March 2014 Grocery Challenge

tessie_bear

hi all sorry to hear about the fridge what a pain...hope sorting it out is as pain free as poss

im still plugging away trying to spend as little as poss and empty the freezer which i think i am on the final straight with....we are at the daft combo stage so cant be much further to go

tonight a steak cut from a large joint purchased ys at christmas will stew some of it to have with cous cous tomorrow

take care tess

dogmom_3

Sorry to hear about your freezer RS - what an absolute pain to have to use everything up quickly - I've been there too!

I am now 79p over budget and still have one or two fresh bits needed before my month ends on Thursday. It is all good though - it is only my second month on the challenge and I am still finding out what is a reasonable spend. I have bought some storecupboard bulk buy items this month too. So on the whole I'm quite happy.

Franigan

Morning!!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Now, these last 2 pics made me so hungry!! Stop it!! :rotfl:

claireyfairy82 - you are lucky indeed! I caught up with the 4 pages before posting but I already knew what I wanted to say and ask..and then I have found your post!

Well, I wanted to know if any of you struggled to get OH on board with reducing the grocery spending.

Sorry this is going to be long:
I had a small argument with bf on Friday night as I asked him to buy only 1 bottle of red to last us friday night and saturday night (well, sat night it was just me anyway).
I pointed out the fact that he would have been staying away overnight on Sat to see his old mates, drinking heaven knows how much, so I begged him to compromise.
He categorically refused and told me I should let it go every now and then.
Eventually I told him:"do as you like, but don't complain if we end up eating porridge with water for dinner for the last week of every month!!"
So off he went to buy 2 ales and a wine (£9.89 :eek:). Then his mum decided to come over for dinner bringing a bottle of red. So we drank hers and he had 1 beer out of 2.
I was ever so happy that our red could have been saved for next weekend!
Well, he opened the beer as well as the bottle of wine last night :mad: and this morning the wine bottle was not there. He had it all!! (double :mad::mad:!!) Total unnecessary consumption of A LOT of alcohol before a working day! (as if there were "necessary" ones)

I am soooo cross with him!

After that £9.89 I zeroed all my virtual envelopes in my signature to start all over with my £33.15 left for the month. Went to do shopping yesterday and now I have got about £10 to last us until the 1st.
Ideally, "Alcohol" would have been zero, but realistically it is going to be at least £7...

Anyway, I won't need to buy anything until Friday..

God I'm fuming!!

Sorry this was terribly long but I needed to vent it out! :cool:


Have a lovely day!

joedenise

My DH isn't totally onboard with the GC unfortunately so we often go over what I've budgeted. Fortunately we can afford it but I just find it so annoying when I am trying to save some money as he will be retiring in a couple of years and we don't have a lot saved and still have a mortgage as well!

For example, last week I asked him to pop into Ald! on his way home from work to pick up a pack of 4 quail which they had on offer - well he went in but didn't just spend £4.99 for the quail but ended up spending over £18:mad: - he bought 2 packs of quail (and we don't even know if we like it as haven't had it before!) a stuffed pheasant (also on special offer but again not had roasted pheasant before - have only had it casseroled and I wasn't actually that keen:(); and he also bought himself some chocolate.

I think we just have to do what we can and not ask OH to do the shopping (or come with us!) too often!

Denise

misermello

Haven't posted on here for ages. Mainly out of embarrassment, went totally over budget, not on food, (managed to spend hardly anything, but we don't have kids and are willing to eat pasta, rice and potatoes for a couple of weeks). However I took 8 days off work and spent an enormous amount on alchohol and cigarettes.

Going to try to limit alchohol to three nights a week, so hopefully I will do better in April.

Well done to everyone, even if you messed up a bit, it's just one month, and you have the rest of the year to make up for it.

laura_hoggle

I've just totalled up our March spends, and have decided to declare slightly early, as due to my shifts at work I've decided to start the April GC early, and have the first shop from April being delivered this afternoon.

I did a HUGE shop (well, huge for me!) in Morries last week, got a bit carried away as the in laws came for the weekend, plus had to buy washing liquid, washing up stuff and toilet rolls - hadn't bought them in a while! That shop came to £107.13, but using my bank card I earnt £10 cashback, which will be going towards another challenge! About £40 of that was on booze though!!! :eek:

Mum and I were at a Sainsbobs at the right time last week as well, and got lots of reduced goodies, which are in the freezer! I spent £7.77 and got some very yummy looking rump steaks, a couple of steak pies (had one last night when my parents came for dinner, still one in the freezer), some streaky bacon and a couple of ready meals to keep handy for easy lunches.

I also did a small shop in Lidl, stocked up on their hash browns (they are so yummy!) and a few other bits, which came to about £13.

Another shop in Morries this weekend, which was intended just to buy potatoes and pudding for dinner last night, but ended up with fruit for the week and a couple of other treats, came to £15.33!

So I'm declaring March as over budget by £21.92, which is quite naughty but we have quite a full freezer and I have stocked up on things that I don't buy every month, so I'm not seeing it as a total failure! Plus I did overestimate a couple of hubbys spends, so I don't think it was really that much!

cw18

I'm lucky with OH - but the fact we don't live together and as such don't have shared finances certainly helps

He knows I'm being careful with the pennies so that the savings I'm living off will last as long as possible (allowing me to chose not to work for now), so happily eats mince padded with lentils and oats while here (or portions of meat about half what he has at home alongside a mountain of veg he normally goes short on even though he likes it) and has come to enjoy a Sunday excursion to A!di for veg/milk (he explores the weekly offers and often spends his own money while there!). He paid for the mushrooms I needed a few weekends ago as it was the only thing of mine in a fairly full basket, and got told off as I don't have any easy way to account for it in my spreadsheet

I work on the basis he pays for the petrol to come over to mine, and has historically probably done more than half the driving when we go out for the day (this is going to increase now DS1 is on my car insurance and using my vehicle for work every other weekend), so I pay for his food when he's here without expecting (or wanting) any contribution.

DS1 has come to accept I have a budget for food that isn't a bottomless pit, and when he wanted me to spend more on the steak he asked for as tea on his birthday than I'd planned to he also offered to pay for it !! I didn't take him up on the offer, but it was nice to know he at least considered the impact of his request on my finances

But we also try unusual meats from time to time, which by their very nature are more expensive so it's not that I 'skimp' - and when we do have them it seems to be gratefully appreciated by OH and DS1, which I believe is at least partly because they realise these mean I'm watching the budget elsewhere for a while. In the last couple of years we've had Venison (steak, mince, diced and sausages), Zebra steaks, Kangaroo steaks, Giraffe Steaks, (grey) Squirrel sausages and Goat sausages amongst others. And DD sent me a text in the last few days to say her L!dl has some things we've not tried (had the Quails a few months ago), so when I see her on Wednesday I'm picking up some Moose steaks and some diced Wild Boar which comes to a combined total of almost £13 for meat for 3 of us for 2 days - and my daily budget for the 3 of us is £12, so that's just about half the budget gone on meat!

redbooties

I've got £11.04 left to last me until next Monday, I think I can manage, I've got everything I need for my meal plan in the freezer. i may need some more milk and veg and my grancha has a chicken for me, it has garlic flavouring on it and he hates garlic so I'm taking it off his hands lol. My daughter is sorting the food on Sunday as its mothers day and shes cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for me.
I have overspent on pet food this month but then it will last me for most of April to so I think I've done ok

Florenceem

Franigan wrote: »

Morning!!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Now, these last 2 pics made me so hungry!! Stop it!! :rotfl:

claireyfairy82 - you are lucky indeed! I caught up with the 4 pages before posting but I already knew what I wanted to say and ask..and then I have found your post!

Well, I wanted to know if any of you struggled to get OH on board with reducing the grocery spending.

Sorry this is going to be long:
I had a small argument with bf on Friday night as I asked him to buy only 1 bottle of red to last us friday night and saturday night (well, sat night it was just me anyway).
I pointed out the fact that he would have been staying away overnight on Sat to see his old mates, drinking heaven knows how much, so I begged him to compromise.
He categorically refused and told me I should let it go every now and then.
Eventually I told him:"do as you like, but don't complain if we end up eating porridge with water for dinner for the last week of every month!!"
So off he went to buy 2 ales and a wine (£9.89 :eek:). Then his mum decided to come over for dinner bringing a bottle of red. So we drank hers and he had 1 beer out of 2.
I was ever so happy that our red could have been saved for next weekend!
Well, he opened the beer as well as the bottle of wine last night :mad: and this morning the wine bottle was not there. He had it all!! (double :mad::mad:!!) Total unnecessary consumption of A LOT of alcohol before a working day! (as if there were "necessary" ones)

I am soooo cross with him!

After that £9.89 I zeroed all my virtual envelopes in my signature to start all over with my £33.15 left for the month. Went to do shopping yesterday and now I have got about £10 to last us until the 1st.
Ideally, "Alcohol" would have been zero, but realistically it is going to be at least £7...

Anyway, I won't need to buy anything until Friday..

God I'm fuming!!

Sorry this was terribly long but I needed to vent it out! :cool:


Have a lovely day!

I would be cross. Can he control his drinking?

just_the_two_of_us

Franigan - we get round the "booze problem" now by having spending money. Never had it before. OH uses his for beer and I use mine for cheap clothes, body lotion, body scrub etc. It's not much each a month and we never go out, but it does mean we don't disagree.

Grocery spending - he's brill - I now do most of the shopping and we are managing well. Used to spend a fortune!!!