January Grocery Challenge 2015

lotti379

Oh - forgot to mention I nipped into 'trose yesterday for eggs, bacon and some fresh vegetables. £7.21 spent taking my total to £163.76.

Found the cheapest way to buy FR eggs though - the boxes of 6 mixed are £1, whereas the boxes of 15 mixed are £3.29. So in future I will buy the sixes!

gayleygoo

I will probably go over budget for the month too. I have just over £50 left in the budget to go until next saturday (31st), and OH and I will probably get a takeaway out of that over the weekend. As long as we don't go too much over we should be ok though - there were weeks last year we were spending easily £100 a week by not paying attention to our spends, to come in at under £70 a week is still an improvement. That includes the pet food but not washing powder etc, although I don't tend to spend much on that.

I like the look of those 20kg bags of washing powder on ebay for £19, just not sure whether to go for it next month, or try laundry gloop again. The price might not be that much different when spread over a long time (20kg of washing powder could last me a year maybe.)

Lotti379, don't be hard on yourself going over budget, £100 does not seem very much (for two of you in the house?), and even if you have been eating cheaply, stuff like coffee, butter, sugar, eggs, teabags, weekend fry-ups - another budget downfall here - etc all add up to a fair bit if you need to buy them out of that budget. If you can afford to, maybe you could allow yourself more wiggle room for next month? If I do a full Ulster fry on a sunday morning, it can be costly, but a batch of pancakes or french toast and bacon can be just as delicious. Maybe try to decide on what is reasonable to spend on meat each week - if you have a couple of veggie meals during the week then you can have a more carnivorous breakfast at the weekend!

CountingPennies

lynnejk wrote: »

Hiya CP. Have you tried all the cheaper shops for these things. I buy lots of them at F.Foods, Home Bags, BnM and £shops. Can get quite a bit cheaper there

Happygreen wrote: »

and Lidl and Aldi are worth looking into for staple items

Thanks guys. Actually spoke a bit about my Aldi comparison shop last week in the thread. Some bits I can get from there, fruit and some veg but I buy certain branded products too (I have tried some non-branded stuff but I simply don't like it). Also I do use our local Home B's and B&M, however I like to shop online because I then stick to my list. I'm often known for going into Home B's to buy pet food, and end up spending £20!! :eek:

Shopping delivered this morning, didn't end up adjusting the shop. Came to a total of £59.95. But for everything I got i'm happy with that really. Lots of stuff on offer like 2 bottles of Fairy for £2, half price washing powder, toilet rolls ect. Lots of staple stuff I won't need to buy for a couple of months too.

This means i'm now at £326.38/£350. For the last 4 months in last years challenge my budgets were £450 so I still think i'm doing pretty well. Was considering going to Aldi today to get some cereals but will just make do with what we have already. Got plenty of milk for a couple of days, so fingers crossed for NSD today and tomorrow!

CP xx

toontron

Well thats the weeks shop done. A combination of Ald* and Sains today as some things were not available in Ald* so picked some bits up in Sains, but used the £5 on my Nectar so that brought it down. I have been running a weekly comparison between Ald* and Lid* which I now use, against Mr T which I generally used weekly. Admittedly I have cut the rubbish from the list, all the chocolate, biscuits and impulse buys, which used to make my weekly Mr T shop in the region of £60 a week:eek: But my comparison shows current spend of £51.54, If I had stuck with Mr T it comes out at £77.74, thats over three weeks so I am very happy as effectively I am down from £180:)

CountingPennies

toontron wrote: »

But my comparison shows current spend of £51.54, If I had stuck with Mr T it comes out at £77.74, thats over three weeks so I am very happy as effectively I am down from £180:)

Thats really good! Well done! My comparrison last week on none branded foods save me around £7-8 on a £30ish shop, so If you can access the other stores then thats great!

CP xx

miss_try_to_save

ok as I have said oh in charge of shopping this week last night he popped into sains after work and brought some bits which came to £13 so have to add that to my sig he is doing shopping today so fingers crossed wont spend a fortune

rubiesr4eva

Gayle - I've had the washing powder on the recommendation off someone off here (marie I think) and I can strongly recommend it myself now. Gets everything clean and smells devine

Solstice_3

Solstice_3 wrote: »

NSD today One day left and I'm planning an NSD as I have managed to come up with a store cupboard recipe amending one from the index slightly. Feeling triumphant

Oh bother miscalculated DD's soya milk and have to pop out and get some so no longer an NSD. Might do tomorrow's shopping today seeing as I'm going to the shop.

My bigger concern is I've ordered 6 weeks of meat from a new company including 6 joints and I suddenly had the horrible realisation that I might not actually be able to fit it all in the freezer! :eek:

So I have to empty freezer as much as possible over the weekend to make as much space as possible and cross my fingers.

I have beef bones to turn into stock so will do that over the weekend, maybe make an onion soup with some of it then a planned stew with some of it. I also have buttermilk to use up, and pureed BNS which I will turn into soup for DH's lunch on Saturday.

K9sandFelines

£6.37 spend and was meant to have an Asd* delivery yesterday; but the delivery driver couldn't get to the house because of the snow so he had to reject it. Will have to see if we can manage til I can reorder.

redmel1621

Sooo I am back from shopping. A*da didn't have enough organic milk in (they never do!) so I will likely need more milk before the end of the month but will see.

I bought 4 papers so used 2 vouchers today and have 2 saved for next week (next weeks big shop will be out of February's budget)

£120.89 spent today which is over the £100 budget/planned spend. I know £5 was on desserts to take to a friend's house tomorrow night but I am a bit annoyed and stumped about the other £15..
Well not entirely actually. Firstly I forgot we needed tea bags so that was nearly £4 plus dh wanted some mulled wine which was £4, then because we went in A*da we bought things weren't on the list...
I should still be in budget for January but not by as much as I would like. I am trying to cut back as all our grocery savings are going to be holiday spends!!!