June 2007 Grocery Challenge

Sandy.l_2

I would like to join in this challenge to reduce my grocery bills. We spend far too much at the moment. I estimate between 300-350 per month for Me, hubby, 1 child & 1 cat. That includes all meals and pack-up stuff for work and school. I'm a good cook and enjoy making stuff from scratch so I reckon this could be a good challenge, my 11 yr old son has started taking an interest in cooking as well so we could have some good fun together!

What do you guys suggest would be a good target for 1 month? Are there any others on here who have a similar family set-up and how much do you spend on groceries per month? Do you think a £200 target is reasonable? Or can I go lower???

How do you get your cat to accept a cheaper cat-food??? Mine will only eat one brand and that costs nearly £4 per box of 12. At 3 sachets a day, he's costing me £30 a month plus biscuits:eek: !!

Thanks, Sandy

lil_me

Sandy - firstly welcome, with the amount, drop by say 10-20% I think is usually best, if you aim too low and don't make it, it's harder to carry on. Fussy cats, have had one, one day I thought right, enough is enough. Changed the food. For 3 days he protested, eventually ate it when realised I wasn't messing, this was it! I did the same with the fussy pot dogs. Thing is a lot of the expensive brand stuff has less nutritional value, just more added things (which I am sure makes them want it, maybe it's addictive :rotfl:) If you are not the type to be put off if things don't work, cold turkey can work, I did that and halved my budget, was hard but worth it. Good luck.

Lemanie and mollybilly welcome and good luck. Mollybilly -Have a look on the vouchers forum might help, we can't use them here unless buying the product so I don't tend to bother.

teedy23

mollybilly wrote: »

i need to start this challenge today. was hoping to start at the beginning of june, but had to take kids shopping and an essentials spend of £30 ish turned into £68 !!! Might do shopping online from next week, did it couple of times when car was off the road, but ended up taking bus up to town couple of times for extras. Would you say asda or tesco is better online, and dont think im thick but where does everyone get the money off vouchers youre all raving about?? Help please!!!

Hi molly, you can get moc from almost anywhere. The most popular seem t be from leaflets and pamphlets in Tesco, keep your eyes open for anything lying about, you can use things like £1.00 off ok magazine in asda, tesco and a lot of other stores, without buying the mag itself. The trick is to look for bar codes with the number 99 at the start. Look in the Tesco thread for the latest goodies, also in the Newspaper summary thread, were the good people tell you if a paper or mag has mocs in. Remember though that, it can depend on the checkout person wether they will accept your coupons. Good hunting:D

gems2381

I spent more than I should've this week but I'm hoping next week I can get away with buying very little. Still doing well though and I should come in way under budget, not as much as last month but I'm not bothered as I'm pleased with myself anyway

Angelraesunshine

Ok well i i have ordered the online shopping to arrive tomorrow i have done the meal plans for the rest of the month and only ordered in what i abosolutely need and a few extras like 2x washing powder as it is on offer and will save me £1 as it will be out of offer by the time i do my next online order. It has only come to £154 with delivery and thats not taking off all my bogof discounts etc or the £15 off voucher.

I am so proud of myself will update tomorrow evening after Mt T has delivered and i have my exact total.

redsquirrel80

Spent £5.82 in Tesco using gift voucher (other fiver went on phone credit ).. fruit, veg, bread and the wonderful bargain of two packs of feta cheese for £1.19 (BOGOF)... 10 days to payday so wonder if I can stretch it out till then, will be pleasantly surprised and under-budget if I do!

Just done a storecupboard/ fridge list so may post up a topic to see if anyone's got any ideas for meals out of it all as I didn't manage meal planning this week.. :rolleyes:

slowlyfading

Spent £1 on chips today. I think I'm doing quite well so far
sf x

fizzel81

Not a good week this week
did really well last week just bought milk and used up what i have had etc but its ciome back to bite me as well my cupboards were bare, was aiming for a total spend of 160.00 for the 4 of us but today with stocking up empty cupboards and freezer i have managed to spend 137.26 add the 9.50 ive paid out today for a veg box to be delivered wednesday (next one will be full price in 2 weeks time) means i will go over this month.

annoyed with myself as i done so well last month, if i cheat and take also off my shopping the 15.50 i had in clubcards coupons i may scrape under (but really that 15.50 is my pms).

good news is i will not go to over as i have all my soya milk juices everything, will just be the 16 pints of milk a week needed and the second veg box so im looking at being 20 over max :eek:

kj*daisy

We've spent too much already. Admittedly it's cos we've been on holiday but only have £49 left for month and that needs to include £25 on 2 veg boxes

Tartan_Mum

Morning all

Went a bit AWOL on this challenge last week. But after reviewing finances with DH last night I got a bit of a shock. Things are tighter than I'd thought.
He said it was obvious I was still spending as if we had two salaries but we're currently on one. He was right.

So I'm definitely back in here. Have plenty of stuff in the cupboards, not so much in the freezer but I'm determined to use up what I can before another big shop.

On holiday next week (self catering) so think I will try and do a sortof meal plan before I go so that I don't end up buying lots of stuff that I already have in the cupboards and could take with us.

Sorry for wittering on but last night was a real lightbulb moment for me.

TM x