December 2014 Grocery Challenge

scotmumof3

Spend of 84p today at asd*
£12.25 at tesc*
£59.04 at sainsbobs. I have £57 on my nectar card but because I've never used it in store before they wouldn't accept it as payment I have to wait 24 hours for it to register:mad: Never mind I will use it at some point this month.
Total 72.13

Bobarella

How annoying Sweatpea! I hate things like that.

Smoosh

£200 for December here please. As per usual, 2 adults, 1 cat

Spends today: £3.60 on chocolate , £1.50 on cheese.

Caterina

Lynnejk sorry that you have your share of family difficulties, but glad you sorted your Christmas meal! I bet you'll enjoy it much more than if you had to slave at the stove all day.

I was all headed up for a NSD but the little boys school had a cake stall and the younger one really wanted one, so I got 3, one each for the boys and one for me. Total spend £1.50, as treat, not impacting on the GC.

lynnejk

Solstice_3 wrote: »

Soooo please can someone tell me how to roast a 600g pheasant please, cooking it for an hour at 190 (in a foil tent) was not long enough and all the online recipes say to cook for even less time.

Have you had a look at this site
The one with the charlotte potatoes at the bottom sounds scrummy
http://www.thefield.co.uk/food/recipes/game/top-10-best-pheasant-recipes-21762


Good luck
Lx

peaceandfreedom

Hello everyone - I've just discovered this thread even though I've been hanging around on MSE for years.

We spend far far far too much on food every month - from July - November, we averaged £493 per month. That's for me, DH, DS, DD2 and occasionally DD1 and her boyfriend. The kids are all late teens / early twenties - it averages out at 4 adults, I would say.

I would like to get our food spend down a bit but I'm not expecting miracles. We buy nearly all our meat in the local butcher and DH and DS eat a LOT of meat - they would never consider eating a meal that didn't have meat in it. Butcher's bill alone is about £115 per month.

I know exactly what we spend because I use YNAB to keep track of everything but I don't break the food shopping down into any great detail. I always take my breakfast and lunch into work, so that's included in the monthly total.

I shop in lots of places but primarily Asda, Lidl and a little bit of Waitrose. I really should knock Waitrose on the head but I love occasional treats in there . And it's right beside Asda, so easy to pop in.

I have some ideas about reducing the spend and it mainly involves being more organised. I am not declaring a target for December (I know I'm going to spend a fortune :eek:). I'm just going to hang around here and see how you all do it. So far I've been very impressed by the organisation and discipline you all put into it - I know I'm going to learn a lot. :T

Happygreen

Welcome to you, peaceandfreedom. What a lovely username !

After reading your post I would like to ask you something, I hope you don't mind! It seems an awful lot of food spending - I think the most I managed was around £300 for 4 (2 adults & 2 teens) and that usually fills some gaps in the freezer as well and can include some bulk orders from the Wholefoods food co-op or Approved Foods.
Do you have meal plans for the week? Does it all get eaten or do you throw a lot of food away? Do you as a family eat together? Do you cook from scratch? Being more organised is a good plan if you throw a lot a lot away! I hope you don't feel overwhelmed by my butting in like this but maybe it helps .

joedenise

Realised this morning that we haven't got enough milk to last until we go away so popped into Mr T after dropping DH off at work - managed to buy just that - go me! So just £1 to add to total.

Coxy - Have decided to reduce my GC for December back to £250, sorry to be a pain. Grateful if you could amend the list.

Thanks.

Denise

CH27

I'm hoping for a NSD again.

peaceandfreedom

Happygreen wrote: »

Welcome to you, peaceandfreedom. What a lovely username !

After reading your post I would like to ask you something, I hope you don't mind! It seems an awful lot of food spending - I think the most I managed was around £300 for 4 (2 adults & 2 teens) and that usually fills some gaps in the freezer as well and can include some bulk orders from the Wholefoods food co-op or Approved Foods.
Do you have meal plans for the week? Does it all get eaten or do you throw a lot of food away? Do you as a family eat together? Do you cook from scratch? Being more organised is a good plan if you throw a lot a lot away! I hope you don't feel overwhelmed by my butting in like this but maybe it helps .

Thanks for the welcome, HappyGreen and for your comments.

I know we spend too much but this spend is after making strenuous efforts to keep the bill down . It also doesn't include alcohol - or at least very little, DH occasionally sneaks a bottle of wine in and throws away the receipt but I KNOW :mad:. He is not with me on the money-saving, by the way, but as I do most of the food shopping, I should be able to bring it down by myself.

The butcher's bill is a big element of it and DH does nearly all the butcher shopping and a lot of it is ONLY for him and DS. However, I must say that I am not keen on supermarket meat a lot of the time, unless it is from Waitrose. The quality from the butcher is so much better.

I do have quite a stock of store-cupboard stuff and some stuff in the freezer. We don't throw out very much - I am getting better at not-buying things that don't seem to get eaten. I'm also pretty good at putting things in the freezer if they are not going to be used shortly, including veggies.

One thing I don't do is food plan - I know this is a major problem because we end up doing lots of small shopping expeditions. It can be tricky though to please everyone. As I said, the men like lots of meat, I can take it or leave it but I don't eat dairy or wheat (low-carb generally for me), DD2 only likes very specific meat and won't touch lamb or pork. I cook meals to work around my own needs - e.g. I'll do spag bol and I'll have a green veggie and everyone else will have pasta.

We eat together if I've cooked - if it's DH, he will often only cater for himself and DS, and us girls can fend for ourselves. Myself and DD2 are happy enough with HM soup for dinner some evenings. We rarely buy ready meals except a very occasional pizza, though DH will buy DD2 something ready-made for tea because he can't figure out what else to feed her.

I sound like I'm blaming DH for the food bill but I don't mean to - he only actually eats one meal a day usually, so it needs to be a good one. I would be happy enough with the butcher's bill if I could reduce the rest of it, which is largely my responsibility.

I grow food in the growing season, especially tomatoes, salad, courgettes, cucumbers etc - easy stuff that is high yield. Have got lots of herbs growing and still have some salad crops growing in the porch.

I think a good approach would be to:

1. Keep a more detailed record of what exactly we are buying with our food shopping. Could do this using a new dedicated budget on YNAB.
2. Keep a record of what gets chucked out
3. Do a rough food plan for the month and a more detailed one for the week ahead, based on the family's calendar. Run it past them all for approval.
4. Do one big shop based on the monthly meal plan. Do fewer small shops, preferably in Lidl, and keep to a list.
5. Do more bulk cooking and get it in the freezer.

Sorry for going on for so long - I suppose I am trying to work out what to do - I think I need a better understanding of what I am spending it all on first. :cool:

Thanks again - any and all comments are welcome.