. There's loads of advice on this thread and others in the forum on this.

Use the recipe lists - always posted at the front of a new thread. There are fantastic, tasty, healthy and economical recipes to use on them and there are a number of other threads on the forum such as Weezl's that will help you to eat well on a budget.

Shop locally - the local greengrocer (or preferably market but I don't have one ) is usually cheaper as an option for fruit and veg (f&v) than the sm. Often the prices may look the same but when you look at the quantity for the same price the greengrocer will be cheaper. The same goes for the local butcher. Often you will have far more variety of meat available, advice on how to cook a particular meat can be offered and there is (for me at least) no comparison in terms of quality. We buy our huge FR eggs there and I'm yet to find an equivalent FR egg in a sm at the same or lower price. Obvioulsy if you have your own chicks/know someone who has chicks you can get them even cheaper again.

Grow your own - it's quite simple to grow some f&v at home even if it's only in pots on the patio. There are also supportive threads on the forum for this.

Cook your own - making meals at home from ingredients is far more economical, often tastes better than shop bought and is probably far better healthwise.

Meal Plan - this is something that others can advise on as we don't do it. I have a tremendous capacity for eating the same food over many days but presented in slightly different form. For example, we could buy £7 worth of brisket from the butchers and eat it as pot roast for a couple of days, sliced for sarnies, sliced with a salad, chucked into a casserole or shredded up and fried as crispy beef.

Don't waste food - either only make what you need or use any leftovers for other meals/creations or freeze it for another day.

Withdraw the cash you want to spend - and keep it in a separate purse. This can be particularly effective as you have the money in front of you reducing rather than spending with plastic which is so easy to lose track of. Very useful when you first start out.

Don't go to the shops to browse - this can only lead to pain and hardship!!!

Keep posting and reading the thread - there really is no better supportive, wise and inspirational place to be! I think I saw that somebody mentioned forgetting to read/post. I get around this by using the Advanced button to post, below the window where your text is displayed you will see Additional Options. In the Thread Subscription box use the dropdown to select either instant email notification (this is what I use) or daily email notification before you submit your latest post. Then you will get an email into your inbox from which you can click to the thread to see what others are saying.

Always remember the sm is not your friend - it wants to profit from you and take as much of your money as it can coerce out of you!

So, there you go as a starting point. Others on here will offer tremendous advice on meal planning. And don't forget, the only silly question is the one you didn't ask!

See you all later,
Spigs

Weclome all our newbies! Just thought I'd repost this in case it's got lost in the 71 pages we have so dar got (and it's only the 8th:eek:).:rotfl:

Keep up the great work,
Spigs