September 2014 Grocery Challenge

physicsgirl

Treated to lunch both days this weekend by visiting relatives, so dinner both days has been soda bread with butter and jam which has made things nice and cheap and easy :j

Spends this weekend:
£12.76 in L!dl
£7.34 in Ald!
£5.10 in T3sco (who still have the 3kg bags of pasta for £2 which is a great deal for fusilli and conchiglie)
£3.12 in L!dl (return visit, the half price chocolate was too good not to get more...)
£7.70 in Farmf00ds
Plus I added £1 to my running total for the £1 pizza I got for lunch last Monday

Meal plan for this week:
Monday - Bean burgers with spicy wedges
Tuesday - HM Curry
Wednesday - Fajitas
Thursday - Lasagne
Friday - Cheesy chickpea cake
Saturday - HM Pizza
Sunday - Roasted veg couscous and falafals
Monday - Pea and mint risotto

lynnejk

Hiya everyone :hello:


Meg - don't know how it works out for you but Al*i have onions at 39p per kg atm

Caterina wrote: »

Hello,
Lessons learnt:
1. Create a general budget before tackling the GC, for example have separate budget figures for entertainment, treats etc.

2. Do not enter the challenge in the middle of a stressful and protracted kitchen refurbishment. No brainer, in hindsight.

3. PLAN. Plan, plan, plan. In advance. For contingencies. For emergencies. For those days when only a takeaway will do.

4. Have a stock of easy frozen meals for days when all you want to do is crash on the sofa.

5. Budget realistically, factoring in bulk buy, or alternatively have a separate bulk buy budget heading and reduce the day to day budget accordingly.

6. Budget for holidays separately and adjust regular budget accordingly.

I would love to have comments and suggestions from experienced GC veterans, to be able to meet my next challenge successfully. Thank you.

Sounds much along the lines that we work our budget. Treats and entertainment come out of small personal budgets and we don't have take-aways. Money left from GC goes into bulk-buy in case I spot something like B. beans or tuna on special, buys my meat from butcher and l/o go towards C*.


Plus I calculated yearly spends on everything and divided by 12. All monthly bills are paid by direct debit from bank (get cashback) and all shopping done on c/c (get cashback) which is paid off every month so no charge and monies for c/c sit in a bank account earning interest every month :money:


Had to go shopping this weekend and so Morrys = £15.50, £stretch = £7.17 (Nesc*fe x 3) and Al*i = £20.52. Budget looking good for this month as steadily using freezer stuff.


Hope you all have a magical Monday
Lx

Caterina

Thank you for your ideas Lynnejk, I shall implement them on my return. Having a short break in Scotland so might wave at you while passing by!

What cashback card do you have? We have the Saint Anderr 123 one but I am usually so reluctant to use cards, I tend to pay all of our groceries in cash, from my babysitting jobs and DS's little weekly contribution.

Off now, but will have a sit down and talk with family on our return and hope to see all the other challengers in the October thread!

Bye x

CH27

Week 4, Day 1

Son went back to uni on friday so hopefully this will be a very frugal week using up bits & bobs in the freezer.
I'm going to start planning for next week too then I can start October organised.

Meezel

After some bad news in the family, I didn't have the energy to go shopping.

Last Thursday, I checked (not done it in a while) to find an email from Tesco's saying I can have £15 off my first online shop so I decided to do just that.

After doing the online shop and with the £15 off I had spent £55.72 on a shop which really didn’t have much compared to my usual shop at A*di.

Anyway onwards and upwards, the new thing for me is do a ‘To Do List’ towards the end of every month, just to help me with budgeting, save money, keep coming back to this website for ideas and support, meal planning especially for slow cooker recipes! Next month is a start of 5 week month for us so tonight I am sitting down with a cup of tea, feet up to complete the ‘To Do List’…. Wish me luck!! xx:)

allie23

Just under £3 spend on bread, milk and cream as we a well stocked up on everything else. Pretty pleased about that.

anna-marie

Hi, I'm joining September challenge a little late. My goal is £35 a week (2 adults and 3 kids, no pets)

I'd like a place to put my weekly shopping list, meal plans and recipes/photos, to share with others but also to keep a track myself for future reference. Is this the place or should I be posting somewhere else?

Not posted a pic before so don't know if I've done it right....

anna-marie

It worked

rosieben

Welcome to the GC, anna-marie, well done on getting the photo posted!

The grocery challenge is a great place to share your recipes. I'll be adding them to the front page recipe index!

We also have a weekly Meal Plan thread - here's the current week's thread - might be worth a look for inspiration.

cheexy

Did a top-up shop of £6.10 at Mr T today. This has brought the total for this month to £68.57