August 2007 Grocery Challenge

dlb

Hiya how is everyone doing?
Its almost months end and as this is the first time iv joined in on the challenge, and im really pleased with my little self, had a no spend day yesterday and am hoping for one today, have to pay milk man tommorow but still within target.
I have started meal plans for next month havent finallised them yet but im hoping to set a £50 a week challange for sept(£200 for month), i am considering having a seperate pot for pack lunches i will have 5 to do next month so im playing about with meal ideas for them at the minute and maybe setting a £50 budget a month to cover them all, what do you think? Should i keep it in with main target or have seperate, the main reason i want to see how much pack-ups cost me is to find out if it is cheaper than school meals.

stiltoncheese

Only a couple of days left til payday and still no need to buy anything. :j

Just debating whether to spend my 96p on a bar of choc (galaxy big bar is 98p so will have to borrow 2p from my loose change jar) or whether to buy an ice-cream from the man when he comes round.

Think I will go with the galaxy as it will last me longer

Can galaxy be frozen or is it only milk choc (not really sure what kind of choc galaxy is apart from being yummy!)

redsquirrel80

Payday tomorrow so my month is finished - £2.26 under budget :j Just done shopping list for tomorrow, will be stocking up on pasta but other than that storecupboard is still pretty full.

Mike, I like lots of unhealthy things, I just don't like Spam.. an ex of mine used to love it and want it in everything (usually hot dishes like pasta where I find it particularly unpleasant) so I've chopped up lots of it in the past... that and Spam fritters in the school canteen really put me off. Steak & Kidney pie though, now you're talking

mikeD

rosieben wrote: »

I cheat! I copy and paste the first into a word document and then bring the second 'quote' response up, and then paste the one from the word doc into it ...

there might be a better way to do it, so shall keep an eye out for responses

That's not cheating Rosie, that's using your nous, or as Baldrick might say "You had a cunning plan".;)

ailz95

Hi
I'm disabled and my husband is my carer. We are getting motability car which will reduce our income by £45 per week.

We are currently (trying) living on £40 per week. We only buy meat where the animal has, as far as we can tell, a reasonably natural life.

Does this sound reasonable?

Cheers
Ailz95

dlb

Hiya ailz95.
If £45 a week is for 2 of you i should be able to be achived, i feed 6 of us on approx £50-£60 a week.
The best thing to do is shop as you normal would but keep a record of what you have bought and spent, then after a few weeks you can start to look at what you are buy that you maybe dont need or can cut down on.
Thats how i first started out and was shocked at the amount of money i wasted and didnt realise until i had it there in black and white infront of me.
Good luck everyone on here is very helpful and friendly.

redsquirrel80

ailz95 wrote: »

Hi
I'm disabled and my husband is my carer. We are getting motability car which will reduce our income by £45 per week.

We are currently (trying) living on £40 per week. We only buy meat where the animal has, as far as we can tell, a reasonably natural life.

Does this sound reasonable?

Cheers
Ailz95

Hi Ailz,

You should be OK on £40 a week - there are loads of tips on here to help you do it! I also try to buy only organic/ free range meat and get quite a lot of this when it's reduced and stick it in the freezer, which saves me loads

rosieben

dlb wrote: »

... Should i keep it in with main target or have seperate, the main reason i want to see how much pack-ups cost me is to find out if it is cheaper than school meals.

I think keeping them in a separate budget is ideal if you're pricing them up, great idea!

mikeD wrote: »

That's not cheating Rosie, that's using your nous, or as Baldrick might say "You had a cunning plan".;)

great idea for a siggie ........ :rotfl:

Moniker

Hi everyone, hope you all had a good weekend. I had a bit of a shock when the Aged Parents told me they were going home today and not on Tuesday as I had originally thought! However, they offered to take us out for a meal (whew!) so I only had to rustle up an extra lunch. I made some soup from potatoes,onion, celery, carrot and lentils and whacked in a bit of single cream leftover from the weekend. It wasn't half good! I did buy some rolls to go with it and some more butter but have only spent 3.44 this week so far and my total is just under £209, with only one week to go!

Have decided that what ever I manage to save from the budget is going in my ISA where I won't touch it so easily - I can do an online transfer- so if I manage to come in under budget by £50 or even £5 I will see a real saving rather than just have it disappear on I don't know what. It's discipline that does it - must be the influence of the APs!

Doom_and_Gloom

I've got about £5 or £6 left at the moment which isn't too good (I do have enough home made meals in the freezer and enough food for breakfast for the rest of the month though which for me ends on the 31st). What makes it worse though is the fact that I only have £11.02 left and I don't know if I'm getting in any money to pay for rent, council tax and electricity, forget food for next month :eek: I really don't know what I'm going to do!!