March 2015 Grocery Challenge

Willowx

March will be an interesting month, my cupboards are pretty bare after eating down some of my stores last month and am away to Malta for a week as well as a long weekend in London, so they both come out of my holidays budget. I'm going to go with £90.

Hoipolloi

I'd like to join this challenge, I will aim for £250 spend for this month :beer:

Mrs_Cheshire

Spent £47.12 in A!di using my voucher, got another to use this week too!

pinkpixie274

Hi

Please can I join the March challenge with a total of £200 running from 1st to 31st! This will be tight for me but am hoping I can achieve it with hard work & determination:)

Have been completing meal plans for the last month & it really has helped...why didn't I do it sooner!?! Oh well, going to keep at them now & see how much more I can save by being even more careful, breaking bad habits is so hard but defo feel like I'm making progress :j

Thank you all for your help & posts, they keep me going :T

WantToBeSE

Morning All

Went to Morrisons shopping yesterday, as i had a £5 M&M voucher, pluss a £1 off voucher from Burgen after complaining that the bread i bought had holes through it.

My total, after using coupons was £45.58. But this does include £5 of their saving stamps which i am saving towards Christmas.
I also got a £7 off a £50 shop voucher, which i will use next week.

I also won 200 M&M points with their Saturday Night Takeaway thing.

I now have £90 to last me until the 20th March.

gayleygoo

I didn't make any effort at all for a budget in February, and shudder to think what we spent with the lack of meal planning or shopping lists. March is going to be an expensive month, with several birthdays and still quite a few baby things to buy. So I'm going to aim for a budget of £240 for our food and pet food.

Coxy11

Good Morning Everyone!


Budgets updated to here


Welcome/welcome back to:
XSpender, medsdemon, summerlady, DebtFree2012, MoodyMel, RachieDabbler70, DottyBearP and Hoipolloi


CatherineMM - please let me know what budget you would like.


I did a big T's shop yesterday and popped into M&S food just before they shut last night. Not a yellow sticker in sight


Good luck everyone
Coxy

Wooftastic

Hi CatherineMM. We have a doggy and I bulk buy his food online so I don't include it in our food budget. I do include all toiletries and cleaning products though. Its essentially our 'housekeeping' if that makes sense. Any money left over at the end of the month goes into a separate pot which I use to bulk buy when I see things we use regularly on offer (Dishwasher tablets, washing powder) plus we get a lot of our meat from a small local farm so end up buying this in larger quantities than my monthly budget will allow.

I hope this helps

gayleygoo

CatherineMM wrote: »

HI please may I join? I need to reduce groceries and food for my family of two adults, two kids and a doggie. Last month was over £800 in the end, not including the nearly 300 euros on holiday meals :eek: ... BIG problems... I need to reduce to about £300 per month ideally. We only eat cheaply which is why i cannot see where the money goes! The amount we spend is based on the supermarket receipts in toto... should I be including fuel, clothes, dvds, toiletries, dog food, cleaning products etc? we buy everything in one shop once per week due to living rurally...

You need a spending diary A notebook or something to write every tiny spend down, whether it's the weekly shop or a few pints of milk from the shop, a newspaper or takeaway coffee. Keep every receipt until you've written it down.

In my spending diary I will divide up "big shops" into categories of food, household (washing powder, toiletries etc), clothes, pet food etc. Use your receipts to work out how much was spent in each category. DVDs, hobby purchases, magazines, would come under "personal spends", which I try to set a budget for too. Only food, drinks, pet food, meals out, takeaways etc are included in my grocery spend, although others include household stuff in their budget - it's entirely up to you. (My household budget is separate because it means if I buy lightbulbs or a doormat it's not taking up "food" money.) I have a small budget for the kids too, so they can occasionally be allowed a magazine, book, small toy, DVD etc, and once that money is gone it's gone!

If you don't already, try meal planning and shopping with a list. Supermarkets make their money from people who wander round with a big trolley and fling stuff in on a whim.

m1nk1e

Morning all,

Not sure we are very good at this grocery budget, as OH went out and spent a further £16 yesterday despite us having 2 different supermarket online shops delivered! It was on brekkie stuff bacon, sausage etc which I hadn't bought as sometimes it gets and eaten and sometimes not.

Grr! Never mind on the positive side I defrosted my freezer yesterday following on from the very useful advice I read on this site about using the freezer more. It should be running A + now.
I have made 2 meals of spag Bol and 2 of chilli and frozen them. I have also made 2 meals worth of Thai green chicken curry and frozen along with a load of smoothies.

Today I am going to cook up the black beans ready to make black bean soup (which is one of my favourites). My OH was a little concerned the first time I made it for tea complaining it wouldn't be a 'real' meal after a day at work. It is now one of our go to veggie teas - I make a salsa to go on top and crumble in some feta too. Even the kids have been won round ��.

My thinking being if we have a mince dish once a week then that is a month sorted in the freezer. The Thai chicken means 2 weeks and the black bean soup 2 weeks. Now just need a few more homemade ready meals and the working week should become a bit easier.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. I have gained so much from this site already long may it continue and I hope I can contribute something useful at some point.
Off to update signature with the extra £16!!!!