March 2012 Grocery Challenge

Naomim

Hi All,

I'd like to join again please. I've completely lost track and I've noticed my spending is now getting out of hand and I'm spending about £90 a week :eek:

So This month I'd like to put it down to around £350 a month.

I'm off to look up meal plans and recipes now.

Good luck everyone

Naomi x

rising_from_the_ashes

Ess-six wrote: »

Thank you all for your hugs and kind words following on the Feb board regarding my Dad - I'm putting this on here now as I think most of you will have migrated to the March challenge, I'd forgotten it wasn't February now.

Just wanted to add my condolences ...... I'm only just catching up with the end of Feb's tread - I do struggle to keep up when both are on the go for the last few days:o - thoughts are with you and all the family at this very difficult time (((hugs)))

ms_night_ryder

£16.82 to log so far, i spent 18p on a order from milk and more, 2 catherdral cheeses, 4 pints of milk, a bag of carrots, a bag of baby pots, a 6 pack of creme eggs and a pack of muffins for 18p using the codes and glitches.

On tuesday i bought a half price bag of tilda rice 4kg for £6.50 a mango, 2 packs of weight watchers yogurts for £1 each 3 packs of 5 multi packs of kettle crisps for £1 each, couple bags of half price sweets, a bag of half price petit pois and a bag of mixed veg with 30p off, so should be alright for veg this month, with any whoopsie add ons i may find along the way, this came to a total of £15.64, i also spent £12.39 on 4 full racks of free range ribs and a pck of ham from my neighbors butchers, im only counting £1 of that in my gc, as the ribs were bought to take to my grandmas bday party, so is more a gift, but the 4 racks are a bit too much, so froze one rackk seperately and will have that at another time, so the £1 to ghc is for the ham, got a good discounts the ham was £2.31 on label but my neighbor charged me £1 for it, its great quality and over at jamie olivers schol, they recommend buying from this butcher and the master chef guy buys from my neighbor too lol, anybody instrested they do have a website, they are called chadwicks lol.

Need to start stocking up my freezer, so will have an eye out for bargains

sheselectric_2

Hi Everyone,

Just 99p on kitchen roll to declare so far. Off to Mr A for the weekly shop tonight and having my first attempt at batch cooking this weekend :eek: Cooking is not my strong point so we'll see how that goes!

Winchelsea

I've cancelled my organic veg for this month, much as I love getting it.

Have some frozen mixed veg in the freezer, also have masses of carrots left from a bag I bought from ROSSPA (I think it was £1.99 for 10kg.), and some onions, garlic, parsnips and broccoli. Also I'm a great one for sprouting seeds, so have some mung bean and pea sprouts nearly ready to eat. Plus a stash of tins of tomatoes, green beans, baked beans, peas etc etc - so will be fine for a while. And there are several good markets that I can easily get to.

I'll have to buy milk and some fruit tomorrow - other than that I have had several NSDs in a row. Bread - I make my own and have plenty of flour, also yeast, also a thriving sourdough starter in the fridge. I love this challenge!

mi_jardin

I had a little spend to report yesterday, £3.02 on kitchen roll and lots of tissues.....I have a cold ! Booo! Hiss!

Spiggle

Well finally I get to say a great big March style HELLO! :hello:

Sorry I've been MIA for the week its just been busy and too little time. Thanks to rosieben :A, helen jelly :A and zippychick :A for the thread, you're all wonderful.

I've finally declared on Feb and came under budget but with a painfully low 13 NSD for the month. For March I'm pledging the usual £240 but I don't need to be on the front page helen jelly as I have my figures in the sig.

Welcome to all the newbies joining us, you've come to exactly the right place! :cool:

Kylieminoag, your post a few pages back was truly inspirational. We can't do the bulk buying that you do but the 'no waste' is a mantra in our household too.

Thanks by the way to JIL and tigerfeet for posting up my tips earlier in the thread. :T I'll post them up again separately after this one too.

We're off to MrM shortly as we haven't done a biggish shop for a while and so will go for £60 spend to get the 15p off per litre of petrol and I'll use that next week at the one near work. We have a very detailed list and will stick to it! I'll post up the damage later.

Take care,
Spigs

Spiggle

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

Barbeduk

Hi Everyone, could I share my recipe for Fruity Tea Bread? I have been making it for years as it is completely fool proof and you can play around with the recipe to fit what's in the back of the cupboard!

12 oz dry fruit
4 oz soft brown sugar
10 floz tea
1 egg
12 oz SR flour

1. Soak fruit and sugar in the tea either overnight or for as long as you can be bothered (often only a couple of hours with me so I use hot, rather than cold tea, to get everything moving along!)

2. Add egg and flour and mix well.

3. Bake in a greased 2lb loaf tin at 325f/170c/gm3 for 1-1 1/2 hours.

3. Enjoy at any time of day with or without butter (DD loves this for breakfast with a bit of jam).

I've made this with value mixed dry fruit, fancy pants expensive dried fruits and today all I've got is currants. It always tastes yummy and keeps quite well.

Suffolk_lass

tessie_bear wrote: »

couldnt resist a post to say coxy my mum does that too...when we have been to markets she comes and drags me off to look at stalls miles away from where im looking...then i cant find my way back to them....in garden centres she thrusts plants under my nose and tells me and the world where they would look nice in my garden....as if i have never entered my garden:D

It's because they love us and they want the best for us and we will always be their children. I'm the same with my DS (almost 20). Can't help it!