October 2014 Grocery Challenge

XSpender

I had a NSD yesterday and my November starts today. I am declaring £289.60 an average of £72.40/week. Not good as I wanted to achieve an average £60/week by the end of the year.


It is takeaway that has blown our budget this month, and stocking up on meat.


I have set a tiny budget for November, but may be starting FT work, so it could change.

Solstice_3

I was really hoping for an NSD for my last day of the October challenge. I worked out I have enough milk and I can scratch a lunch together for the children and myself. But I do not have enough bread/milk to make a decent breakfast tomorrow and my Bolognese needs a tin of tomatoes as I split the recipe before adding the extra tin and it's nowhere near saucy enough.

So I will buy bread and tomatoes only to hopefully come in just under budget.

Ugh I was really hoping to stay in today!

physicsgirl

The middle of the month has passed me by again, but I think I kept all the receipts:

Tesco: £1.18

Sainsbobs: £0.49 + £1.00 + £1.70 +£11.99

Aldi: £31.30 + £25.77

Iceland: £0.89

Lidl: £1.88

Eating out: £36.10

Which comes to a grand total of £76.20 (£112.30 inc. meal out). I have come to the conclusion that a certain amount of laziness is key to my GC - if I can't be bothered to meal plan, then I won't go buy lots of food and I won't spend as much! Not really a viable plan going forward though

I also spent £16.99 on the 3-in-1 sandwich toaster from Lidl, £13.99 on dry cleaning and £8.50 on alterations so the household/misc. budget has taken a hit this month!

Happygreen

I will officially finish October with just under £ 200 spent

The lightbulb on offer that brought it £ 1 over will go into November, so will the wholefood co-op order, as they will cash the cheque next week anyway. So, well done me this month :T:T:T

craigywv

well done sarah and happygreen its great to come in under! all of you are doing great!

bmma

spends to date £12.25/£20.00p

Mrs_Cheshire

Spends today £2 in the bakery and 49p in Aldi for some cream cheese to go with dinner!
I'm declaring a total of £116.88/£126

lynnejk

Caterina wrote: »

Good morning,
The only problem with estimating bulk buy for the year is that I tend to stock up when I catch an offer. But the quarterly idea is good.

Thanks for the kind words. How about you just stick £100 in a bulk-buy fund then and see how it goes. Stick it on your signature and try to keep it topped up from somewhere at the end of each month and keep track of how it goes. I think you have to just start it off and then adjust it later if you need to. Good luck


I had to get milk so 78 p from Al*i today. Gosh - holding my breath here for end of month :rotfl:


Hope you all have a fabulous Friday
Lx

Irisis

Last day of October and after doing my sums it seems we went over our budget by about £9, so not too bad, much more on track than we were when I started taking part in these challenges in August. See you in the November thread.

Caterina

Good morning,

Lynnejk thank you for your suggestion. I have decided two things, one is that the bulk buy catalogue is too expensive in so many ways, used to be a convenient way of shopping but now they upped the prices so much, it is cheaper to shop at regular places.

Two, I am going for the November GC at £270, of which £70 is dedicated to bulk buys, so I am in effect going for around £50 per week on regular shopping. Considering that DH and I are away for 5 days it should be more than feasible.

I am also running down the dry stock (pulses and grains) as I need to wash the tall glass jars before DH puts up the shelves in the kitchen (where I keep all my dry goods jars).

I am aiming for a NSD today so will update tonight, but hope to come to the end of this month's GC with an underspend.