January 2013 Grocery Challenge

medusasmummy

afternoon all
january is always a tight month for us as hubby is self employed and doesnt get paid for being off at christmas. this year though we are reasonable prepared. i have stocked up on nappies, squash and cat food during december, and the freezers are packed with bread, cheese, butter, mince, pies etc. so this is gonna help drasticly.

Its gonna be very tight as every penny it literally accounted for in january, barring any unexpected bills we should stay afloat. so with that in mind......


can i be put down for £200 please.
our month will run for 31st december til 31st january

good luck to all in the new year, and in the mean time have a merry christmas

craigywv

Hi thanks for new thread please can i be put in for 120 please , lowering it again as am convinced can live on lot less as batch cooking more and watching the pennies thanks .xxx..

mossy

catznine wrote: »

I must get back to doing this as it really helps focus you! Dh had a huge tax bill in, we tried fighting it as he is on paye and it is their mistake so we saw an accountant but sadly no it is backdated and we now have to find £9,000 :eek: Going to have to go for monthly payments but still going to hurt lots!!!

Ouchy wouchy I feel your pain. I thought I was up against it with a £4,5k tax bill to pay in January. Still I have been putting money aside for it, but don't think I've been saving enough for this current tax year....ah well. Good luck, hope you find a way to manage, things always seem to work out somehow!

mossy

I am very proud of myself. Took out £80 in cash for shopping today and spent £79.50. If I hadn't taken cash out I'm fairly sure I would have spent much more on the card! Inputting the prices on to my calculator around Sainsbugs whilst singing Christmas carols...of course!! :A

Spent £1.50 at the market on a brussel sprout tree
£2.99 at Lidl
£19 in Iceland (finally got to take advange of one of their money off vouchers they've been giving me all month!)
£54.80 in Sainsbugs (DH said to get a big trolley but I picked a small one so less temptation to fill it and there was plenty of room!!)
£1 into SPC6 for some shampoo from Mossy's Market.
and 21p change into the SP too.

I have a good feeling, I think I'm going to manage this months budget. Just got to keep focused and avoid 'nipping' in to pick 'a few' things up!!

Mrs_Toast

Please could I join the January grocery challenge? I've just started a debt free diary and cutting my grocery spends will help me pay off some debts and save more.

I would like to be put down for £150 please. Starting from tomorrow (22/12/12) until 26/01/13 so a long month. I'm aiming for £30 a week which is doable as there is only me, DH and DS3. DS3 is not in nappys anymore :j so only cheap pull ups needed as well as all food, drink, cleaning materials and toiletries. Right, off to write my meal plan for the week. We aren't hosting at all this christmas so should be nice and cheap :rotfl:

meanmarie

Made a miserable mess of November and December, so ignoring them and going for €175 for January
Marie

welshdreamer71

Im calling a complete overspend for december but can I please be added for £275 for January please fresh new month and as we have acquired a turkey the size of a blooming hippo we should be clucking by January lol hubbys who'd have em huh x

CRANKY40

Thank you to all the people involved in the running of this thread.

January will be a 5 week month for me, but I'm working on £35 a week now instead of £40 as £5 each week will go towards the cat food delivery from Amazon. If the Amazon prices go stupid I have the option to miss a delivery and buy the stuff myself if I want to. My January target will therefore be £175.

Waywardbird

Hi I'd like to join this challenge. Really need to get in the swing of tracking my spend with groceries and meal planning.

Can you put me down for £100please

rising_from_the_ashes

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

mmm that's got me thinking about how I'm going to work the budget next year ... I've always done annual and last year went on a 1/4 basis eg stock up month followed by 2 slightly reduced ones eg Jan £160, Feb & March both £130 so £420 over the 1/4 but I thought I'd go with even splits this year at £140

But now wondering if I should split it into weekly shops as I do tend to go to the SM every weekend ..... so do I split my budget into a weekly figure (approx £32) and go with the number of Saturdays in the month.

So ... I'm an idiot

If I stick to a 1/4 break even point, then there are always 2 x 4 week months and 1 x 5 week month (based on a Saturday) and the breakdown is the same (rounding to nearest £ or so) at £130 for a 4 week month and £160 for a 5 week month!

Just not always the 1st month being the "big" one ..... so Jan = £130, Feb = £130 & March = £160

:o