February 2014 Grocery Challenge

seemasfriend

Is there such a thing as being too frugal? I find myself reluctant to spend money on anything unless it is absolutely essential. I am in danger of becoming a bore with no life. How to find a happy medium?

dogmom_3

seemasfriend wrote: »

Is there such a thing as being too frugal? I find myself reluctant to spend money on anything unless it is absolutely essential. I am in danger of becoming a bore with no life. How to find a happy medium?

Yes, I am having to restrain myself from boring my non frugal friends with tales of grocery bargains - not interesting to anyone but us who are OS...

islandhoppa

£1 spent on milk, desperate for bread too but didn't want to break into a £10 note:D will manage till Saturday with cereal etc for breakfast

dogmom_3

OK, I've just done my second grocery shop of my first month on the GC. Here is my menu plan for the week:

Duck soup with cheese on toast
Roast chicken dinner with roasties and 2 veg
Egg and homemade chips with peas
Beef bourguignon, mash, 2 veg
Gammon with orange slices, baked potato and 2 veg
Chicken risotto, veg
Dessert to take to dinner with friends: Ginger sponge with custard


So far I am doing well - £76 spent out of £200. My new rule for myself is to try to only ever buy meat or fish if it is on offer. Yeah, obvious I know but I'm still getting used to this new way of approaching shopping..

mags50_2

meg72 wrote: »

I love being able to donate to the food bank but it comes out of my food budget, I look for really good offers and reduced tins and save them up then donate once a month. I am very lucky where I live as have access to very good reductions so if I save quite a bit on my budget then I can afford to buy a few things for the food bank. This month so far I have tins of fruit reduced to 10p to donate I ws also given loads of tins of out of date corned beef and
pilchards etc and although the food bank cannot give them out there is a table that you can leave them on with a notice that they are out of date and inviting people to help themselves.

Thanks for that I'll have to ask if ours do the same as yours then I will do the same as you and be able to give more

Unfortunately I live quite a way from the shops, but I do go 'into town' once a week usually, so will keep an eye out for stuff. I love HB and £ shops and their things are cheaper, so will collect and give once a month too. I really hate giving mr.t our hard earned cash, I think he gets enough

meg72

seemasfriend wrote: »

Is there such a thing as being too frugal? I find myself reluctant to spend money on anything unless it is absolutely essential. I am in danger of becoming a bore with no life. How to find a happy medium?

I think we have to spend a bit now and then depends on whats important to you. I am very frugal so as to be able to afford treats
like days out and holiday breaks with DD and DGD.

I do find it boring when pensioner friends winge and moan about prices and what they cant afford, I keep quiet about my bargains now as they really don't want to know, they prefer to winge. Fair do`s if that's their pleasure, I`ll stick to mine.

BMG

Spent £1.83 in Morrisons yesterday. This included a ys ppack of 4 scones for 25p.


Today was a nsd

Ches

First day out of the house for ages and I went mad and paid for 2 hot dogs from the van outside B&Q so OH and I sat in the car to eat them. The £6.20 should have come out of my personal spends really but I haven't taken the money out of the bank yet so had to pay with my grocery money.

Ches

I am an OAP and I try to budget carefully so we can afford our holidays etc. I don't see any point in wasting money on a day to day basis then having to stay in day after day because we can't afford to go anywhere. My idea of OS is the style and method our houses are run, not being so careful we make ourselves miserable. I hope that makes sense.

[Deleted User]

Another NSD, they are starting to add up for the month.
Dinner last night was interesting, started to shred the crayfish for cray salad, then realised there was a huge amount of meat, so ended up making a salad and a mornay, with an entree of bbq mussels it ended up being a seafood spectacular.
Back to more mundane food today, DH and I are camping for the next couple of days, so cooking will be very simple.
However I am determined to attempt focaccia bread on the bbq, could be very, very good or very, very bad!