September 2012 Grocery Challenge

happy_chick_3

Have just about made it on budget this month (I think!!).

Spent some time this morning doing a Tesco order of store cupboard stuff for next month. Took my lead from Nick JW and waited for a good voucher - free delivery was tempting tesco but £15 off won me over! That comes on Tuesday and with the weekly beggie box will hopefully be all I need. May the supermarket embargo continue!!!

WelshWoofer

Just back from Mr S armed with a list, a calculator and a £6 off a £30 spend voucher.
Managed to spend £30.50 before the voucher so a £24.50 spend in real money:)
Very pleased with that as it did include dog food and laundry washing liquid (what a price that is these days!). I did go around clutching the calculator but wasn't embarrassed at all - I actually saw a few people doing the same thing.
So three weeks worth of shopping done and £67 ish pounds down - not too bad so far.

robberbutton

How do people work out their budgets for the months with 5 weekly shops in between paydays? This month I should have allowed £409, and others it will be £340. Sorry if there's an obvious answer but can't quite get my head around it!

[Deleted User]

Coxy good luck to your daughter on her 11+ - I thought that exam was phased out years ago.
robberbutton people will have different strategies for shopping. The way i manage is to build up a storecupboard from reduced items. I do an online shop normally twice a month totalling £30ish, including cheapest delivery, which will then leave me £15 run around money each week to buy salad and veg. I am extremely lucky to live near a whole street that practically gives away fruit and veg, so stock that up once a week and i tend to just buy chicken from a local butcher, 3 packs for a £5, which lasts the month, tastes nice, but is probably not corn fed (i wish). Any bargains i want to stock up on, like the pork loin from Morrisons for £1.50 per kilo, or special offers on toilet rolls,, i will put price stickers on and only add to budget in the month they are used. What normally sends me over budget is alcohol, im not a hugh drinker, but do on occasion through the month want to indulge and i don't seem to have factored that in, so it does send me over a bit. Anyhow good luck

Suffolk_lass

robberbutton wrote: »

How do people work out their budgets for the months with 5 weekly shops in between paydays? This month I should have allowed £409, and others it will be £340. Sorry if there's an obvious answer but can't quite get my head around it!

robberbutton - you're not alone with this; loads of people have the same issue. It's the dilemna between being monthly paid but allowing a weekly budget. You will see from Helen Jelly's post on page 1 that loads of people work with weekly budgets - some with daily and others with annual.

It's obviously up to the individual but I try to have a freezer/store-cupboard week when there is a five-week month - only buying dairy and F&V that needs to be fresh.

In the second half of this year I have introduced a "13th" month which is my storecupboard as I am useless at remembering to account for stuff as I use it (others manage and of course there is second purse too) but for me, this way, I have a separate account within my annual budget. I'm happy with it!

SL

mossy

Oh dear, didn't make my first target, never mind.

L!dl £8.08
MM £2.00
Sainsbugs £16.62 (I did ask the cashier how that could possibly be as I hadn't actually bought much!! She agreed money doesn't go far).

So that puts my current figure at £185.18 with 15 days to go!! :eek:

Although picked up a couple of packs of sausages at 79p from Lidl so those will make a couple of meals and I bought a big bag of jacket potatoes to help with meals.

Will still need to do some shopping before the end of the month. I might sit down and try and work out what I might need to get (fresh etc) and get the cash out and once that's gone it really is all gone!!

Still it's not too bad and is a good exercise for me to see what I ACTUALLY spend in a month.

jumblejack

Nipping in to say :wave:

I feel like I've neglected the thread at the moment as I've been actively glitching on t'other thread.

Last night I made a monster stockpot full of five beans chilli which fed a multitude and loads left for another couple of days

Cost next to nowt as the beans were FREE with vouchers:money:

The recipe is already in the index

Totally pooped today. Hope you are all doing well with the challenge:)

pixiedust09

Had to pop to the co-op today and managed to spend £13.18, , on stuff we didn't really need. A fresh soup, cos we have colds and couldn't be bothered to make from scratch, some muffins for breakfast tomorrow, 2 small bottles of cider cos its saturday and two chocolate bars , a tub of celebrations for xmas (that OH has already opened :mad:) and newspapers for FIL. Hope we can make it to the end of the month. I think we should just about stay to budget if we're carefull for the next two weeks.

[Deleted User]

jumblejack wrote: »

Nipping in to say :wave:

I feel like I've neglected the thread at the moment as I've been actively glitching on t'other thread.

You haven't, the thread is blessed by your legend jjs herby bread, which is a massive hit, but you could make it up to us if you really feel you have, by explaining glitches in PLAIN ENGLISH. God i swear you need a degree of some kind to go on there. I would love you to explain what a glitch is and how it works, i see lists posted, but dont really get it.. Or maybe point to an easy learn place, they all seem quite complicated.

she_who_can_not_cook

Possession wrote: »

£20.62 spend at Aldi yesterday, more than I wanted to spend so am not very impressed with myself, but did get quite a bit for packed lunches and the kids were pleased to see mini choc lollies appear in the freezer. Our Aldi is new and I haven't yet worked out what time they do their reductions, it seems to vary unfortunately. Did get a chicken for dinner today with 30% off at least.
Obviously I didn't actually NEED a chicken, having a freezer full of stuff already. Need to work on this big time!

i am so like that i only go to aldi for this and that and see the 30percent off and buy .... i am usually good but in the chest freezer i found four different dated packets of potatoes cakes all with the labels on them 30%