January Grocery Challenge 2015

Trying_really_hard

Wow - I'd forgotten the brilliance that is MSE for the past few months. :mad:

I've long eyed up this challenge but as I'll be having a baby this year (exciting!) I think its about time I took a serious look at what we spend. Therefore, I am in MONTHLY for £350. This is roughly where are now but I intend to stop throwing stuff away and start cooking more again (morning sickness put me off cooking anything beyond Microwave chips ) so will be able to reduce it.

My month runs 20th - 20th and that will feed myself, DH and a pampered puss and buy my cleaning stuff.

bellevie

£30.60 spent this weekend for the upcoming week, £27.34 of that in Aldi - that included a few things that will last us the month or longer, olive oil, honey, frozen fish & cereal. The rest we will get through the next week or two. Today spent £3.26 in Lidl, for 3 x red grape juice and 1 x small bottle of water which gets refilled daily for work. Grape juice should stretch to 2 weeks.

I haven't been to Aldi/Lidl for a while as neither are in walking distance since we moved so I have resorted to home delivery in an effort to avoid the supermarkets at the weekend. I was surprised that in both this weekend relatively early it wasn't too busy at all. So I will return to my Aldi shops on a Saturday morning see if I can get back to saving those pennies!

Debtfreefreedom

Hello everyone


please may I join in the challenge?.
Hoping in 2015 I can be more organised with finances.


I would like to try £400 for january

Wooftastic

Hi, I'm a complete newbie so please bear with me but I'd really like to join in the fun and most importantly the savings that you're all making.

I'm going to budget £240 for January and fingers crossed with a bit of thought and effort I'll be able to reduce this next month!!

MissOrganised1972

cyberthrifty wrote: »

For January my budget is £200. This needs to include dog food, toiletries, loo rolls and washing powder as well as food. Thank you

Hi. I don't know if it's of any use to you, as you're feeding so many on a small budget, but I spend similar to you. It's a bit painful on the weeks that something major runs out and you have to replace it, ie washing powder, as it eats considerably into your food budget. So, I buy my washing powder off ebay! 10kg lasts about 8 months. It costs about £18, including postage, and I just make sure I have sold a couple of things myself, on eBay, so that I have money in my PayPal account, and that way it feels like it hasn't cost you anything!

merzal wrote: »

Anything spent after Christmas I'm counting towards my Jan spends.
So far spent £3.35, all on YS things, got 5 carry bags full for this so not so bad!

Wow, impressive!

WantToBeSE

Hi everyone, can you please put me down for £300 this month please.


It'll be very tough, as I ran down the freezer and cupboards on the lead up to Christmas, plus I need laundry stuff etc.


But I am determined to give it a go. I have established that school dinners are cheaper than packed lunches for us, and that taking the GC money out of the bank all in 1 go is better than spending on card.
I wonder what other exciting things I'll learn this month!


I got a new food processor for Christmas, so am looking forward to trying that out, although not sure what it can be used for yet.


I am off to the butcher tomorrow and will fill my freezer for about £50 I imagine.
Then I might do a big online shop of tinned stuff, and leave the rest for fruit, veg and eggs.


I REALLY WANT TO AVOID THE SUPERMARKETS THIS MONTH. Any tips?

Snottycat

Ok so I think I am settling on £350 for the month of January (5 full week month) starting tomorrow 29th - 30th January. I am not going to beat myself up if I go over this 1st month but I need to track every single penny I spend and get in the habit of actually adding up what I spend!!

It is to include cleaning stuff, smellies, pet food (2 rabbits) school tuck money & milk money as well as alcohol - though we are cutting that right back too

Wooftastic

Hi Snottycat, I'm not including food for my pet in this as I'd usually buy it separately and I've already worked out the most economical way to buy it.

Instead I'm focussing on my supermarket shop: food and drink, toiletries, cleaning products etc

Mrs-s_4

ive never successfully finished a GC, but this year we NEED to sort our finances out and pay off debts etc. so I need to do this properly now!
our budget will run from 29th December til 25th January when DH gets paid. we don't have much in as I havnt bought much proper food over Christmas with this in mind ill set our first budget to £350. This covers 2 adults, 3 kids age 5,2 and 7 months. including all food toiletries, nappies and cleaning stuff.

CRANKY40

£240.00 for me for January please. Wondering just now if I should carry on with online shopping as it stops all impulse buys. Any thoughts?