March 2014 Grocery Challenge

Florenceem

XSpender wrote: »

First spend of the month, £55 in aldee. I will need to go to mr t tomorrow to return something and get some toiletries as I forgot to get shampoo and conditioner in aldee:mad:, and can't get the other toiletries I need in aldee. Why does everything run out at the same time?

Most of today's shop will last at least 2 weeks but will send DH with a list to get some fresh bits to top next week. He is good as will stick to the list which is more than I do:o

I have some apples in the front bowl that are a bit soft so will turn then into something this weekend to use them up. I saw a nice recipe for a toffee apple pudding on another thread I might try.

I am going to use cash for the rest of the month as it really focuses my mind on how much I have left to spend.

You can use apples up in this recipe -

http://www.alldishes.co.uk/click/index/6636013/?site=giventodistractingothers.blogspot.co.uk#

superrhinos

Have updated my signature with my weekly shop from last weekend and a few bits of pieces I brought at lunchtime today. Monthly total now stands at £32.02.

HOWMUCH

Please put me down for £350, last month was just finding out what I do spend. Now the battle is on to get my spending down. I know I over spent last month because of getting the £40 shops for the vouchers at M'sons. I will start on the 1st of each month and run to a calendar month.

Busymumofthreeplusdog

Hi could you include me please. My month runs 14th-14th. Last month jan-feb I spent £474.82 for 5 of us plus dog & cat! That's significantly less than the £600+ Dec-jan!:eek:

Would like to try get under £450.00 ( baby steps!) my budget includes groceries, booze, toiletries etc

Over the past few months we have gone from mr t home delivery and top ups to mr a home delivery and Mr Al & Mr lid top ups. I'm frantically menu planning and seeking out cheaper meals. Tried the 9p burgers the other night, they were vey nice!
Grateful for all support offered!

Luella-14_2

I'd like to join in please. March will be my first month of maternity leave, so it's just me and OH until the twins arrive later in the month.
I have £200 in the budget monthly for the next year for food and drink. I'll be relying mostly on supermarket delivery as I don't think shopping with two newborns will be much fun! Hoping to do lots of batch cooking in the first couple of weeks to have some easy meals ready for the long days.

E2006

debtfreefuture wrote: »

Can you put me down for £250 please.
It's a five week month for me and goes from Saturday 22nd February to Friday28th March.
I've certainly learned a lot this past month and am hoping to come in under budget on my second month.
I'm also going to try for 25 NSD's out of 25 (Mon-Fri for 5 weeks) and lunch to work 25/25. My main failing on this is that on Thursday or Friday I go to make lunch and have moldy bread, so am going to freeze half the loaf and make sure I remember to take it out of the freezer on a Wednesday :T
I hope you all have a lovely weekend...............
DFF
x

Rather than freezing the bread, why not freeze your made up sandwiches in advance? I do this for my DH and DS and apparently they are as good as fresh once defrosted. DH just lifts them out each evening before bed. I tend to stick to cheese, or meat fillings as these freeze well. If you wanted to add some salad Im sure you could do this on the morning once they have defrosted if you have time. Doing it this way also means you can buy a larger pack of meat which in the longrun costs less.

HTH

E:)

E2006

Busymumofthreeplusdog wrote: »

Hi could you include me please. My month runs 14th-14th. Last month jan-feb I spent £474.82 for 5 of us plus dog & cat! That's significantly less than the £600+ Dec-jan!:eek:

Would like to try get under £450.00 ( baby steps!) my budget includes groceries, booze, toiletries etc

Over the past few months we have gone from mr t home delivery and top ups to mr a home delivery and Mr Al & Mr lid top ups. I'm frantically menu planning and seeking out cheaper meals. Tried the 9p burgers the other night, they were vey nice!
Grateful for all support offered!

what are the 9p burgers please? Thanks

E:)

Kitchenbunny

Morning, hope you don't mind my looking in. I'm going to try (though who knows how many times I've tried...) to complete a month of the grocery challenge! I think in all my years of doing this I've managed to stick with it once, but I feel determined to do this. We've had a stressful couple of years with family illness and a house move thrown in the mix so now it's time to get the purse strings back and the meal plans back under control.

I'd like to set a budget of £200 for March, please. This is to begin on 25th February as that's payday for me.

KB xx

mintedby30?

Hi everyone,

I've not posted on MSE in ages and never on the GC threads but I'm on a mission to be much more savy with our grocery shopping and more inventive with what we eat.

A bit about me -feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you're bored -

There's me, DH, DD9 and DS1, we also have a cat.
DH gets fed at work 4/8 days, 3 course lunch and a sandwich tea while working 8-8's but only weekdays and usually ends up buying something if his days on fall at the weekend. We need to get sorted so he takes something from home more regularly. DD takes packed lunch to school 4 days a week which is always a sandwich/yoghurt/2 pieces of fruit (one is eaten at break) either a cereal bar/biscuit/mini cheddars etc and diluting juice in a flask. The baby pretty much eats whatever we do now but we get through loads of milk. We have also been on a bit of a mission to shop more sustainably and ethically and to buy better quality meat etc. We can buy great fresh fish locally and have a good wee butchers and lots of farm shops. I'm hoping not to compromise on the quality when reducing budget and happy to have more pasta/veggie etc meals to balance out.

I'm going to ease in cautiously this first month of joining and set a budget of £250, this is probably a drop from £350ish. I'd hope to eventually get it down to £200 or even £150. I'm going to meal plan as much as possible.

E2006- I'm not sure if this will work as I don't know if I can post links but here are 9p burgers- I make them as a BLW food for my 1 year old and he loves them!

http://agirlcalledjack.com/2013/04/06/carrot-cumin-kidney-bean-burger-9p/

GreenButterfly

Can I play for £200 please?

I'm seriously hoping to be below this because we are only 2 adults and I work in a supermarket so always manage to buy yellow sticker goodies.