Grocery Challenge - February 2012

meg72

Last Day am declaring at £88,so £12 for the Holiday pot.

Have been very very pleased with this month as only two visits to Asda,the bad weather helped enormously,kept mein and made me use up.

My plan for March is to continue to use up, and use my budget to stockup on really good offers
I need an offer on Kenco Raphor so hoping the Co-op will have one shortly. I want to run the freezerdown asmuch as possible and have promised myself I will only buy meat ifits a drastically reduced whoopsie.

So most weeks should only need milk and veg Although have quite a lot ofRosspas carrots,onion
and cabbagetouse up. Cant beleive how well these have kept.

Florenceem

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

We have a landfill bin, a cardboard and plastics bin, a brown food waste bin (which we don't use as we compost everything) and a black box for paper, tins and glass ( we have 2 of these as I recycle as much as I can.) I only half fill my landfill bin in the week so a two weekly collection doesn't bother me. It will be interesting to see how they cope as their bins are always overflowing and we have known about this for a couple of months and they do not seem to have tried to adjust at all.

So many different schemes across the UK. We have two wheely bins - a blue - recycling one and a black landfill one. They are collected alternate weeks. We can only put no 1 & 2 plastic, tins and paper/card in our recycling bin. Glass has to go to the nearest recycling point - so lots of people put their glass in the landfill bin! :mad: These people have usually got cars - so they don't even have to carry the bottles! We don't have a car - I picked up and carried home a glass bottle today - on the way home from town. I will wash it at the end of my washing up and it will go in the garage until there are enough bottles for Mr F to carry down to the recycling point. The enviroment wins and Mr F gets free exercise and fresh air! :rotfl:

Fiasco55

Another NSD today :jand only one more day to go. Dinner tonight was chicken with potato salad part 2.

tigerfeet2006

Tonight's dinner was cauli, broccoli and bacon cheese. Probably cost me £1.50 to make

Pudding was warM GF banana and walnut loaf (recipe in the Recipe Collection) and custard. The bananas were some that I had been keeping in the freezer as they were going over. So quite cheap as well. The rest will go in the kids lunch boxes over the next couple of days.

cw18

Just bobbed in to declare my (rather bleak) end of month figure, and see there's been a discussion on bins.

We have a black one for general rubbish (including food waste), which is currently collected weekly but due to change to fortnightly later this year. Mine goes out no more than every 6 weeks (if I put a chicken carcass in shortly after it was emptied), but normally every 8.

Then a green one for lawn trimmings, dead heading, dead houseflowers and small twigs. Collected fortnightly for most of the year (nothing at all through the winter), and I always struggle to do all my lawns between each collection as it won't take it all..... I have to do one lawn almost immediately after collection and let it compost/compress for a week before I can do the others !!

The third is a brown one, and is another fortnightly collection. This one takes glass, tins and plastic (we've had restrictions on plastic types removed since getting the bin), but I rarely put glass in as I keep all my jars for jam/pickle making. Despite having swapped for a half-size one part way through last year I probably only put this one out every 3rd or 4th collection (every 6 or 8 weeks)

The latest is a blue one which is collected every 4th week. This takes paper, cardboard, greetings cards (as long as they've no glitter), catalogues and phone books. We got these in time for the first collection last November, and I'd opted for a half-size one. First collection was chokka as I'd been saving paper and cardboard for several months, ever since before they announced we were getting the bins (which was about August). Second was equally full, as I'd got the paper/cardboard I'd saved since filling my bin the day it was delivered as well as everything from the 4 weeks between collection. Last week was the third collection and mine was only half full - but a neighbour couldn't get everything into her full size one and get the lid closed, so we put her overspill into mine and put mine out for collection


Anyway, back to business.....

Not a good month for me

Budget was £101.50, but I ended up spending £123.99 - so almost £22.50 over budget :eek:

£11 of that was on a take-away for me and my chap, but it still leaves almost £11 'unaccounted' for apart from as general odds-and-sods. I think it's down the fact I'm trying to stick to leaner/better quality meat as well as incorporate some organic f&v into my diet - and that's all a lot more expensive that what I'd otherwise buy.

As such I'm increasing my daily budget from tomorrow - which is terrifying as it's already high compared to the other singletons on here

Sue14

Final spends for this month of £11.55 in Asda, 48p in Wilko (for toothpaste, which I had a 50p voucher for), and £1 in £ shop, which takes me to a total of £142.74 so £12.74 over budget.

Twiceblessed

Declaring 209.53 for February, a few trips to the corner shop for junk (comfort) food else i would have managed by budget. Fingers crossed for March

Herbyme

Blimey, I can't believe how complicated these bin systems are! No wonder people get fed up with them! Thankfully ours are really simple, alternate weeks we have (Collected week 1) landfull rubbish in one wheelie bin and (collected week 2) garden rubbish in a brown wheelie bin and all other recyclables in a grey wheeliei bin. Because it's simple, everything possible gets recycled, apart from the waxy bags inside cereal packets and the foil pouches that coffee beans come in. I can't beleive some councils expect you to take the plastic rims out of fruit juice cartons etc etc:eek:. At least sortiing it all out at a depot provides jobs for a few people. I've read that if we recycled as much as in Scandinavia it would provide something like 70,000 extra jobs mostly for less skilled workers and there aren't so many jobs around for them just now, so the more the better, I reckon.

Anyway... like someone earlier, my Feb juggling act was knackered by DH who can't seem to buy 1 of anything and who I will NEVER send to the shops again:eek::eek::eek:! He got to Pet$ r us and rang to tell me there was no offer on Sh3ba (as advertised online, 12 for 55p, I know it's pathetic but cats are so fussy and razor your legs if you don't feed them what they want). So I said 'don't buy many packs then' and guess what, he bought 12. And guess what, the offer was on so he paid £5.50. :rotfl:He didn't even know till I checked the receipt!!! And £5 for cat treats at Ald1!!! :eek:So I am putting the Pets r us shop into March cos otherwise I'd go over and I want to stay moralised (if that's the opposite of demoralised!):rotfl::rotfl:

Declaring for Feb at £552.88 out of £560, setting the same budget for March which is still progress as it's 2 extra days...

btw made the tea loaf out of the C0-0p mag today, DS2 loved it, soooooo easy! can supply recipe if useful.

Well done all, see you over on the March thread!:wave:

lynn2302

Good evening everyone, sorry I havent posted on here much, but I have kept up to date with it and enjoyed reading everyones stories.

Well after my first months grocery challenge I can declare - I FAILED

Although it doesnt really feel like a fail because I have spent sooooo much less than I usually do and was maybe a little ambitious with my target and have had to be extra careful this week to keep my total from going over too much. So my total for Feb is- £209/£200
only a little over, but I know I need to allow more for March especially as it it a longer month. Have updated my sig with feb and March. See everyone over in March

NickJW

Hi All

My Feb month doesn't end until tomorrow, so I can't declare just yet. £2.31 spent in Mr W today. I've been good using fridge/storecupboard things for lunches so far this week.

I get weekly bin collections - one large recycling bin and one 'half size' regular bin. There are so many restrictions about what can and can't be recycled though and often they have not collected my recycling bin/threatened me with a fine because the 'wrong' type of plastic has been put in or a passer by on the street has put an empty crisp packet in it. It's bad but it's not a isn't exactly encouraging the take up of recycling in my area.

I still remember a good few years ago I went to Germany and they add an extra couple of cents to each product as a deposit and you get the money back when you return it to the shop. Why don't they do that here I wonder...:think: