Grocery Challenge - February 2012

adysmum

Well just been to @ldi's and spent £36.64, but hubby gave me a tenner for his drink so have added £26.64 to my sig. Had the £5 off voucher to use and didn't need much other than milk and fruit so have stocked up my "junk" cupboard with a few more sweeties and choccies for Mummy! So thats the month started.

Should come in under budget hopefully as we are going away for the weekend for our anniversary and thats already paid for and includes 1 nights dinner and breakfast both days.

Happy MSEing everyone

Florenceem

freyasmum wrote: »

Might as well post in this thread so I don't fall behind here as well!

Bought sour cream, cream cheese and a reduced loaf earlier so another £2.79 to add to the budget.

Sour cream and cream cheese were bought for this

Unbraided (:rotfl:) lemon bread:




Was my first time making a sweet yeasted dough, but it won't be the last! Doesn't look as neat as I'd have liked (I'm a bit of a perfectionist ) but everyone who tried it said it was delish.

Looks very yummy.

Florenceem

Went into town to draw out some grocery money - forgot the £10 for extra purse!
Had spends on goodies today - to take away with me - only time I do have little extras. I like to take some bits for my friend who I stay with. Mr F is staying home but he won't need to spend much - he had better not! :rotfl:
Off to update my sig.

iwanttogoonholiday

gonna try for 200 this month - didnt make it last month ...

so thats 0/200...

meg72

MunniMuncha wrote: »

Can I just ask, do you soak the lentils first, how many do you add and are they just normal red lentils. Have never used lentils before, only oats

Many thanks

Yes just normal red lentils,no need to soakI dont measure them just throw a handfull in.

freyasmum

Florenceem wrote: »

Looks very yummy.

It was :A

I meant to say the recipe is here if anyone wants to have a go.

I halved the recipe and used all sour cream rather than yogurt so that I didn't have to buy more than necessary

I didn't have the big sugar pearls either, so just used some chunky granulated.

medsdemon

Hi, please can I be put down for £200 again. I am chanting to myself we must try harder. DD is away for a long weekend of this and we are also away but self catering so we will need a few treats to take as it's our anniversary, but we're doing it on a budget as its an extra weekend away that we hadn't really planned for. This month I'm going to try and do a bit more batch cooking again and also try to stop buying so many snacks and alcohol that are bad for us.
Right on that note I'm off to pop a batch of Carrot and coriander Soup in the SC ready to pop on in the morning for tomorrows dinner.

Lunch is LO risotto from last night dinner for all of us and whoopsied fruit ( grapes/apricots and peaches).

I would like to plan to do a big shop within the next week to top up on everything, but perhaps won't get time till next monday realistically. Am going to try and make a meal plan with what I have in for now:T.

Good luck with your budgets this month everyone.

tigerfeet2006

Think this marvelous post needs a bump!!

Spiggle wrote: »

OOOh, lovely new thread! :T

Thanks Zippy, rosieben and helen jelly for their sterling work keeping us all on the right track. :A:T:A:T:A

I'm posting the following now so it is near the front of the thread for newbies joining this month. Helen, please would you change the post number in your list post to match this one please?

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

MunniMuncha

Am really chuffed with myself this evening as went to make a pie for tea (using chicken and ham left over, which normally would have been binned or just used in sandwiches) and had a packet of pastry in the fridge. However, when I went to use it it had gone off. Now normally I would have got in the car and gone to the SM and bought a new packet but today ...... drum roll please - I made my own! :T:T

Used to always make my own pastry but for the past few years have been buying it from the shop and even tho I had to refresh myself on how to make it, it was lush!!

Am also going to move my shopping month to the end of the month (instead of 23rd monthly) and thought that seeing as this month is a short one, should be able to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the extra 5 days. Keeping fingers crossed that this is doable, but have loads in so should be okay.

pinkpinkuk

My February starts today, on payday.

I have carefully kept a note of what I spend and have decided to include bus fare as a "grocery". Slightly strained interpretation mebbe, but realistically it all comes from the same pot, and if I get the bus every day I can't eat.

So my total spend today was £9.90. Really need to get that down, but today being payday it was the exception.