March 2014 Grocery Challenge

Soworried

Franigan wrote: »

Happy Monday!!
I will be the joke of this thread if I don't sort myself out soon! We are 3 days into the month and I have spent £80.13/£200.00..and I haven't even stocked that much!!!!

Here is how it is divided:

Food: £50.43
Cat Food: 8.52
Toiletries: £10.75
Alcohol: £10.43 (2 ales 1 red wine)

Boyfriend promised me to make do with half the alcohol we used to buy. I didn't even have to beg him but I guess he is willing to meet me half way since he hasn't quit smoking yet!! :mad:

At the moment, my figures are pretty laughable, but I will work hard to get ourselves on track again!

Good day everyone!

You won't be a laughing stock, it is not about anyone else this is your personal challenge to reduce your spend.
Can you get your OH to agree to half the smoking cost if he isn't ready to quit? That would go a long way to help.
If you list all the food you have in it will surprise you just how much you are stocked up.

If you get stuck for ideas just post up your list and people will help :A
Try not to get down about it as, I know when I do it doesn't help at all and we are normally all right by the end of the month

Frugalsod

Planning a trip to the butchers and that should last me a couple of months.

Crowdpleaser

163.73 to add here. Normally I do most aldo and a bit of tosco. I just couldnt be a*sed today! I did it all in asdo. Mind u dh has bought me a chest freezer and so I was able to really stock up on bread and meat deals which I normally woukdnt do so although tgsts a 2w shop I reckon I can get thru week 3 on most of it too so am mot admitting defeat yet lol!

If I can do that I may sort out getting asdo delievered as my trolley was overflowing. This month will be the tester I think....

Xx

Kayalana99

My maternity leave pay will be stopping in two months so we have to focus on cutting costs, would love to join.

I will be a bit awkward as we have a cash back card so one month we have 4 weeks and next we have 5.

Currently spending £400 (£80ish) on a 5 week shop and *usually* when I know its a four week I don't bother even trying to cut back so we end up spending around same amount. Their are four of us, me and OH & 18month and 5month.

We don't buy nappies as my Nan buys them but we do need milk, both are still on formula (I know people say its cheaper on cows milk but a whole tub of my 18 months milk will last about 3-4 weeks for £9 ? I just can't see it being cheaper considering how fast milk goes off)

My sister has a costco card so will talk to her nicely about that perhaps bulk buying chicken breasts their or something? No idea about what their prices are like havn't been.

It's a 4 week shopping month so I think my budget will be simply be £300 this month which is still generous considering it's less a week but going to start small and if I could only spend £300 this month I would be grinning from ear to ear!

cinnamonpie

Franigan wrote: »

Happy Monday!!
I will be the joke of this thread if I don't sort myself out soon! We are 3 days into the month and I have spent £80.13/£200.00..and I haven't even stocked that much!!!!

Don't think of it like that! It doesn't matter what other people do here- we all lead different lives, have different ways of eating and different shops around us. This challenge is just for yourself and nobody else.

And as soworried said, you will probably be surprised how much food there is in the house. I did a stock take yesterday and I could probably feed my household for the rest of the month without going out to shop. But I still do...

During this stock take of mine I found three gingerbread house kits from December. We meant to build them with our families when they were over for Christmas but didn't have the time. Now they are just sitting there. Any ideas what to do with these bits of walls/roofs of gingerbread?!

I got a strange look from the boyfriend at the weekend because I had some skimmed milk for breakfast with a use by date of Feb 15th. He said there was no need to have that on March 1st. I disagreed. I smelled it and it was fine, tasted fine too. I made a soup later that day and put the rest in it and he had it and no problems

Just goes to show that Use By dates are just a suggestion, really. In the same way I have had food (meat mostly) that went off before the Use By date- a quick look and smell of it confirmed it. You just gotta use your nose.

joedenise

Bought some fruit and veg at the weekend plus some nuts and popping corn so only a small spend of about a fiver. Total spend so far for month is £56.96/£200.

Still need to go to butchers tomorrow to buy the rest of the month's meat (already have most of what I need in so shouldn't be too much as only need sausages & liver).

Today is another NSD so 5/20 so far this month.

Denise

PS Month ends 23 March.

meg72

cinnamonpie wrote: »

During this stock take of mine I found three gingerbread house kits from December. We meant to build them with our families when they were over for Christmas but didn't have the time. Now they are just sitting there. Any ideas what to do with these bits of walls/roofs of gingerbread
.

I have one of those bought reduced after Xmas, am planning on making an Easter Bunny house for little nieces and nephew.

lushlifesaver

Franigan I agree with cinnamonpie - last week was the start of my March budget and despite wanting to work off around £16 per week (roughly) I have already spent half my budget!


But as cinnamonpie says it's amazing what's in the house already - I always go in for fresh bits (milk, wraps, little bit of fruit usually) and always end up with extras falling in my basket!


This week bf is away Thursday (although needs to take lunch with him for that day) to Sunday (back for tea) so I will just eat what we have in the house already rather than buy anything. Also want to use the time to batch cook a few more meals ready for the start of my maternity leave next week.


My March wage should be a full one because of how I've arranged mat leave (to start after pay requests are submitted to payroll - using annual leave before that;) ) and from then on it's 6 weeks at 90%. I'm hoping to add a little to April's budget due to my significantly reduced travel costs (usually spend £65-70 per month on my bus pass for work! so hoping to add half of that to the grocery budget) so that I can get in a few extras and batch cook some of our new favourites (lasagne, sausage casserole etc) to keep the freezer ticking over once baby arrives - nice easy meals that can be put together during quiet times, cooked and give us a days dinner plus a few freezer portions each for less easy days!

agreenmess

Hello all,

Spent quite abit of my budget this weekend with our shopping! Managed to get a few more Lasagne kits as we really like them and I think they are allot cheaper than if I am buying the jars separately. Though once they are gone I think I'm going to have to learn how to make it from scratch as I’m sure that will be allot cheaper than when the kits are half price (£2.24). Also spent quite abit on stocking up on preserving sugar so I can make some Marmalade sometime this week! Thankfully we are on holiday for the last week of March so won’t be spending to much.

Tesco shop – £57.74 (Separated into Dog/cat food/treats – 20.30, Human food – 14.48, unnecessary spending – 22.96)
Pets at Home shop – £40.75 (dog food for the month and cat treats)
Total shop - £98.49

Amount Left = £101.51

P.s managed to make an amazing soup which = 27p per serving, so hoping I don’t get sick of it and can have it for lunches for quite a while! Nom Nom

LisaJane

Hello everyone again. I'm ashamed at my lack of success in keeping up with grocery challenges...but here I go again attempting £250 for March 2014 for 2 adults! £59.90 spent on reasonably big shop yesterday and £17.25 from one or two bits and bobs on Friday and Saturday, so £77.15 spent so far. Quite a lot but really, but needed some cleaning products and toilet roll etc and also I am trying to eat reasonably healthily which I find can often cost more money! I currently have enough stuff for about 7 meals in the house, so around 17 dinners to go for the month if you take out our weekend away at this weekend. Here goes anyway!