February 2015 Grocery Challenge

maria3104

Hi All

Just had Mr T delivery. 42.75 have updated my signature.

34 items on this order including washing powder x 2 and bacon /butter etc. Down buying to tesco value has saved me a fortune. I used to visit the shop and spent around £120 to £150. I really enjoyed the programme on eat well for less. I have tried MR T teabags but my DH would not play so I still buy premium tea!

Having a busy day flyladying. wm x 3, td x 2 dw x 2, woodburner lit, birds fed, fridges bleached, tops bleached, feel a bit grotty so not going to go far today.
Could do with cleaning windows, they are grim. Might hoover and do floors later if feel more the thing.

Have a good day everyone.

WantToBeSE

If anyone is interested in a 'Take your Lunch to Work' challenge, I have just started them up again (I used to do them) for February.


you can be a stay at home parent, a student, work full or part time, everyone is welcome.
The challenge is on the DFW board and it up for February. Find it here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5165401

jp1964

Hello everyone, mind if I join you in the February Grocery challenge?

Trying to reduce my grocery shopping costs after calculating that between September and the end of December our average spend per month (excluding Christmas week) was £892! Shocking! That does include takeaways which are instantly going out of the window, but even so, not good.

So my aim now is to reduce this cost to £600 per month (or £150 per week) and use the money saved to overpay our mortgage to help with our longer term plan of moving to a completely new area in about 4 years time once our youngest finishes his A levels and is hopefully well settled into university, a new beginning for us after bringing up five kids!

The family living at home now consists of five of us, three 'kids' of 21, 17 and 16, so adults effectively food wise, plus the dog.

I was shopping far too much online with Tesco, although for years we have used Aldi and Lidl whenever possible, but I don't drive and it was far easier to simply log on and order, with all of the children coming in at different times, we often ate at different times, and with the departure of our second daughter to live in London in September, I think following that I was still in 'large family' mode when it came to grocery shopping.

I tend to bulk buy things anyway like washing powder, loo rolls and kitchen rolls when on offer, and this did save money of course, but the general food shopping, although still buying a few of something that was on offer and freezing it in one of our three freezers, was simply out of control, especially as having the delivery saver set up meant that I could order what I needed whenever without incurring extra delivery costs, and then adding other stuff that I saw bumped the cost up to far more than it should be. We were also wasting far too much fresh stuff, busy lives meaning it was too often far too easy to not organise our food, and too easy after a busy day to order in food and not cook, that simply has to stop.

I have no excuse for this other than disorganisation, we run two businesses, and I work from home, but with one thing and another, and stressful work and family situations over the last few years, it simply was not a priority to get to grips with it.

Now that I have finally worked out where we have been going wrong, it feels like we are taking control, so any advice on how to post my progress will be welcomed.

This last week I have kept all my receipts for food (Aldi, Lidl, sausages from M&S, and a Tesco shop, and it is coming in at £155, I haven't skimped on anything, so quite pleased with that.

Looking forward to getting to know everyone, and enjoying sharing our progress.

bestill

Hello. Please put me down for £280 again this month. Didn't quite make it last month, but with 3 days less should be ok. In fact I'm happy with anything less than £303, which is what I've budgeted on my spreadsheet.

redmel1621

Daisychain1 wrote: »

Thanks for your welcome and all the tips Bobarella. I definitely need to do store cupboard shopping more as I have loads of stuff which could be used up before buying anymore. I think tonight I will sit down and menu plan for the week using the bits I already have.

Another area which I feel I could improve on is brand shopping. Now I don't have a problem with lower brand items but OH is a food label snob. I wander if I go shopping without him and unpackaged it before he gets home if he would notice a difference. There's only one way to find out

If you've tried going for own brand stuff what is good and what is best avoided?

DC1

In all honesty I barely buy any big brand food stuffs anymore. There are things I can't quite go down to the value range with, like beans, I am happy enough with own brand but not the value ranges as they taste funny.

Do you have an Ald! nearby if so then there stuff is brilliant. I do almost my whole shop there and the quality of the food is excellent.

The main things we still get branded are T-Bags, coffee and bertolli marge. I am yet to actually try a number of alternative T-Bags as in all honesty whenever I have had cheap tea in cafe's/work places it has always been grim. We only like PG or Twinings.... BUT I do shop around for it on offers and stock up when it is cheap. I do the same with the Bertolli. The 1kg tubs are around £3.90 yet the 500g are often on offer somewhere for 95p so I will buy 6-10 at a a time meaning it is very likely to be on offer elsewhere before I run out.

The best thing to do is switch a couple of items at a time so you don't end up with cupboards full of food yo umay not like... I just did a few a week until I realised I loved all the swaps Never looked back

Daisychain1

Thanks for the reply Redmel. I think you're right about swapping a few items a week. I will try this when I next go to the supermarket although I'm hoping this won't be for another week or so whilst I use up what I already have

I will keep you informed as to how it goes

snowfox

Here we go, my first grocery challenge :beer:

Please sign me up for £200 starting today, so 31 Jan - 28 Feb. We are 2 adults in the household and I will try to use this for all our food and household items.

Had a spend of £43.81 for the weekly delivery today, I'll add this to my signature.

Good luck everyone

Billie-jo

Daisychain1 and any other new members good luck with the grocery challenge. We used to spent £500 every 4 weeks but with lots of hard work and planning last year allocated £50 per week so £200 or £250 depending on if it was a 4 or 5 week month. There are two adults for all meals, my mum who I cook for usually 5 times a week and up to 3 grandchildren some days if they are off school. We include food, cleaning and laundry items and a Saturday paper in this. We achieved this mainly by making a weekly meal plan (although we don't always stick to it) making use of left overs instead of just binning them and changed from Te$co to A!di and for things we cant get in A!di we go to Morry's. Our nearest Lid! is shut at moment as they are extending the store but when it is back open I am going to give them another try for some things. I usually buy meat in bulk using savings but when it is used for a meal will add the price of it onto the months total.
Husband is a confirmed meat eater and would have a fit if we had more than a one meal a week without meat, he is also diabetic although since he has lost a lot of weight (over 20 stone) has reduced his medication for this to just one tablet twice a day where as he used to have around 7 or 8, the two he does take he has also reduced the strength by half so we are more than happy with where we are at the moment with things even though this year I am attempting to reduce the budget by around £20 per month - if we achieve it great if we don't not a problem we will have at least tried.

joedenise

I've kept my budget the same but anything under that gets transferred into savings, so savings are adding up bit by bit.

Denise

Coxy11

Hi all,


Budgets list updated to here


Welcome to:
Elasticmoney, jp1964 and snowfox


Good luck all
Coxy