May 2007 Grocery Challenge

mikeD

Definitely going to be over this month but not despondent about it (look at my face! does my face look bovvered?). Last Wednesday I got my fortnightly delivery from Mr T and there were a lot of special offers and BOGOFs so the bill went up a bit. This means I'm well stocked up with certain products so hopefully, next month I'll be well within budget.:beer:

I'm green with envy about you guys & girls with an Aldi and Lidl within easy reach of you. The nearest to me is 5 miles away and they don't deliver so shopping there is out of the question.:mad:

belfastgirl23

Well my final May post and as you can see from signature my extra frugal month did not happen. My normal grocery challenge is for £150-£200 and I was trying to keep it under £150 but ended up at £180, nearly £50 of which was at M&S. I do at least know what went wrong - extra busy at work so no time to meal plan and had a car accident as well so budgeting went out the window when I was dealing with that. Still at least I came in £20 down on where I would otherwise have been. Here's to June!

Well done to all of you who stuck to your guns!

Edit: on the bright side i just realised that from Jan-May last year I'd spent twice as much as in the same time period this year. Maybe not such a failure after all

happyathome_withmyboys

Herbaholic wrote: »

not only had I come in well under budget, I'd bought a coffee maker, a frugal recipe book and produced the amount we were short to renew our annual national trust membership, his face was a picture :rotfl:
He said the food has been nicer this month as well, he's getting used to the cakes and puds (only ever occasionally baked prior to our new OS lifestyle).

Well done, you, Herbaholic! Which frugal recipe book did you get? Would you recommend it?

lil_me

mikeD wrote: »

I'm green with envy about you guys & girls with an Aldi and Lidl within easy reach of you. The nearest to me is 5 miles away and they don't deliver so shopping there is out of the question.:mad:

9 miles from me at least to either, saying that Asda is 15 or something.

With the stock ups for next month, I usually add the overspends onto the next months budget if it's for things like that.

grannieannie_2

Well, not as good as some of you, but as I usually spend about £50 a week on the 2 of us, plus cat and dog, and this month is a 5 week month, my total is £227.37 for May, so not too bad, and £8 of that was coffee and bacon bits for June. In Spalding and Boston we have a shop called Scooby Do's where they sell the Nescafe in 200g jars for the continental market at £2, whereas they are about £3.79 in the supermarkets now, so those 3 jars will last me over June. The bacon bits I get in Heron frozen foods. They weigh 907gms, sometimes they are slices, sometimes little bits and sometimes they are loke steaks, so it depends on what the bits look like that dictates what I use them for. little bits go into risotto's, slices for unday breakfast, and big bits for liver and bacon casseroles.

I know OH and I have good appetites, and we really must cut down, but I don't seem to buy much, never buy processed foods or ready made cakes and things.

I'll be glad when my veggies grow, that'll save me some money. Right, now to look forward to June!!!! Also looking forward to getting some more ideas from here on recipes etc.

dm1465

Did well, came in under budget on my first month, so thanks to everyone for all the help and good ideas. See you on the June thread!

mikeD

Ah well! It had to happen sooner or later, I've gone over budget. I was hoping that my calculator was in error, but it wasn't . Never mind I am still going to go for £55 p.w. My next fortnightly shop is on th 16th and as I got a lot of reductions and BOGOF's last time I stocked up a bit. So hoping to keep the the cost around £60. Good luck to all for June, hope the sun shines too.