January 2012 Grocery Challenge

sonastin

sonastin wrote: »

So I've been canny- I've prioritised what we need first of the shopping list, been onto mysupermarket and figured I can get most of the urgent stuff for £16.60. If their pricing is right, I resist the urge to stock up on anything else and I don't need to visit the supermarket again until Feb, I should come in a whopping 1p under budget for January. Not bad seeing as 2011 averaged about £80 over budget :rotfl:

Wish me luck - I'm off to Mr T to see if I can find everything on my printed list... and nothing else honest :T

Well that plan was an abject failure ... but in a good way. There were a few lower priced options in MrT which didn't show up on the mysupermarket site, so I used the saving to buy other bits on my list to spare Feb's budget instead. One or two items weren't there either so chopped and changed the shopping list quite a bit but got more than I expected.

I did cheat a wee bit but needs must. The way I work my budget is I count "whatever I buy from the supermarket if I'm grocery shopping". So if I picked up a new sweater or something, it usually goes in with the groceries. Similarly, if I picked up a pint of milk at the petrol station when filling the car, that would be out of the petrol budget. A special trip just to buy clothes goes on the clothes budget but if its just going in the trolley with everything else the whole bill goes down as groceries.
So anyway, forgot to go to the card shop for a birthday card at lunchtime so had to get it from MrT. But its down on the s/sheet as part of the presents budget because I'm so close to the GC budget now! And I decided to get a couple of new pizza trays because I'm loving HM pizzas with dough from my new BM. So they went into the "home improvement" column even though that is a bit of a stretch!

So at the moment, I'm looking at £198.69 / £200 for Jan. Not prepared to declare that as the final total because I'm superstitious. As sooon as I say that's it, I'm gonna need something urgent. So lets just say that its looking good between now and the end of Jan!

russetred

Coxy11 wrote: »

MMmmmmmm Floreenceem, that's looks yummy!

Just on to update my spends. Started my Feb GC on Monday with a trip to MrA (near a friends house, not fortunate to have one near me) and MrT in the evening. Also have just paid final milk bill which was for the first 2 weeks of January (nearly £15!). Annoyed because they bill in arrears and I had forgotten about this :mad:

Now here's a question: I have some diced pork (YS of course) in the freezer and was going to use it in a curry sauce I have bought. Now I don't want to offend anyone (feel bad just writing it down), and I know it's not authentic Indian cuisine as you wouldn't find pork on a menu, but DH says it is simply not on to have 'pork curry' and that I need to do something else like sweet and sour (which of course I don't have ingredients for....). He was even laughing about it to one of his friends yesterday - could've slapped him! What would you do? (about the food, not the DH, I can handle him). Answers on a postcard please......:D

WW this morning - better have lost something this week!

Had to reply to this one as he is completely wrong. Goa a state on the west coast of India was heavily influenced by the Portuguese and therefoe uses pork a lot. Just google goan curries.

123budget

Declaring at £355.83/£450 so an amazing £94.17 under budget!! (did have loads in freezer at beginning of month so cheated a bit really!)
Also managed to keep bank account in the black this month:j
Anyway I am bringing the budget down to £400 for FEB
I still have quite a bit in freezer so hope that I will come in under budget again - I made a bit of a mess up with putting money into savings account for holiday fund and transferred too much so am going to try not to have to retrieve it and work really hard on using up stuff. Am going to do yet another inventory of freezer/jcupboard this afternoon and then do my meal plans.

boultdj

Bust!! For this month, think I'v gone a bit mad now I'm allowed to drive again:o got £105.39 to add, but it has included getting the bake bean's at L*dl, which should last for the rest of the year.

Ches

NSD today but cc bill came today and there were things on there that I had forgotten about buying (eyebrows and manicure) so although I have set my GC at £50 per week I am going to try to manage on £40 per week in February so I have some money left over to help towards the bill.

quintwins

been whoopsie shopping again no bread but i did get

cheese torillas 25p
mushrooms 54p (down from £1.75)
plums x 2 @ 31p
sausages x 2 @ 75p
pork mince £2
cumberland pie x 3 44p
value mince 75p
finest lasagne £1.88 (down from £7!!!)
mini muller lights 2 x 8 packs @ 40p
60 dennys coctail sausages £1.89 (these we're £1.59 yesterday at the same time who decided these prices?)

and 2 full price milk

my tesco couldn't scan reduced bar codes so she had to type them all in i don't think she was impressed, i had abit left on my voucher so it cost me £7.37, my freezer is bunged so i'm gonna have to look at my tesco shop thats due on monday and see what i can acually fit in rather than what i'd like to fit in, thats all my spends done i'm starting next month on monday because i had a tesco voucher to spend it seemed silly to waste it

lasagne for tea with chips, we just had some 5p yogurts (good going but hubby will prob need 3 lol)

declaring £267.19 for jan, so a huge overspend but well stocked up in lots of things so will balance out

mi_jardin

Its the last day of the January budget for me today! I had another little spend today, 2 packs of Hot Cross buns, a bag of carrots and a pack of trifle sponges, adding £1.99 to my monthly total bring it to: £98.83, leaving me £1.17p spare!

Can I go down for £100 again for February please!

Good luck for the last few days everyone! :T

ClaireT13

Just reporting todays spends of £7.00 for 20 pints of milk (my kids love milk a bit too much) and 2 loaves of bread.

Still waiting for a NSD........! Must try harder!

Brassic_Park

It's looking like I'm gonna be over by about £25 by the time my Mr T order comes on Sunday.

I had to get the dog some emergency tins of food as he only had one left this morn. So that was overpriced and now a very heavy bag to carry home from work.. joy!

Not sure whether to start counting again in Feb or to just do annual. I'm less concerned about meeting a target and more interested in just keeping spends as low as poss given our budget. Hmm...

sistercas

Florenceem wrote: »

Here is the Chicken Stir Fry I made this evening - it was really yummy.


/QUOTE]

mmmmm looks yummy



well i have manged 6 NSDs n a row :j:j

going shopping tomorrow and i am so close to my limit i know im going to go over - not too much hopefully

have used alot of stuff fom the freezer this week but there are still a few meals in there that i could cobble together