Grocery Challenge - February 2012

familyms

elsiepac wrote: »

Hi all

Haven't been posting much as have been out quite a lot and so still living off my Mock Goose! Last one tonight though, with broccoli and green beans, yum!

Lunch is Sweet Pepper and Tomato Soup (used up all the wrinkly peppers my mum donated!), made 4 servings, started yesterday so will last till Wed lunch.

Week 4 spend today of £1.78 on 2x 2pt milk. That is actually my whole Week 4 shop unless I get any whoopsies later in the week. Shouldn't even look though, because I have no room to put them and no need to buy them! :rotfl:

LC

Feb GC: £69.50/£98
Week 1: £13.38/£14
Week 2: £17.69/£18
Week 3: £12.41/£13
Week 4: £1.78/£14
Week 5: £0/£14
Stores: £24.24/£25

Wow well done how do you manage that and how many is you budget for?

NickJW

Hi All

£13.45 to report as a spend in Mr S and um...£25.10 in Bo0ts!

Admittedly the things in bo0ts were for expensive things such as razors, but still a big amount. I might grow a beard to save me money!

Getting very close to the target this month so hopefully I will just come under if I'm careful for the next 8 days!

ModestyB

familyms wrote: »

Well started off with all good intentions, however well and truly fell of budget wagon this month, due to decorating and having quick meals, desperate to start again in March, after next salary in account, how much do people generally spend on weekly grocery shop including toileteries and any treats for Kid and self - only three in our house DD/OH and me. All advise and suggestions well and truly accepted, as desperate to get motivated again as feel I've failed this month, and thinking should I try again or not!!!

Please don't give up. We all have glitches in our lives that cause us not to reach our targets. Don't think you've failed, you have tried and you will try again. You will get better! Good luck.

abitofhelp

hello, really excited, its payday for me on the 24th so i would like to join up then please, as i get paid 4 weekly it would be easier for me to do an annual challenge also i have months where i stock up more than others. my annual amount will be £2000, i think this will be too high but would like to have that buffer zone, also it will help with the extra cost of christmas and birthday celebrations. many thanks everyone, i think it will be achievable as i do like a bargain. trying to set myself up a signature thing now, that should be fun. so this year i will be ruinning from the 24th feb till 28th dec.

nicknack

Over the last week I've spent £11.00 in P/land, £12 in HB and £44.50 in Mr T, so I've gone over my budget for Feb by £43.86
BUT have had OHs family over for the weekend so that would account for some of the extra spends.

I have been stocking up on storecupboard stuff too so will try really hard next month to balance this out. I've just been looking at some new recipes for my March mealplan and a lot of the chicken recipes use Chicken thighs, so I'm thinking of giving these a go for the first time - any tips for cooking with them or is it just the same as using chicken breasts?!

Really loving the thread - it really does make you think about what you're buying and whether you actually need it, plus I've hardly wasted any food at all this month which really pleases me.

Hope everyone's doing well with their targets this month.

Gorgeestwo

familyms wrote: »

Well started off with all good intentions, however well and truly fell of budget wagon this month, due to decorating and having quick meals, desperate to start again in March, after next salary in account, how much do people generally spend on weekly grocery shop including toileteries and any treats for Kid and self - only three in our house DD/OH and me. All advise and suggestions well and truly accepted, as desperate to get motivated again as feel I've failed this month, and thinking should I try again or not!!!

I know the feeling I've totally lost track this month, but know I'm definitely over my target for this month already :eek: but don't give up , for me this is as much about making me aware of where the money goes as sticking to a budget iykwim we're still well under what we would have spent a few months ago, so in one way I've failed, but in another things are improving :j just slower than I'd like lol
Have updated my sig, have gone over mainly due to discovering a massive home bargains on the weekend, spent a small fortune on toilet rolls and cat litter I think I would benefit from the second purse system, as I've stocked up on bargains recently, but I'm easily confused at the best of times and am pretty sure I'd get in a right confused mess :rotfl:
Could do with getting some mushrooms and carrots later today, but hoping that should be it until my first 'March' shop on Friday.

elsiepac

familyms wrote: »

Wow well done how do you manage that and how many is you budget for?

I only have to budget for 3 meals daily for myself and I have a separate monthly budget for toiletries (£30 as I get through a fair bit of make up!!!) - this budget is literally just for food/drink groceries.

To be honest, this is my lowest month EVER! It was the lowest budget I'd ever set myself at £98 and I'm actually going to be coming in at around £73.

I'm very pleased

This month, the reason I've managed this is meal planning (which I've been doing for maybe 4 months now), and also I've expanded my meal planning s/sheet to include some Visual Basic programming, so I have an item list which I update with prices from various places I shop (it expands as I find another item I haven't yet bought since setting up the list so very much a work in progress), and then for each month I have 2 worksheets in the overall workbook - one is the actual meal plan (which covers lunch and tea) and the other is the shopping list for the month based on that meal plan. It's complex and it's taken me a LONG time to get it to a point where I'm happy it's now really helping me (I use it in conjunction with a "Stores" s/sheet so I know if I need stock items like tinned toms, beans, pasta etc). I constantly update throughout the month (e.g. if I'm out unexpectedly at a friends for tea maybe) and keep a VERY accurate record of what I'm buying and spending. I think I can get it down a bit more, but for now I'm happy with my improvement.

For example, looking back at my original spreadsheets from when I started budgeting (and tracking spends) properly last year, my budgets were:

July 2011 - £160
Aug 2011 - £140
Sep 2011 - £140
Oct 2011 - £150
Nov 2011 - £140
Dec 2011 - £150
Jan 2012 - £150
Feb 2012 - £98

March I am setting £70.

To be fair a lot of the spends were before I was meal planning, and also I have a bad habit of if I need e.g. one tin of chickpeas, I'll buy three so I have 2 for stock. I don't have a lot of storage as I'm at my parents at the moment, and what I do have is busting at the seams. So March and April are to be about using up stocks so I can get more bargains!! I'll be interested to see how I get on after that, when I don't have the stocks to rely on!

HTH - If you're interested I can make my meal planner shared online and put a link on here so you guys can see it - I warn you - it's complicated but makes perfect sense for me!

LC

ragz_2

£39.51 Spent in Lidl and £16.38 in Asda. Asda had the Belvita Breakfast biscuits on offer for £1 (from £2.48, yeah right, who would pay that?) and discovered DD loves them so may have to go back for some more. Linda MC Sausages were £1 a pack. Not much else on offer that I wanted, it always seems to be junk food in Asda even more than the others...

OS_QS

Went to lidl's on saturday for the half price weekend, and spent £13.87. Got the biggest butternut squash I have ever seen, so will be making a couldron of squash & honey soup for freezing

Coxy11

Right.....my February GC officially ends tomorrow as that's the date of my CC statement. I'm over by £36.64 but included in this total are 2 trips to McD's costing £45.48 :eek:.

I previously posted here that I would like to switch from CC to cash for my GC purchases. This means that I need to budget a sum for next months CC bill to use for food from 22nd to 29th Feb to bring me in line with payday. I have allowed £100 max for this period, which should be very doable.

Well done to all those sticking to their budgets, and welcome all newbies. You will find the folks on this thread very supportive.

ETA MrT have pouches of Mars planets for £2.09 or 2 for £2 if anyone needs cinema snacks