March 2012 Grocery Challenge

Barbeduk

Hi all, well I have just been to !id! for the [STRIKE]half price chocolate[/STRIKE] essentials and spent £35.08. I did buy some expensive stuff like ground coffee and olive oil just in case we run out in the week as I don't want to go back to L and it's so much more in Mr M. They had completely sold out of free range eggs and their caged bird eggs have gone up to £1.19 for 10 from 85p :eek: Got the 5kg of onions for £1.39, got home and I don't know where to put them!

It's wine and crisp night tonight as dh is doing an extra day's work and won't get home til gone 6.30 so will make a nice pork casserole in the slow cooker.

Have updated sig with today's spend and a couple from in the week, so have £5.92 left which is enough for a bit of ham and some extra milk if we need it.

Just in case anyone else buys it Mr M own brand yeast extract (marmite) is 50p off at the moment.

Have a lovely weekend everyone, hope you all have the sun.:D

sistercas

think the sun is starting to burn off the fog at last , i have towels on the line which arnt drying :cool:

NSD today , been to work this morning ,then come back and worked my through a huge ironing mountain :A.

just about to make a cottage pie for tea, its a pack of whoopsied minced beef , but its a really small pack so i am going to bulk it out with some bendy veggies and lentils. ive also found some pudding rice in the cupboard i might make a rice pud for DH and DD2 ( DD1 and I dont like it )

rising_from_the_ashes

sistercas wrote: »

think the sun is starting to burn off the fog at last , i have towels on the line which arnt drying :cool:

Still like pea soup here not been out yet but should really go at some point .... but I am meeting a friend for coffee at Sainsbobs tomorrow so could get the bits I need then.:)

Budget will be showing as well over by then as will be doing my 3 month stock up at Home Bar*gains as it's in the same place (60 mile round trip:eek:) so would be silly not to do it and then have to go at some point in April anyway.

Off to have a jiggle around with the budget (well, if it stops me going out and actually spending money, that's got to be good!;)) Going to have a *play* around with some figures - think I may look at the dividing by 16 option (or something similar) and see what it comes out with!:)

Just been and added up (I know, I'm sad .....:o) my stock pile things bought so far:

• Jan: £29.06 (incl toothbrush heads, toothpaste & washing gel for a year)
• Feb: £18.13 (incl fabric conditioner for a year & cleaning stuff for 6 months)
• March: £11.98 (incl face cleaning cloths for 6 months)

Which comes to £59.17 and actually equates to my current overspend so feeling a bit better now!:)

DundeeDoll

Lummy expensive day today. Petrol (£57.03 :eek: cat litter £17.99 Lidl £71.73)

Have again analysed into Protein (P), Fruit and veg (V), Dairy (D), Groceries (G) and Munch (M)

Date...Total.......P.........V.......D........G... ......M
04/03..73.65...33.96....5.27....4.99...14.89...14.54
11/03..65.77...22.68...12.13....4.00...15.45...11.51
18/03..43.44...10.63...12.58....3.00...13.88....3.35
24/03..71.73...18.31....8.01.....4.98...21.92...18.51

So that means we spent an awful lot on munch!!! Two things occur: 1) we have DD2 back for w/e with shocking cold so got her lots of treats and 2) by the time we got to Lidl (after dump, petrol, cat litter) it was lunch time. Which leaves £290.27 for rest of month. Still totally undecided whether to see if le creuset off still on (that would leave me £128 for the last week and still hoping to get xmas fund into healthier state). Decisions decisions...
btw OH saying I shouldn't count cake as munch cos that's food. Thoughts? :rotfl:

FrugalLina

No shopping for me today, I have well enough in at the moment. I am travelling to the town that has the huge Asd@ on Tuesday, so will do my final shop for the month while I am there, although I will probably only need fruit and veg, really. Might get some more flour.

That will be my last visit to that town and that store so I will have to decide where to do my shopping in future. I like the Asd@ smart price items and my local Tossco isn't too good. Our L!dl is quite good, but doesn't stock all that I like. It will be way too expensive to drive to the big Asd@, so I may consider getting my shopping delivered in future which will take some thinking about as it will make sense for me to do a month's shop in one go and top up with veg from L!dl weekly.

Still 6 days to go until my next month starts, but I think I will come in on budget - yay!

DundeeDoll

Well done frugalina. Looked out the windoe this morning an fife has been eaten by the fog monster! Cant get brown rice in lidl so off down the sinderins to spend even more money!!!

FrugalLina

Yeah, DD, the fog just hasn't lifted at all today - hope it is better in Dundee!

rising_from_the_ashes

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Off to have a jiggle around with the budget

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

may look at the dividing by 16 option (or something similar) and see what it comes out with!:)

OK ... have jiggled . Dividing it by 16 came out at £180 / £120 / £120 per quarter but it just seems a HUGE jump between £120 and £180 (especially when I look at my spending this quarter).

So .... have decided to go for middle ground and do £160 / £130 / £130. Hopefully this should be easier to keep track of ..... thanks to all who suggested it (PG and *I think* Spiggle but sorry if I'm wrong:o)

I do need a couple of bits tomorrow which will count in March's budget.

However, I'll now be able to put the HB stocking up stuff against April as it's for use for the next quarter so hopefully this will show a much more realistic spending trend rather than just having huge overspends in a particular month!:T Fingers crossed:)

ETA I should probably take some of the stuff from Jan - March and spread them out over the months they will last (as previous post some stuff bought for the year and others for 6 months) but ..... seems a bit like too much hard work atm!:o Might do that on a day I'm really bored!

rising_from_the_ashes

DundeeDoll wrote: »

Looked out the windoe this morning an fife has been eaten by the fog monster!

FrugalLina wrote: »

the fog just hasn't lifted at all today - hope it is better in Dundee!

Still the same here - I was hoping it may lift this afternoon when the tide went out but no such luck..... think it must be pretty much all the way down the East Coast:(.

DundeeDoll

Hmmmm well 'small' trip to local shops resulted in over £30 :eek: (over £20 in chemist on hair dye for OH and chewey vitamin c for cold-filled DD2) the weather has been soooooo awful now wishing i'd bought some chocolate. Hope weather has been better for everyone else.