May 2014 Grocery Challenge

Ellie_BB

Just tracked down the missing receipt and can report £249.34 / £250 for May :j:beer::j

PennyGrabber

Another £20ish to add, so well over target but well under last month's total. Not going to beat myself up about it too much...
Declaring May at £130. See you in June! Will do better...

PG x

supersaver1000

Thank you Pennygrabber. Got a bit lost yesterday, but will definitely find the June thread.

meg72

Declaring at well over for the month but still slightly down on last year.
This is due to stockimg up o my fave coffee as on good offer. I have a years supply now.

Well stocked for June and hoping to use up for a ouple of weeks to bring budget back down.

Solstice_3

I still have a week and a half to go but will follow both threads. Spend yesterday of £6.09. Went out last night for drinks and left my card at home - so glad I did otherwise I would have spent 2 maybe 3 times the amount I'd allowed for the night out.

Budget currently £252.89 with £67.11 left but some of that already spent on online order so £54.95 left for a week and a half.

marris

declare £127,20 ,well over budget but it's due to me buying a few bottles of Malibu & Gordon's to take overseas for my family. c u's all in June

cw18

I picked up a couple of bits yesterday (a carrot for tea, and some yellow stickered satsumas), so I'm declaring month end at £175.33 against a budget of £162.60 - meaning an overspend of £12.63

But.....

My 'real' budget should have been £244.06. but as I'm trying to make myself use up what I have in the house I decided the only way was to reduce my budget (and in theory use up goods that cost me what I've reduced it by). I'm not sure I've recorded every single thing I've used up, but am fairly confident I've got most of it - and as I've had to price some of that at more that I paid 'cos I can't recall what they were reduced to (so I've logged as full price) it probably balances out. So I've used up supplies worth £45.57 - which if added to my actual spends comes to £220.90

That's comfortably (almost 10%) under my real budget, which amazes me as I had 2 days of feeding my 2 year-old GD and a day of feeding OH's 3 year-old niece that I hadn't allowed for, plus fed OH for a long weekend instead of just 2 evening meals while we were away and provided 6 evening meals for DS1 that weren't budgeted for.

Miss_Bea

So my 5-week May is finally over - and despite having 19 NSDs in total, I ended up blowing my food budget really badly in the last week.

This was the first time I've ever created a food budget, and I think the most important lesson I have learned is that when you're self-employed and work from home, you need to budget for some quick and easy meals that you can just chuck in the oven while you continue to work. I had planned on cooking healthy meals from scratch every day, but I was fortunate enough to get lots of work in, and then I just didn't have time to cook. Instead I ended up going hungry until the evening, and then going shopping while I was really hungry. Such a rookie mistake! ;-)

So for June I will stock up on some bean burgers and other quick and easy meals that will 'cook themselves' in the oven while I meet my deadlines. I have also learned that I need to budget for the odd day of sunshine - they don't come around very often, but when they do I like to spend as much time as possible outdoors, which means eating on the go. I hadn't factored that in either.

While I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I messed up my challenge so close to the end, I have learned some very good lessons. Better luck next time, eh? ;-)

cw18

Miss_Bea wrote: »

This was the first time I've ever created a food budget.......



While I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I messed up my challenge so close to the end, I have learned some very good lessons.

As you say, you've learned some lessons. And it's never easy in the first month or two The main thing is you now have a month of records you can use as a basis for future months - both for setting a realistic budget, and also knowing where your pitfalls are that you need to look out for.

Solstice_3

Shop today at Asda, bought some unplanned things but don't have much in for lunches so planned lunch on the go. Got sausages for 2 meals - pasta, sauce and sausages, pizza bases for 2 meals (will me making my own soon), pesto and passata and YS cheese so that covers 4 lunches leaving eggs and beans on toast for the others plus one day to still figure out. I have a fussy hollowed leg toddler to feed

Spent £11.40.