May 2014 Grocery Challenge

Miss_Bea

cw18 wrote: »

Totally down to individual choice. I don't drink or have pets so those categories don't effect me, but when I did have a dog his expenses were a separate budget. I've also never included household cleaning or toiletry items, nor any type of medications (over the counter or prescription) which some others do.

As I'm a newbie, I've been wondering a little about this, but I do the same as you - food products only in the grocery budget. I set up a monthly budget for the first time at the end of April - it was so easy to do with the templates Excel provides. The one I used is called the Family Monthly Budget Planner, I used that one even though there's just me and my dog. It lets you project what you will spend, fill in what you actually spent, and then calculates the difference. I've been very good so far this month, I've been using up stuff in the cupboard all week, so I've managed to keep the spend under £5 (that does not include pet food, though - had to buy the dog a £7.99 bag on Monday). I'm going to try cutting out gluten for a few months, so for now I'm just using up food with gluten in it. Today I have been baking bread, using up much of my regular flour, and I think I should get through next week without having to buy anything much as well - although I'm planning on having bean burgers three nights of the week in an attempt to use them up! Oh, and I've had 4 NSDs in my first week as a member of this board! *patting self on back*

Frizzle_2

Massive spends today but not too much on grocery. I had things like school shoes and other essential items to buy!
But food wise, I went to farmfoods to get milk, bread and fruit and veg. I normally go to aldi but as I didn't need much I popped in there. Also got tempted by Branson beans- 3 for £1 and twix- 10 for £1!!!!! It would be rude not to! So £20.77 spend there.
Then had to pop into tesco to get some jacket pots as I forgot them!!!! Also picked up 2 packs of YS tea cakes. 6 large ones for 20p and a large pack of bananas for 10p!

mrsdwhite

Hi :j
I'm going to try to join in for May.
I'm having quite an expensive time of it at the moment with buying my first car and the expenses that come with it so need to re assess what I'm spending.
I've looked at my bills and done what I can with them, but looking over my discretional spending, I'm always spending way more than I need/want so I'm going to work hard on it from now on!

I'm planning on trying to spend £52 a week on groceries. That includes the cleaning products, wash stuff and cat food. 2 adults and 1 child.
Should be do able, I usually allow myself around £56 a week so shaving £4 a week off should be no problem.

Ultimately I want to get this down further but I'm taking baby steps.

recovering_spendaholic

Have spent £88 of my £275 so far, but have fairly good stocks.

I lost my debit card on Friday - reported it lost - found it but Bank couldn't unlock it so have been all weekend with no cash, nor means to get any or buy anything. Quite good actually!!

DD was out for her tea so I just made do with an omelette, and we will have the steak planned for today, tomorrow.

Bought a ham shank on Friday so have made lovely soup and have ham left to make a pasta bake. It's ages since I have bought a shank and it wax really good value at £1.99

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

laura_hoggle

Hubby spent £2.69 on milk & bread top ups yesterday, so will add that to totals. Need to do a shop tomorrow for lunch stuff for the week, but pretty much have all the main meal stuff in.

mrsdwhite

Just finalised my A**a delivery for tomorrow. It comes in at £51.01 got plenty of stuff in the cupboards and freezer and I'm trying to think about what I have in rather than just buying it because it's a usual thing for me to get.
There's a few things I've ordered that I don't need but are about half of their usual price so I'm stocking up as I know we'll use them.

PennyGrabber

Decided to do my weekly shop today without children, rather than tom with children...

Went around a!di with my list, and did get a few things not on it, but that I knew were in agcj's book. Added up on calc as I went around, as I had a strict budget in mind. It came to £16 and some pence, which I was very happy with, as my budget was £18 and I needed some cooking bacon at @sda. Went to @sda after a!di, and instead of walking straight to bacon, I wandered a bit :@. Ended up spending another £12 something, although it's all good stuff, eg sanitary towels on mega offer, enough for about four months!!

At the end of all that, I ended up spending the grand total of £29.08. As that's a lot less than it has been recently, I won't get too cross with myself. At least I got a few weeks' worth of bacon, so I can't make that mistake again for a while!!

While at @ldi, I saw (and bought!) a six pack of herbs for £2.99, if anyone was interested in doing cooking a la girl called jack?!! I've planted them outside this afternoon, out of reach of the dog, and I'm looking forward to being able to use them in my cooking!!

Night all,
PG x

lynnejk

Mrs_T_M wrote: »

You can also freeze eggs to use later in baking if needed. Hope that helps!

Just wondered - can you defrost in micro or have to put in fridge night before you want to use them :question:

PennyGrabber wrote: »

While at @ldi, I saw (and bought!) a six pack of herbs for £2.99,
Night all,
PG x

I got some of those as well - though had to swop around some pots to get a whole 6-tray that looked like they would live :rotfl:


Well - bit the bullet and went shopping. Home Bags was £3.82, Al*i came to £16.47 and Mr T £17.22 (though £7.71 of that was for a bag of oxtail for the s/c tomorrow :T ). So total was £37.51 and I saved £11.92 with vouchers/multi-buys and YS. Pretty pleased with that :j



Before the shopping we went for my MS lunch and it was really great - we both enjoyed it loads and were totally stuffed !!


Hope you all enjoy the Bank Hol Monday - I'm working
Lx

Lily_rose_2

Pleased with myself this week- £1.80 on milk during the week, £81.92 on groceries on Saturday. Shopping at Aldi again is so much better....I had a trolley bursting with fruit, veg & meat - would have been dreading going to the till if I'd done that in Tesco! As it was, it came to £70....the rest was spent in Home B on tea bags, toiletries etc.

Maybe, just this once, I might actually be able to do it!!:cool:

Ellie_BB

craigywv wrote: »

HELLO, all I do is peel a large bag of spuds if I get them on offer boil and mash as usual then I get an icecream scoop and scoop into sandwich bags the amount the 3 of us eat at a sitting say 3 for oh 2 for me 1 for the manchild aged 10 sometimes he takes mine, anyway let them go cold and pop in freezer. so that's the mash done, then I just get the spuds and cut into wedges put in a bowl with paprika, salt and pepper and some olive oil toss wedges about and same again put appropriate amounts into freezer bags and freeze I found NOT to defrost the wedges but cook from frozen so they don't go yuck! chips are the same just peel spud ,cut to chips I spritz with oil and freeze in bags, also if your feeling up to it make potato bread over here we eat a lot of it, just mix some flour with the mashed spuds make into a flatish pancake size and shallow fry both sides till golden. hth.

Thanks Craigywv, I'll definitely be giving these a go :T