April 2007 Grocery Challenge

celyn90

I had a good day in co-op - I popped in to get some fruit and they had just marked down the reduced section again I managed to pick up two large punnets of strawberries, one punnet of plums, a 2kg bag of potatoes, six muller light yogurts, one 4-pack of yogurts, bread, 6 bread rolls and four 500g packets of filled pasta (two cheese and mushroom ravioli, two cheese and ham) - because the pasta are buy two for £3 at full price, the till gave me the reduced price and the full multisave discount of the total bill - so for the lot I paid £1.97. The guy on the till thought it was cool and said he was going to do the same when he'd finished serving me!

lil_me

poohbear - You could use someone elses postcode to register to make supermarket comparisons (don't have to buy to see the prices) there is also this one http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/GettingStarted/Home.aspx which has comparisons of a few, sure there is more but that's the only one I know straight off. I know it seems like cheating but you don't have to buy anything so not too naughty really. Oh and have tried freecycle, not had any luck so far. Might twist DP into a dreamy american style one if I can get away with it :rotfl: I know he likes them as they are more modern.

Well done with the reduced section celyn, how to you get through that amount of yoghurts before they go off ? Unfortunately not so lucky here, reductions are few and far between plus never get much off, the last of those who missed off removing promos like 3 for £2 cottoned on recently

angelatgraceland

I bought some plain frozen fish from Tesco last week-just the cheap white fish-sort of value stuff. Pieces a bit on the small side but we fried some up for tea tonight for 4 of us-still have a couple of servings left and it was about £1.88 for the pack. A really good buy!

celyn90

lil_me wrote: »

how to you get through that amount of yoghurts before they go off ?

Yoghurt doesn't last long in our house (we both eat them for breakfast, normally take them with packed lunch and make smoothies - typical consumption for the two of us is normally over 2 kilos a week :eek: ). I usually find it's fine for a couple of days beyond the date too. If I find a load in one go, then make frozen yogurt out of it for a treat (which I'm just doing at the moment with this lot as they are all the same flavour ). I'll also use it for yoghurt cakes (if it's flavoured) or naan bread or pannir (if it's plain). I tried making pannir with flavoured yoghurt once and it was horrendous :rotfl:

WelshWoofer

I'm very pleased with myself!
Went to Tesco for the first time ever with a list of exactly what we needed and actually stuck to it - just the stuff required to go with what we already have - total cost £10.22 (including toilet roll, polish and washing up liquid).
Have meal planned up to next weekend and should be OK for extras/bits.

So total spend so far for April = £23.08
A world record ! And considering that I only got paid yesterday and usually feel rich on pay day and go berserk with the shopping I'm very restrained!

lil_me

Well done Rachelmk sounds like you've defnately cracked it!

poohbear59

Thanks for the advice lil_me, about using someone else's address for comparing prices. We sometimes get to the Sainsbury's in Darlington really late at night and pick up bargains there. Sorry to hear that freecycle hasn't really worked. Have you tried joining more than one in your area. I belong to three and as we have to travel a distance wherever we go it doesn't matter for pick ups. We have given more away to people in the freecycle furthest from us who are prepared to travel. I picked up some gardening tools yesterday (before we broke down). Actually I think I'd rather have an American style one if given the chance. I wanted an expensive cream dishwasher to match my range and DH coloured the white one with washable pen for a laugh!

Well done Rachelmk, you are being very restrained. I have so little left in my budget after paying for bread and milk today that I am going to have great control , not over myself but DH as well as he is taking me shopping on Monday. He still doesn't understand the concept of a budget!

isabelle304

Went last night for what should be my penultimate shopping trip of the month. Before leaving home I actually marked on my shopping list my guess/estimate of what each item on my list should cost. My problem is I never, until now, have looked at prices and never have a clue what things cost, so this was a challenge! I had decided not to go over £12 so I monitored the mounting balance by using the calculator on my mobile phone, and when I reached £12.24, I simply stopped adding any more items to my trolley. When I compared my guesstimate of the prices with what the actual prices turned out to be, I was glad to see I was not too far off, and the only item I had to forego, in the end, was olive oil - which turned out to be much more expensive that I had imagined, so I'll just have to use up my reserves of sunflower/vegetable/rapeseed oil until the end of the month.

From now on it is gonna be quite tough as I have just under £6 left (for Week 4) but am so determined to stay within goal that I'll live off porridge during the last few days if I have to! Am extremely lucky that I live on my own so I can actually do this as it only impacts me.

The spreadsheet thing inspired me to start compiling my own personal price list of all the items I normally buy to enable me to better estimate how much my shopping will cost, although as a vegan as I buy LOTS of vegetables and fruit and the prices of these fluctuate according to the season, they are more difficult to keep track of.

Onwards and upwards. Hang in there everyone, nearly halfway through the month :rolleyes:

lil_me

poohbear - If you're close ish to Darlington there is a Farm Foods there which is cheap for frozen foods. Herons a similar one but think the nearest to there is Newton Aycliffe. My Dad uses both of these as he lives that way on and gets loads of bargains, just wish there was one a little closer to me!

Well being ill is doing me good, not left the house to go to the shop, going to try to do a pantry inventory today and see exactly what I have in, I'm so determined to stick to this budget going to push what I have as far as I can. I can see there being some weird and wonderful mix up meals by the end of the month!

happyathome_withmyboys

I did the same thing yesterday! I even didn't get instant coffee which was on the list because it was an end-of-week top up and we hadn't actually run out - so if we do, we do - and i'll get it in next week's run. So not only did the bill come under target, but I had the added smug pleasure of seeing my friend who went off list go way over budget.
I know that that smug feeling is BAD and I know that it is going to come and bite me in the knickers 10fold, but it was SO good....