March 2007 Grocery Challenge

chewy62

:rolleyes: Well. lost the plot in February and stopped keeping check of my spending by the 10th! Goodness knows what I have spent?
Going to give it my best shot this month, as still have a fair bit in the freezer, so £300 for me, DH and 2 x DS (under 5).
Cancelled my online Mr. T order, had ordered 30 x 2 litre milks, and freezer in garage broke! Think that may have been a bit daft anyway!:rotfl:
Haven't joined the no supermarket challenge, though would like to. Am going to start gently by visiting butchers's,baker's and fruit shop.Wish me luck!!:T

madhouseof4

rosieben wrote:

I’m in on this one. I kept all my February receipts and I totalled an average spend of £30 a week; way too much as I live alone and on benefits but I’ve been stocking up on supplies having been persuaded whilst lurking in OS forums that it would be a good move to buy a breadmaker and a slow cooker. Very pleased with both so far. Thanks to everyone for great advice and tips.

I do a supermarket shop every Friday for my elderly aunt and for myself but I very rarely go to shop apart from this; I’m aiming for a maximum £25 spend each week in March so that’s £125 for a 5-week period. I'm sure I could do better than this but doing it gradually!

I’m interested to see how much my bm supplies cost in comparison to shop bread – I’m still practising and already my hm bread tastes better!

Edited to say - I can only work by the week so my monthly total budget will reflect whether there are 4 or 5 Fridays in the month ....

Hi! Just wanted to say good luck with the bread making. I find it works out cheaper in the long run and is much, much tastier than shop bought bread. We all fight over a loaf straight out of the machine, hubby & I take a crust each and ds1 has a the next slice. We have also started to make home made pizza as the dough can be made in the machine, as well as naan bread etc! :drool:

southern_chick

Hi all

i'm in again this month, i came in under budget last month but have kept this months budget the same at £110 for me and DD. i've used up loads of stuff in the freezer and cupboards so need to replace them and am going to try some tray bakes for lunch boxes so need to buy some ingredients, hoping it will save money in the long run

Good luck everyone

SC XX

jmf76

Count me in - I failed miserably last month as I didn't plan, so am determined to get my head around the planning this month.

madhouseof4 - totally sympathise with you, my OH is awful for buying snacks and little bits and bobs - we did a shop at Aldi on Tues and I managed to stop him from buying lots of chocs then I came home last night and he's been again just to buy a box of cherry bakewells - they were all gone within a couple of hours (which doesn't help my lose weight challenge either!)

Fortunately I have next week off, (off to a spa for a few days and then chill-out at home) so I shall plan, plan, plan!!!

astroelle

Last month OH and I opened a joint account for Grocery shopping. We are paying £200 in each month. Feb we actually spent £197.47 for 3 adults. This month I'm going to aim for £190 although as we are starting a healthy eating plan this may be a little tough.

belfastgirl23

I'm in again too! Went over by £12 last month but I'm still pretty pleased. Aiming for between £150-£200 for all groceries and cleaning stuff this month for 2 of us. Already done the big tesco store shop and mealplanned. I could get the groceries down a good bit more if DH wasn't a big M&S fan but I've stopped buying from there for me (except special offers) so that saved a good bit. Good luck everyone!

whatatwit

I'm in again too. February was first attempt at this and I was really pleased to come in under budget.
I think I will aim for £260 this month, and I will actually set the cash aside, so if I come in under again, I can do something useful with the surplus. :rotfl:

Good luck gang.

EagerLearner

We came in underbudget last month so sticking to £120 again for the two of us. This is for food, cleaning products, washing powder, loo roll etc.

Ordering from Tesco's online once last month saved me money as I got all the heavy stuff and lots of BOGOFS. Also got 8 salmon fillets for £10.99 that I then put in freezer, much cheaper than buying 2 fillets at a time.

Plus I find that ordering their 6 x 1 litre packs of longlife semi-skimmed milk saves us running out and having to 'pop out for milk' all the time and spending loads more than intended. We can't tell any difference from normal milk and it's cheaper this way, plus the milk doesn't go off. Tins of tomatoes, kidney beans, tinned vine leaves, cous cous, 1kg rice, mixer drinks like Ginger Ale, lemonade etc are also good.

Plus the delivery guy gets to carry it all! this once a month helps the remaining weeks to be lighter...

LJM

im in again i did really well in febs challenge but im still going to stick to £200 see if i can do even better

redspot24

I'm uncertain whether I'm in or not this month...
Feb went pear-shaped as bf is now ex-bf, so haven't like keeping tabs on spending so much plus meal planning went a bit awry. We've roughly followed what I'd planned, but not on the exact days as both been eating out a lot more and I've been back to my parents for a few days etc
Plus side of this is that we've got loads left!
Basically, I'm going to keep spending as low as possible while we're still living together (will be helped by the huge amount of meat, rice, tinned stuff etc that we have left from last month). We hope to be moved out to our separate new places by mid-month, so after that I'll decide what to do in terms of how much to budget for myself for the rest of the month.
I hope this makes sense!