January 2013 Grocery Challenge

craigywv

meant to say i called into mr t for milk ahem ahem ahem (cant stay away from the whoopsies) got ham on the bone like small version of the one in the deli section down from 7.50 to 50p the other night so got 4 its official freezers are full and i will stay away from sm..........well until new years eve anyway!!! its a disease i have i am convinced of it i like a magnet to the reduced section past caring who sees me (used to be embarassed) now dont care who sees me i in there shoulders back head down like a charging bull well enough of me i off to capture the recycling binmen as our bins full of paper/selection boxes have a good day.xxx

pavlovs_dog

our month runs 28th-27th, so a four week month for us. Aiming for a maximum of £160 to cover all household spends (food, toiletries, cleaning).

OH is now much more on board with menu planning, which helps. We still have a looong way to go with wasting less though. One of my jobs for the holidays is to give the fridge a good clean and organise it better. A lot of what gets wasted are items that end up hiding at the back.

We've also agreed to one ultra cheap night a week (e.g. baked spud/beans on toast etc) to help bring down spends. I'm thinking of starting a pudding night to make a dent in the baking cupboard, so these two would probably go hand in hand so we feel less hard done by.

Good luck to all :T

WelshWoofer

Just back from a trip to the local shops (talked myself out of Mr T's).
I have a very good greengrocer that's much cheaper than a supermarket and also popped to B&M (near the park I walk the dog in so no extra petrol) for a few bits including dog food, a toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, diet pepsi cans and breakfast biscuits.

Spent £8.33 in B&M and £8.18 in the greengrocers on F&V and local free range eggs (99p) so a total of £16.41 so far.
I'm hoping that will be it until next weekend but I may need a bit more fruit - will see how it goes, I'm on the post Xmas diet already!:o

pinchingpenny

Hi All,

Haven't had chance to read all your posts yet- my laptop needs a new cable so I'm borrowing my mum's just now. Looking forward to finding out what everyone's up to!
I'll be back to doing my own groceries from Sunday but I know I have things in the freezer so my month will run from the 31st to the 31st. This is the first grocery challenge where I will do a full month as I will have spent 12 days with parents in December, so I'm just going to shave a little off the budget to make it more of a challenge! Please can you put me down for £45 for January?
Thanks!

tessie_bear

hi...dh and i are on our own for tea so i have gone mad and got 2 steaks from the freezer...ys of course...i am going to do them with wedges and veg...yum yum

i have not done a meal plan for the next few days as we are out and about and its easier to just have something on toast if we find ourself in

i have a couple of bags of meat slices and 2 boxes of veg for bubble and squeak to use up...think i will do it gradually once a week in the new year....dont want to overface anyone

what super frugal meals have people got planned for the new year ? i might have time to do some planning later and will post my ideas

happy new year tess

XSpender

Hello everyone I hope you all had a lovely Christmas

I feeli like I have lost the plot a bit with my spends as I keep thinking I must have missed a receipt somewhere as the 'normal' food and alcohol spends look too small. The Christmas bit has been blown out of the water and I am sure I have a small M*S spend missing.

There is a small Sains spend to add on the 'normal' food costs from last night as we needed dog food, chips, cream cheese, fruit and yogurts for lunches.

I am going to try and manage with a small fruit shop and some beer for DH (yer cant move for booze in our house but there isnt any lager:mad:) on the 2nd Jan and nothing else between now and the 7th Jan.

DH parents came to tea on Christmas day and brought so much stuff. I have £10 worth of deli ham:eek: a big block of cheese and various crackers and tw1glets and what not. I sent her home with most of the cakse (6 boxes for 5 of us) as DH doesnt have a sweet tooth and I cant eat gluten so they would never get eathen in our house. I cooked a large ham and this has kept us going since Christmas Eve so will have to start on the other stuff before it goes off.

Still got turkey left so I am intending to rustle up a turkey, ham and leek gratin for tea over the weekend and willserve it up with the last of the veg box veg.

I have just realised I have forgotton to add the veg box on to my total so will tootle off and do that now.

HighlandLass

Hi,

Ok so I need to get our spending under control....I have read through some of these GCs before and find myself saying ' this will be great, I will do it' and guess what....I never do

Well this time is different....we are expecting our first squirt in May and for some reason May seems an awful lot closer this side of Christmas :eek:
I have no idea what our current spending is so I am going to have a guess and set a target for Jan (28th Dec - 28th Jan) of £300

Hopefully this is not going to be blown out of the water and I should be able to get a few bits to start a small store cupboard.

Wish me luck

liz-paul

Hi, can you put me down for £250 in Jauary please? This is a massive reduction from the £450 I've been using for the last few months but I think it is doable as a one off. I still have £450 in the bank if we need it but I'm hoping to save £200 to put towards some stuff for our bedroom. My budget includes all food & drink at home/packed lunches, household products (loo roll, cleaning stuff etc), any OTC meds, toiletries, etc. Longer term goals for this year include reducing monthly budget to £400 by Easter and maybe a bit more later in the year, baking more, buying an electric slicer to make my own sandwich meats & having a go at using my breadmaker.

Mrs_Toast

Finally managed to get on and update my grocery budget. I have so far spent £34.50/£150 on groceries which should last us until the end of next week hopefully. Off to check the menu plan to see what's for tea:money:

lottie3000

Little spend in Aldi of £24.24, mostly nuts they had reduced. OH has to go Gluten and dairy free for a little while, which adds to expenses!!