March 2013 Grocery Challenge

Stargirl29

Recent events have made me realise we need to seriously cut back on our monthly spends so I'd love to start again on the grocery challenge. For 2 adults, 2 Kids and 2 cats - £300 please

XSpender

Small spend tonight of £8 odd on GF cereal, pot of season-all and 4 beers for DH. I need to add up my spends from yesterday and today but am sure I have spent this weeks £95 already. DH will want wine for tomorrow and I will need fruit and salad mid week. In fact we probably only need fruit, veg, milk and booze etc next weekend too. It's me who buys more than we need:o. We are on a mission to overpay our mortgage this month so any pennies I can save will be going towards this.

We are 10 days not SW and my lovely friend has lent me his cookery books and there are loads of recipes using up stuff I already have and as my meal plan this week is a bit vague I will sit down tomorrow and firm it up a bit using the books. I wish they had a syn free recipe for cake:(

storytime

Still have one more shop in Feb to go , but put me down for £260 . I've taken off another £5 a week in March as I will hopefully come under budget in Feb. It's going down slowly but not painful at all.

nmlc

Morning everyone

PLEASE PUT ME IN FOR £400 BUDGET TO START FROM FRIDAY 1 MARCH
My budget is for me, DH and 2 teenage boys who eat loads! Budget will be for 4 weeks.

Keep safe and well everyone x

nmlc x

lushlifesaver

Yay March!

Sticking with my £120 please.

As usual this is to include all food, drinks, take-aways, dog supplies, toiletries and cleaning supplies. It will not include our anniversary meal out towards the end of the month though as bf is paying for that one

This month we will need to do a Makro run for chicken breasts and beef mince and any other appealing offers - the meat sets us back about £30 so that leaves £90 for the rest of the month

It's looking like this month we will be needing a few cleaning supplies which we haven't needed to stock up on in a while. Think I will budget £5 for these.

Doglet will need treats but not food or anything else - £5 worth usually lasts 6 weeks-ish

I need showergel - hoping to find a decent offer on one that doesn't murder my skin

There's a few offers on in Morrisons which I want to stock up on - we only drink diet Pepsi and squash in this house and 2l bottles of diet Pepsi seem to get drunk 'because it needs using up before it goes flat' whilst cans are on offer at 8 for £2 I have bought a couple and I want to get a couple more. Budgeting £10 for these offers

We need some serious lunch box supplies - getting back in to eating a 'proper' lunch rather than my limited SW friendly ones I was taking so sandwich supplies, jelly crystals, biscuits, crisps and Aero mouses (on offer atm in Mr M) in this section. Budget £15 for the month

Fruit and veggies - craving fresh salads etc even though it's not quite the weather for them yet! I'm thinking £5 for fruit and £5 for veggies (carrots, cucumber, peppers and 2 others if I can choose at £1 each)

That leaves £15 for the general items including pasta tubes (£1), 2xRagu (£1 per jar [£1 in Iceland/£1.99 but BOGOF in Mr M]), mixed veg (£1), milk (£4).

May technically go over slightly due to the Makro shop but will stretch the cost of it out over the following couple of months as usually the meat lasts us 8 weeks minimum and if we get laundry supplies etc they last us even longer so will work out the average and apply that to this month and the following two rather than taking the whole of it in this month!

ETA:starting my March budget on Friday - Monday is payday for my new job and final pay from last position (just £80) should come through on Thursday. That £80 will form most of the grocery spends I'm hoping!

pinkypig

Hi everyone.

Still over on February until Tuesday but are last shop is done so I am thinking about March. February saw us reducing to £40 a week for the four of us plus one spoilt cat. This included all toiletries and cleaning stuff. The new budget seemed great until the last week but with a few sensible decisions we were kept on track:)

Decided that the new budget is doable and ideally would like to get down to £35 a week. However, don't want to run before we can walk!

Will be going for £160 for March. Fingers crossed...

See you here next week.

PP xxx

[Deleted User]

Hi, just popped in to add £1.76 to my spends which was on 2 x YS cheese (one 87p the other 89p, both half price) which makes my spends £12.38.

mossy

Staying at my £200, thanks Coxy.

As you'll see from my siggy I've already spent nearly £160 of this months budget which 'officially' started on the 20th Feb (17th Feb if I'm being kind to myself)!!! :eek: :eek:

Some of the early spending was a DR order and the freezer is full to bursting!! I have a few things to buy for the month (tuna, clothes wash etc). I think that will leave me with £10 a week for the rest of month, for fruit & veg, milk, bread etc!!

I have a little bit of money spare because I'm bound to go over a bit but that's less money for the savings!! Hopefully that 'painful' reminder will help focus me so I don't do it again next month!! :mad: March is going to run from 18th Feb to 17th March.

Couldn't keep up with you last month as the thread was moving so quickly. Will try to keep up.

WelshWoofer

Just done the last shop of Feb and even though I kept it to £19 it means that the Feb budget was over by £24

Anything bought from now on comes out of March's budget - I really don't need anything until at least next weekend so if you see me in a shop shoot me!

Good luck to everyone in March!

AimingForBetter

Hi all

I'll sign up for March at £350 now although won't properly be over until the 1st.

Keeping budget the same but hoping to come in a bit lower if at all possible as we are still well stocked and should just only need to maintain store levels.

Want to try some new meals, breads etc and the store cupboard items will cover most things likely to be needed.

Thanks everyone
AFB