April 2012 Grocery Challenge

iQueen

I'm signing up for the April GC. I shall start on 1st and put my totals in my signature.

My budget (just me) covers food and any personal or household consumables that may crop up, although I'm well stocked on essentials. I spent £100 last month, so anything less will be good.

I'm a devotee of the Fifties - well, the way we used to live then! Over the past 15 years, I have become more and more concerned by the growth of 'want it, have it' consumerism. When I retired in 2007, on a tiny income, I was very glad of my frugal upbringing, by a widowed mother.

I already write down my total daily expenditure in a large cash book, but I think it will be useful, to set up a spreadsheet with a breakdown of categories for this month, then I can really see how much is going where.

I'm not a novice at this sort of challenge, for the past 30 years, I have set myself an annual, month-long, challenge of living on a really frugal budget - just to keep my feet on the ground. So, I'm looking forward to this! :A

My best tip, from years ago, when my family was exceptionally hard up, is to splash out on Madhur Jaffrey's Eastern Vegetarian Cooking. This way you can live on very cheap eastern staples, which are exciting, exotic meals for many of us. It's like eating in a good restaurant every day!

goldlightning

Well having lurked for many months on these boards I thought the only way i'm going to actually keep on top of things is to join up, sign on to this challenge and actually try and stick to it

So i'm going to jump in and ask you to put me down for £250 as a starting point.

Hoping over the months I can gradually work it down to closer to the 200 mark but we will see.

So here's crossing fingers and seeing how this first month goes

chocoholic_chick

My month was supposed to start on Friday when I get paid but have decided to bring it forward to tomorrow instead as it was cheaper for delivery for my order from Mr A Really trying to be more healthy so have been ordering more fruit and veg which has bumped up what we would spend slightly, but this is somewhat compensated by the fact I'm not really buying any junk food. My first delivery should be just over £50 and should mean ( in theory ) that I don't have to buy as much next week, though I might end up spending slightly more as I would normally as I will have a £5 off my next shopping bill at Mr A. Just going to see whether it's worth spending that bit more to get the £5 off or if it's unnecessary spending.

mysticshaz

hi all

thanks for the responses. i do tend to buy the salad bags purly because i like the mix of rocket etc and really cant eat iceberg! i have had little success with using the living leaves you put on your window sill as i find i eat it all before more grows?? i do have a big garden and grow my own tomatoes and fruit trees which helps when they are in season, also going to try and grow peppers from the seeds in the pepper from the SM. i will try again with the living salad leaves though.

and thanks for the offer saim any alternative ideas to salad leaves would be great especially couscous :-)

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

Hi please can I join the challenge for April. As I came in under budget in March :j, I'm going to decrease my weekly budget to £80 (from £90 last month and originally £100) for the 4 of us, so as it's a 4 week month for me, my monthly total budget will be:

£320

Thanks!

FrugalLina

mysticshaz wrote: »

any alternative ideas to salad leaves would be great especially couscous :-)

I love packing salads for my lunches in the summer months and two lettuce alternatives are: alfafa sprouts (I sprout my own) and grated brussel sprouts (delicious, honest). I haven't tried it, but maybe thinly sliced cabbage would be OK.

Oh, I must add, Little Gems lettuce keep very well in the fridge and taste very pleasant (I don't like Iceberg much either).

cattysmum

Hi there CATTYSMUM £225 FOR APRIL PLEASE, many thanks to all those that contribute and maintain this thread I really need motivation!!

newroadahead

Please may I join, I should really start from 21st (my payday ) and have been quite good living out of freezers etc. Also have spreadsheet showing what I have spent already

Will put down £200.00 for this month and aim to work on reducing it.

Many thanks


NRA

CherryPie

Will do my 1st shop of the month at the weekend, plenty time to write a proper list (usually my downfall!)

Have been on hols from work for 2 weeks, meeting with boss 2mo to find out if he has an offer of a job for me. Pretty sure he has, but not sure about where. I'm in 2 minds whether just to take my redundancy. I've been there 12 years so essentially its about 9 months salary. It would pay off all my debt and leave me about 2 months salary. But how quickly would I get another job? Would I like is as much as I like this one?

Confusing times!!

Hope you all do well on this months challenge, and will be counting on the community spirit on here to keep me going!

:beer:

MrsCD

Hello everyone. Hope you don't mind me popping in.

Mysticshaz, you can buy the packets of Ainsley's couscous very cheaply in Asda at the moment or just buy plain. Make it up as per instructions on the packet and add chopped cucumber, tomatoes or whatever cooked veg you have left over in the fridge, e.g. peas or sweetcorn. I also like tinned beans mixed in - not baked beans!!
You can make salads with cooked pasta in the same way, or cooked rice, but be VERY careful with rice as you can get Baccillus Cereus (a type of food poisoning) if it's kept too long in the fridge Hope this helps