February 2014 Grocery Challenge

kayester

first spend out of feb.

£15.58 for DS school milk but that is until the end of the school year

just_the_two_of_us

Wow - this thread is so long already!! Have just caught up on 6 pages.

Well done everyone - some marvellous frugality going on.

Agree with Joedenise re spreading cost of bulk buys over a few months - we did that with a cheap wine order before Xmas.:o Had to hide it from DH - but have knocked some off our budget each month until April!!!

I use a spreadsheet and each time I shop put the spends onto the sheet and total it. That way I can see how much is left and it is not a shock at the end of the month. It gets rid of all the bits of paper and helps me to keep within budget. I used to use debit card for everything but that made the statements really long to check and don't like using it now as have a S**tand interest acct.

Each month we do a big shop in Mr T for store cupboard stuff on visa ( gets points for treats) and the rest is taken out in cash and put into our offest mortgage acct until weekly shop day. Usually try to leave a spare £2 for extra milk and bread if needed. Know it is much easier to do this with just 2 though.
Also getting better at buying sufficient food for the week which does help as can never just go out for 1 thing. Now got NSDs down to 20 in January.

Am looking for more meat free meals so will be going through the index as aim to try a new one each week so that I can stock up when there are offers on.

Have a great Feb everyone. xx

wilf55

Morning all
flunked for january lost all will by the end but please can i be in for feb i am declaring £80 per week so £320 for the month this is to cover 4 adults plus 3 adults for 4- 5 days plus 2 grandchildren for 3 days and not forgetting 2 dogs!

i know i can do it i just seem go go off track but then instead of trying to get back on track go totally wayward!

i am determined to do it cos it would mean i would potentially have money for other things...holiday ...clothes.... all sorts

please therefore put me down for FEB £320 please

wilf55

£0 / £6000 to declare but did pay for holiday for ds and his new passport so proved i would have his january target to myself

now comes the hard part....need to be harder not a soft touch if im going to do this!

dogmom_3

joedenise wrote: »

What I do when I get a bulk buy is divide by length of time it's likely to last. In your case because you got 3 bottles I would divide the cost by 3 and deduct from monthly budget for each of the next 3 months, ie £3.33 per month for Feb, Mar & April.

Perhaps you could do this too?

Denise

Yes, this is a very helpful idea to even things out - thanks.

dogmom_3

Leahray wrote: »

Yes please, have been trying to get logged back on to reply to you all. For me the month starts on Thursday when we get shopping delivered. I think we could have probably lasted longer but I have the tesco saver delivery thing and get tues to thurs free delivery so had to do it for then. Looking back over the last month and several weeks of not buying groceries (just milk and bread) I realise that although we meal plan there's a lot of little odds and ends that don't get fully used each month. This month we're going to do three weeks of meal plans (using resourcefulcook.com) and then a week of using up spare veggies etc. I hope that will reduce our food waste to zero.

On another note my boots gave up on me today. We have been walking more instead of using the car and today my feet got soaked. Not sure about how to solve this one as we're so tight at the moment. I gave money saved for clothing each year but it's really minimal and I'm not sure of what to do with less than ten pounds to buy some boots. If anyone has any advice please let me know as I currently have no footwear!

Oh, wet feet - not nice! Charity shops often have really good boots at this time of year.

sinner2winner

Hi everyone can i join in with this please?
Im a single person and was spending around £300 a month on food !!! I always cook from fresh but id say 4 days of the week i would go to the supermarket and see what i fancied spending around £15-20 a time !!

So I had a credit card i wanted to pay off this year and thought i would do this - so far this month I have spent £40.67p with my next shop not planned until next friday .

Can I set a limit of £90 for february please.

Gorgeestwo

Morning
2 NSD's so far, hoping for another one tomorrow, but will definitely need to go shopping on the weekend.
After another £100 vet bill this morning we really need to come in under budget this month, so I'm also going to go through the freezers & make a list of what's in them to keep on the fridge, although they're not bursting at the seams, I think (I hope!!) I'll still be pleasantly surprised at what's lurking there & it'll help with my meal planning too

poppycracker

Got a meal plan together for this week, things are slightly less hectic at work now, so hopefully will be able to stick to this one!.

Today - Sausages and mash with onion gravy and veg
Friday - Fish fingers and HM chips with veg
Saturday - Smoked sausage pasta bake
Sunday - chicken fillets with garlic butter, wrapped in pancetta ham, roast tatties and veg
Monday - haggis, neeps and tatties
Tuesday - scrambled eggs on toast (with bacon for DH)
Wednesday - sausage casserole

been paid today so might do a small shop to tide us over for a fortnight.

I'm glad I dont do the NSD challenge, most days are a NSD for me, money is sooo tight at the moment. Getting a bit fed up with it to be honest.

kayester

£1.65 for something sold on ebay, collection only, she gave me £2 so taken fees off and £1.84 added to sig



sorry wrong thread!! NSD for me