January 2013 Grocery Challenge

In_it_not_to_giveitaway

Spent £39.19 at Mr M this morning. Some very good meat deals.

I also saw the '50 shocking facts about diet and exercise' and although many of them had been made public over the years, some were discussed in more detail (such as the production of margarine and the consequences of consuming transfatty acids), whereas others were completely new and no less horrifying.

Over the past 4/5 months I have learned so much by reading the GC threads. Of course, I don't have the time, skill or experience to be able to implement all of the extremely clever and creative ideas used by members (would make for a very saleable home economics book that governments would do well to integrate into a compulsory GCE/O level for every student that passes through our schools).

Nevertheless, there comes a decision crossroads where further GC cost reductions can only be achieved with a corresponding, but difficult to quantify, health cost. One of the more irritating points that this program makes clear is that the profit war between the agricultural and industrial food sectors is undertaken while releasing a minimum of information to the consumer in the street.

My New Year's resolution, in a manner of speaking, is to get to the end of the year and produce my own bread, make my own muesli, yoghurt, butter, sausages and grow my own herbs (already grow the easy ones - rosemary, basil, chives, mint and parsley), tomatoes and carrots.

If the consequence is that savings are not as high as they might otherwise have been, but my blood pressure remains at 120/70, then the pleasure I will derive out of this vital sign and the production of the foods or ingredients that contribute to it, will more than offset the fiscal loss.

Sorry for rambling on, and hope everyone has a frugaltastic week.

pinkypig

loveasale wrote: »

P.P - I went in hope of fruit - thought a bit cold for salads and not right veg other than butternut that I wanted, luckily we have a really good f&v shop local to us ! :rotfl:

Maybe next time:D. I hope so the way my lot get through fruit, they cost me a fortune!

SAVVYMUMMY_2

Helsbels8080 wrote: »

Good morning everyone

Have been reading the threads and am stunned! I have been shopping at Mr Ts for years and have only just found out about the Price Promise :eek: I'm sure all you savvy shoppers are fully aware of it ..... how has it escaped me :question:. Don't get me wrong, I'm not surprised as I knew Mr As did it but I am now gutted I may have missed out on months of savings.

I didn`t realise this either, knew that MrA did this but not MrT, so thanks Helsbels for this.

Small spend today so will update in a mo.

jumblejack

Totally amazed by this weeks total for grocery spends :j :j

£18.54!!! :T :T

I'm loving my spend diary!!!

It's so low cos I had 2 x £25 morrisons vouchers at the end of December so stocked up on none perishables and have a heaving freezer n pantry.

Last weeks was much lower and you'd never believe it!!

I'm doing a Monday to Sunday now as it is as my week appears in the diary.

So very very pleased.

Got a gammon joint today reduced to just over a quid but it was over £8 originally in Tesco among other nice whoopsies.

Will cook it tonight for eating tomorrow and then carving and freezing in portions.

We had dinner at the inlaws today so that saved pennies too

Have a frugaltastic start to the week tomorrow, peeps

Tales17

NSD today! Doing shop for the week tomorrow hopefully but shouldn't be too much as freezer is full of meat and we have a veg delivery on Thursday!

Gracie_1827

First actual spend this year that wasn't Nectar points. It was a Sainsbob's gift card that I got from surveys with Valued Opinions. Anyway, spent £5.24. Bread £1.10, 4 pts milk £1.29, lettuce £1, tomatoes 68p, basic apples 82p, 5 bananas reduced 35p, 1 litre Welche;s rose grape juice should be £1.59 but I had a voucher for free litre :beer:
So bank or cash has still not been used for food so far this year. I must say a cup of fabulous Yorkshire tea was most welcome this evening (I'd run out of milk 2 days ago)

Suzexxx

Evening all

Didn't update yesterday as it was such a busy day and visited relatives in the evening.

Saturday i went down to Wilko and Iceland to stock up the freezer before todays shop. Spent £13.25 in Iceland, but my freezer is now full and i claimed my free pizza using a voucher from the last shop. Spent £3.62 in Wilko on a couple of house cleaning items. Akso spent £1.00 in Tesco Express on the way to the relatives on Mini Eggs.

Today i went to Mr M's with DP to get him some food for his lunch at work from tomorrow, ended up spending £31.41. Hopefully we won't need to get much until the end of the week now, just the usual bread and milk top-ups. I have been reading on here about how its cheaper to buy individual pieces of fruit/veg rather than buying pre-packed stuff. I bought 4 bananas today, which cost 48p, however normally we pay £1 for the pre-packed ones so i will remember this for next time.

Also interested in using my reciepts to do the Asda and Tesco price guarantees. I had no idea either of these existed so hoping to get some money back.

Will update my signature as i haven't for 3 days. I'm over budget this month, but as its my first month of GC i'm not too disheartened as next month i will have something to compare to.

Suze

Kitchenbunny

NSD today - am very very happy that's the 2nd in a row. Just had roast lamb with all the trimmings (well, carrots and proper crispy roast potatoes, gravy and mint sauce) with enough left over for tomorrow night's tea - hot roast lamb baguettes with minty gravy. Got to find some kind of vegetable side dish to go with it - more as a wave to healthy eating than through any kind of vegetable love. Now to have a look on the web to see what I can find.

Have a lovely evening, everyone.

KB Xx

wuvvies

did this weeks shop for £50 ( 2 ad and 2 child) and was really proud. menu planned and put in snacks. checking what i had was a big help. must not go shopping again. i still have 17 pounds in my purse so hopefully i can keep that there as i need to start saving some money.

couldsavemore_2

started to panic a little about how much is left in my budget for the month. but have gone through freezers and we still have so much food to use up I think we may just manage.

even if we go over it will not be much and the total amount for the month should be a lot less than we would have spent so we shall have to see how we get on.

everyone seems to be doing really well and its great to pick up ideas from others.

keep it up everyone we are all doing well i wonder how much we havent spent in the sm as a group. i used to spend roughly £70-90 a week on average so just me on my own would be £160-240 thats a hugh saving for me. I will need to spend more through out the rest of the year unfortunately but at least i have got the year of to a good start and emptied the freezer a bit.

how much does everyone else think they have saved