August 2007 Grocery Challenge

dlb

Petrol has a seperate budget for me, the only things included in my groccery challange are all drinks food and toiletries,pet food and milkman.
Everything else seperate budget including fags, alcohol,petrol.
But everyone does it differently you have to find out what works best for you.

Sugarcubed

I only included this week with my bus fares etc because I wanted to not use anything from my bank. Every week after that will just be purely for food and I will use a separate budget for bus fares etc. So far today we went swimming, had something to eat and used bus fare money out of that as well.

I also crumbled a bit and treated myself to 99p on a cute 2008 diary because it was pink and had stars and was glittery... *ahem*.

I have £9 left which should do me till Saturday because we don't have anything planned and I have all the food in the fridge to do all the meals with. I figure it should go something like this;
Bus fare for all day ticket - £3
Swimming fee conc - £1.50
Lunch - £2 (or maybe take a sandwich? )

So £6.50 and i'll have £2.50 left to either put back in the bank or save for next week. Sorry if this post wasn't really of interest, im finding it easier keeping track of everything by typing it all out. :j

dlb

Need to add another £5.16 to total, was going to be a no spend day i even reajusted tea so i didnt have to buy any potatoes today, so now having fish and pasta instead of fish and chips! But have just been and got kids some chocolate and a bottle of wine and new felt tips.
Still wasnt bad 6 marsbars and 6 snickers for £1.98, felt tips 99p and wine £2.19 im a classy bird like my cheap wine!!!
How is everyone else doing?

Daisydoll

I'm doing ok this week even though I didn't get round to doing a meal plan this week I have just used what we have to make meals, but ran out of bread this morning so ended up buying lunch from Mr T's!:cool: I can't believe how little I have spent so far but then I estimted it on last month, and dh is working away this month so that makes a difference!

I don't indclude petrol in my budget that's a seperate one as it's roughly about £60 per month

As for fruit and veg my kids eat loads! Maybe not so much of the veg but I also try and hide it, but they love fruit and would eat it all day if they could!

kj*daisy

I've spent too much this month on meals out and stuff, as been out with the children and had people staying over so got takeaways. Spent 3/4 of the budget already and still 2 weeks to go!!
So the food we buy while we are away at a festival over the bank holiday will be seperately accounted for. But the food we buy to take I will include in the grocery challenge.

miss_empty_piggy

Had a great morning. Managed to sort out a meal plan for the week, including shopping list ready to go to Mr Ts. Darling OH said that he would pick up all F&V from greengrocers as is superior quality and just seems to last longer.

Do the shopping and am pleased as have come in under budget. Unpacking the car with two kids crying, drop one of the bags and smashed Marmite (biggest b****y jar possible, and jar of olives (treat for me!) £5.00 down the drain!!:mad: Was nearly in tears!!! PLUS, cut my finger on the glass and had to go to Wilko's (top of street) to get plasters and also picked up wipes which I had forgotten and sweets to placate sulking kids!!! Nightmare!

So spent even more money. I can't bring myself to tally up too yet as finger hurts and I am sulking! Am totally gutted.:embarasse LOL

On the bright side, I did get accepted for 0% credit card and managed to get some of my blood-sucking cards transferred, so that was a load off my mind.

cheletastic

Poor Miss Piggy

I hate it when things like that happen! Hope your finger feels better soon;)

I ended up popping into co-op today for loaf of bread- I normally go to Mr T but my sis was driving and that was the shop we were near. Couldn't believe the loaf of bread I bought (the only kind OH will eat!!!!!) was 9p more per loaf at Co-op than it is at Tesco :eek: Had to buy it though cos we had totally run out:o Also bought big block of cheese so total spend today on groceries was £2.57.

I think I can wait a while longer to do a big shop but think next time I will get extra loaf of bread for in the freezer to save any mad dashes to get bread from more expensive shops:rolleyes:

Still way under budget so far though so quite happy

clowe1

Hi

New to this really

Set up a rather fancy excel spreadsheet spend diary for August based on July pay and have put in various headings and various budgets.

Have been lucky this month because our payrise was backpayed so £200 extra plus expenses this months so far about £200, didn't really count the backpay coz i spent it before it arrived so had to pay is straight back.

set myself £400 grocery (inc food, toiletries, baby) attempted to set seperate budget for alcohol (have overspent by £35 so far so have taken this off groceries) and petrol which i have overspent my work involves travel but i have had to use all my expenses

anyway to summarise grocery £400 budget - don't know how much spent but about £8.00 a day left

I think i will probably come in slightly over budget this month but it's my first month and i'm still learning

I can't believe how restrained i have been this month too

proud of myself

Clare

Jacks_xxx

Blimey.

I am in awe of all of you!

We currently spend about £500 a month in the supermarket and there are only four of us plus cat. (and I thought I'd been cutting back!)

I'm saving receipts his month and then next month I'll join in properly when I know how much I've been spending - and on what!

ellie2912

Right i am holding my wrist out for a slap,in my first challenge i went over budget by £<A href="mailto:~!@#$%^&&*()_+}!!:"":"|>?|/">12.13:o
in my defence,we had an unexpected guest for 2 weeks,and i only went over at the weekend,when i bought next months dog and cat food.
so all in all not too bad for my first time.

so for next month
~my month runs 15th august~15th september,
i plan on dropping my budget to £190 but could really do with it coming in lower.

have got about a weeks worth of meal ideas ,which need to happen so i can defrost the freezer,so that should mean a supermarket free week and less spending:rolleyes:
thats the theory anyway....
off to update signature to start August challenge..