May Grocery Challenge

culpepper

lol Always remember when the kids were little and said 'can I have that?'
Id say well you can but do you really want to have no dinner this week because that would be what the money would have bought!
They always said no they'd rather have the dinner.
I use that technique on myself also ...do I want that gadget/magazine/chocolate or would it be nicer to have the money to spend on holiday?

crazyhazy

missy_brambles wrote:

I have been reading this message board and feeling quite ashamed. I am new to this money saving lark and thought that I was doing well by deciding on a budget of £100 per week for me, 1 cat and 1 dog. You should have seen my spending before I decided to budget 5 weeks ago. In 5 weeks I have managed to save £120, so not as bad as it could have been. but I dont know what I should be cutting down on. I have got into a mind-set of telling myself that 'I deserve it' whenever I want anything. I was recently diagnosed with diabetes so I have completely cut out crisps, chocs, cakes etc (not as hard as I thought it would be and 15lbs dropped off in 3 weeks). I eat only food that I have prepared from scratch - oh but I miss M&S. What am I doing wrong. Anyway, I have decided that my budget is £80 per week for the month of May - I know thats as much as some of you with families are spending in a month, but I have to start somewhere. What do you include in your budget. Newspapers, cd's, clothes?????? Is anybody out there going out and having a good time? Any good tips please!!!!

Our budget is £110 for May for 2 adults and a part time dog (stays most weekends!). This only includes food, lunches to take to work, snacks at home , cleaning stuff and toiletries. So not clothes and other bits like cds etc. To be honest at the moment we aren't spending anything on new clothes etc cos we get married in juen and are saving everything for that, although this month I might "have" to get some new things for the honeymoon!

Why not split your spending up into categories - say allocate so much for food, cleaning stuff etc, so much for going out and another amount for little treats?

KTFrugal

Elona,

Don't waste your money on a breadmaker. Here's an easy recipe you can make by hand:

3 cups bread flour (1 can be wholemeal if you like)
1 cup warm water
1 tsp dried yeast granules (keep in the freezer for longer life)
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix dry ingredients, add wet ones and knead together, 5 mins, or in a mixer. Let rise till doubled. Punch down the dough, shape into a round. Preheat oven to gas 7. When dough is doubled in size, slash it with a sharp knife in 2 parallel lines and bake for 20 mins, reduce heat to gas 5 and bake 10 mins, till browned and sounds hollow when you tap on the base.

To get fancy, you can brush the dough with oil, or milk and sprinkle with seeds. You can use this dough as a pizza base, or make it into focaccia.

If you have a large enough pyrex or other heatproof bowl, you can bake your loaf under it: do an initial bake at gas 8, for 15 mins, then reduce the heat as before. This gives the dough a chance to rise in a moist enviroment before the crust is formed. It looks pretty impressive, but is very easy to do.

Enjoy.

squeaky

I like the recipe.

I'm just wondering about the cost of heating up the whole oven as opposed to a self contained breadmaker. Although baking other things at the same time would help balance things out. Do you have a "baking day"?

crana999

missy_brambles wrote:

What do you include in your budget. Newspapers, cd's, clothes?????? Is anybody out there going out and having a good time? Any good tips please!!!!

Hi Missy,

I'm a uni student at the moment so as you can imagine I have quite a tight budget.

I don't buy newspapers (read news online or listen to the radio; dont have a TV)

or CDs (I..ahem...just listen to downloaded music! but have you tried buying your CDs 2nd hand, from eBay, etc? also try selling old ones on eBay..)

I do buy clothes but I normally get them from eBay, charity shops, in the sales etc. You can get some very nice things 2nd hand that have only been worn a few times or even are brand new with the tags still on. You can also get some very cheap clothes from high street shops like New Look when they have sales on (sorry if this is very obvious).

If you don't shop in any of these places you should check them out, BUT, perhaps what you really need is just to cut down on buying them in the first place. There are only so many clothes one person can wear. Try "recycling" forgotten favourites instead of shopping sometimes, and try not to go shopping for clothes just as a social thing or when you're bored.

Do I go out? Of course I try not to go out *too* much as I have a b*tch of a course load, but I go out at least every week. Sometimes I just go to a friends house (well, room) and we watch a film, have a couple of drinks etc, or sometimes we go out to pub or a club... doesn't have to be that expensive if you don't go mad on the drinks. I also go "mystery shopping" quite often, which is where you pretend to be a customer but take notes on all the service etc - I often take a friend to do this in pubs/bars and we get a free meal and drinks as well as payment for doing it.

Next year I am going to be doing ballroom dancing classes on a friday night - exercise, socialising, hopefully improve my abysmal co-ordination.. that's £7 a year membership and £2 a class - not going to break the bank for a fun evening.

Plus I go to a lot of talks etc (Yes, I'm so cool, I go to optional extra lectures in the evening)..some of them are really interesting..and usually free or free once you have a membership card. Next week I'm listening to Stephen Hawking give a talk - all free. If you live near a university these events are often open to the public as well as students.

Ok I hope this has given you some ideas.

crazyhazy

Feel like we're doing really well this month, although mainly due to the amount of food we have left in the freezer from the last 2 months! But our target is £110 from the 18th April-17th May and so far including todays shopping which will last us till next sunday we have spent £60! This is much better than usual and is including lots more fruit and veg than we usually buy cos I'm making a big effort to get my 5 a day in. Next weeks shopping will probably be a bit more cos i'll need to buy meat and fish which I didn't need to do this week, but hopefully we might be able to keep under £100 for the month and I'll get £10 for my pin money!

Queenie

chickadee wrote:

Can anybody suggest anything to put in a lunchbox to take the place of a bag of crisps? I sometimes put in a few carrot sticks but get a bit bored of them. I like savoury things.

It's the crunch, isn't it I know what you mean!

Okay, some suggestions:

Homemade popcorn (you can alter the seasonings so you won't get bored, but even plain popcorn with a sprinkle of salt is rather nice) The kernels you can buy in the supermarket or health food shops cost around 60p and makes LOADS!

Breadsticks. You can get sesame seed one's, plain, garlic.

Instead of carrot sticks - cucumber sticks, celery, raw cauliflower florets.

Sunflower seed kernels. Just a small handful is all you need. I get mine from Wyevale Garden Centre and they are from the James Greeves area, but health food shops also sell them.

Marmite rice cakes! Oooh, yummy! 2 of those in your lunchbox works out cheaper than a pk of crisps I've only ever seen these in Asda though.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. If I think of any more, I'll add them to this post via editing.

Queenie

KTFrugal wrote:

Don't waste your money on a breadmaker.

I used to have the same attitude ... until I *got* a breadmachine!

tootles_2

We have a budget of £100 for food every month for the two of us..... I shop for essentials just once a month and for fresh fruit and veg every second week.

This month, thanks to a £10 voucher my May shopping came to £63.21 and that included salmon fillets and a couple of bottles of wine. Must admit I bought a cheapie beef roasting joint from Tesco 3 months ago reduced to £8.00 from £13.00 that has given us 3 joints which in turn have done us for at least 4 dinners for the two of us. After I have cooked the meat I left it stand before I carve it. When its really cold the next day I slice it up, use some for dinner and freeze the rest in two parcels which will do another 2 meals, either with roast veg or cold with salad. The last bit of this is about to go into the oven for tonights dinner.......

It will be interesting to see if I can come in under my £100 for the month, I keep a record of all our spending and last month went a bit haywire, but still within my limits, would be good to have some change though.

margaretclare

Hi Tootles

I'm not sure how you do all this, or if we'd want to do it. We're pensioners, not rich but a long way from being poor. B goes to Tesco approx once a week and spends around £50 there, more if he buys meat there rather than the local butcher (we get our eggs from the butcher because he knows where they come from, same with the meat).

He went into Sainsbury's yesterday and came out saying 'if we shopped there regularly our food bill would be 10% more'. If we shopped at Waitrose it would be 20% more! And yet Sainsbury's in the town centre is where a lot of retired people go, there's the central PO and there are a lot of retirement flats round about.

I'm sure we couldn't survive on £100 a month for the two of us. And yes, we do cook a lot from scratch, I make bread without a breadmaker (it's not very economical because it disappears so fast!!) We don't buy cakes, biscuits, sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks, pizzas, any of those things that tend to inflate a food budget. I would go to the monthly farmers' market a lot more, but B thinks that's expensive too.

Almost the only cheque I write nowadays is the monthly cheque to the milkman. And yes I know it would cost less not to get it on the doorstep, but we prefer it that way.

Aunty Margaret