May Grocery Challenge

crana999

I don't think you did offend anyone, you certainly didn't offend me :-)

I spend about £5-6 a week on food (just food) but it's distorted because I stock up at the start of terms (................which mum and dad buy me...........) and I don't count that in my budget.

Daisy

aliasojo wrote:

I saw a budget of £15 per week mentioned which also was to cover cleaning stuff and toilet rolls etc.
With the best will in the world, I just cannot see how anyone could supply the body with enough quality and variety required to sustain good health for this sum.

When I first discovered the grocery challenge, I was shocked at how little people spend and wondered how they did it but I read the whole thread and picked up tips like only using cash, meal planning etc.. I also read the alternative cleaning thread. I now use white vinegar instead of fabric softener, cheap bleach for floors/toilet (I used to use expensive discinfectant and toilet duck) and bicarb and soda crystals for other things. With just doing these things, I cut my bill down from £30 a week to £20. I then bought a slow cooker, started cooking from scratch and cut out all junk food and shop bought ready meals. I also started shopping at the butchers for meat because it's better quality and it's cheaper. With knowing I was spending less, I decided I could afford to buy organic milk (which actually isn't that much dearer).

Towards the end of last month, I found I was only spending £10 a week because I had lots of things in the freezer. I totally agree with moggins in that since I started home cooking, I have never eaten so well (and healthily). I eat a good variety of food and certainly don't eat a meagre diet. Since stopping buying processed food, my sodium consumption has gone down, so too with saturated fat and sugar.

It would be great if you could join in the grocery challenge alisojo and have a go. You just have to go slowly at first but you could start by making a weekly meal plan and then just buying what you need. It really does work.

swizzlebabe

Been to the supermarket this am with £10 in my pocket, spent £9.98- without the ade of a calculator.
Not sure if I should be pleased or not, at least I didn`t go over and have to put something back!!!
Not doing bad and only spending cash, spent £92.23 so far and about 1/2 way through my month.

Even went to the farm shop and bouhght some good veg, trying to eat better not just cheaper.

But do get fed up sometimes, need to save money, and enjoy the bargins but would like a treat now and again.

Any ideas for cheap pick me up`s?

Magentasue

swizzlebabe wrote:

But do get fed up sometimes, need to save money, and enjoy the bargins but would like a treat now and again.

Any ideas for cheap pick me up`s?

Our treats are puddings. A pot of cream is about 55p and goes very nicely with apple crumble (cheap) or meringues (very cheap for me because I have hens!).

tootles_2

I wrote earlier that our budget for food was £100 per month for two of us:

We eat healthily, have fresh fruit and vegetables/salad almost every day, although occasionally I make my husband stovies which are loaded with fat, but once a month is a treat. We eat meat, fish, cheese pasta and I make soup, which,with homemade bread is our lunch. If I do not have any soup, bread and cheese, I have either an apple or pear and my husband a yogurt. Fruit is eaten as a snack or pudding after supper. Chips we have once a week and Sunday is always a roast dinner with dry roast spuds, no fat...... 3 veg and a pudding. A chicken will do us for 3 meals and the carcase for stock to make soup. Roast shoulder of lamb two meals with again the bone and any meat left on, stock for scotch broth.

My secret is forward planning, each month I make up a menu list, we do not stick rigidly to it, but use it as a guide for what we need to buy...... our main shop is Tesco with Aldi and the market thrown on for good measure. We have a stall on the market that sells eggs 50p for half a dozen, leeks, 3 large ones for 50p bags of carrots etc for 50p and spuds, Cauli's have been 80p recently so we had cabbage instead, they are all grown in Lincolnshire, I bought enough rhubarb for two pudds for 50p on Saturday, we buy stuff thats in season from her, its good quality and reasonably priced.

In the summer we grow lettuces, tomato's, black and red currants tayberries, rhubarb, apples, plums,goosebrries, french and climbing beans, beetroot, garlic, onions and herbs. I also grow a couple of spuds in a bucket for a boiling or two of new potato's. No we do not have a big garden, the fruit trees are in large pots, as are the currants , the beans go in a pot with a pea stick wigwam for them to grow up, lettuces are sown into a pot and pricked out into the garden to mature. Surplus stuff is frozen against the winter.

I have to buy meat from the supermarket, we do not have a local butcher, although if we get free bus passes next year I will be going into Leicester to buy meat and fish from the market there. We only go into town on the bus if we have to right now, even with the half price pass its £2 that can be spent on food.

We very rarely go out to eat, and if we do our local pub does a very good pensioners menu in the week. Biscuits cake etc are homemade, as is marmalade and jam, we do not eat a lot of sweet stuff, just occasionally I will make lemon drizzle cake, a batch of scones or some biscuits, usually if we have visitors coming.

We live on a very reduced income as pensioners, do not have cash to throw around, but we save and pay for holidays, this year we are going to France for 7 weeks in our caravan, doing upwards of 3000 miles from north to south and back again via Paris. When we get back, we start saving for our next jaunt.....

It is possible to feed two people on £25 per week, my total budget for food, petrol and my husbands bowls money is £180 per 4 week period..... when he is not playing bowls his bowls money goes into the kitty for holiday petrol.

Lillibet_2

I can feed 2 adults, a cat & dog on £23 per week. About £8.25 per person per week when pet food & cleaning etc are taken out of the equation.
How? I shop almost exclusively at Tesco as I don't have anywhere else & do rely heavily on reduced items & BOGOF's etc for this and couldn't live without my freezer. We manage to eat at least 5 portions of fruit & veg a day each, have meat/fish about 4/5 times a week (not always organic but I am on the fence about supermarket organic produce anyway & that''s a whole other thread in my opinion!), we both take packed lunches, we have a variation of cooked breakfasts at the weekends & the pets get brand name food. Yes, some things I buy are the cheapest line but these are through choice not necessity, in all cases we find some cheaper alternatives have equaled the more expensive, we don't buy brands/lines we don't like or don't appear healthy just beacuse of price. I price check at both fixtureferretts & tesco online pricing facility to make sure I am getting the best deals.
I freely admit I am @nal about meal planning & use up every scrap of leftovers. We also don't have huge portions, I think most people eat far more than is necessary and just cutting back can reduce your shopping expenditure dramatically. You really don't need a lot of something to get the nutrients out of it if it is prepared properly. In many dishes the expensive ingredients can be used as falvouring rather than as the main part of the dish, with inexpensive healthy seasonal veg etc providing the bigger part of sustanance.

I don't think the grocery challanges are competitions against each other but rather against yourself to see how well you can do within your own personal standards & requirements. Personally I get a huge kick out of beating Tesco at their own game & living so well without giving them £1 in every £8 that I spend or whatever the latests statistic is!

Swizzlebabe : Tesco have Carte D'ore ice cream on 2 for £4 at the mo!

gravitytolls

help please with my budget.
I guess I spend around £500pm.
We are 2 grown up's (most of the time), 7 children, big dog and long haired cattipuss.
I shop mainly in Morrisons, because it's free parking, and I don't have to keep making trips back and forth to the car to empty the basket of the pram.

So, any suggestions of what I should be sticking to? :A

Many thanks

crazyhazy

gravitytolls wrote:

help please with my budget.
I guess I spend around £500pm.
We are 2 grown up's (most of the time), 7 children, big dog and long haired cattipuss.
I shop mainly in Morrisons, because it's free parking, and I don't have to keep making trips back and forth to the car to empty the basket of the pram.

So, any suggestions of what I should be sticking to? :A

Many thanks

First thing I would suggest doing is making a meal plan for your main meals and shopping according to that. We currently spend about £100 for us 2 adults, and I managed to cut that back from about £140 just by being more organised. Once you have menu planned you will be able to see roughly what different meals cost and work out when to have them to save money. Also, take advantage of special offers but only if they are something you would use anyway.

squeaky

Gravitytolls:- First of all... please stop counting your total money spent. ££'s spent per person is a more realistic way to look at things. Especially with a large family.

Throughout the whole of MoneySaving you'll find tips and discussions that will help you meet your needs.

We have threads that look at your finances and cards and stuff, and threads such as the many in MoneySaving Old Style that help you find the best ways to use the money you have available... and we can help you how to budget too.

Someone - or loads of people - will be along any minute now to fill in the gaps

But believe me - you're in the right place... honest... ... and someone WIll arrive... any second now..

crana999

gravitytolls wrote:

help please with my budget.
I guess I spend around £500pm.
We are 2 grown up's (most of the time), 7 children, big dog and long haired cattipuss.
I shop mainly in Morrisons, because it's free parking, and I don't have to keep making trips back and forth to the car to empty the basket of the pram.

So, any suggestions of what I should be sticking to? :A

Many thanks

Without counting the animals, and counting all the kids and adults as the same, you come out as spending about £14/person/week, which really isn't bad, especially as you have dog & cat on top.

So, you are doing pretty well! You can probably cut down a bit, but don't beat yourself up too much!