March 2015 Grocery Challenge

CRANKY40

£61.00 spent for my final March shop and signature updated.

Anzac_Biscuit

I bought a loaf of bread yesterday but I'm going to count that for April - so declaring at $451 for March.

See you all on the April thread!

lynnejk

Hiya everyone


Congrats all those coming in under budget and well done to everyone for attempting the challenge :T


I am declaring at £98.03/£90.


I think I under-estimated how much would have to be bought in after the holidays to get to end of month. I was okay for meat and bread but needed f&v, milk and pack-up stuff. Oh well, I'll put the overspend down as a first spend in April and hope to catch up.


Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday and 'see' you in April
Lx

CountingPennies

Managed to stay under budget by £13.76 so adding that money to my emergency fund!!

See you all in April!!

CP xx

Frizzle_2

A spend of 35.30 at aldi using one of my vouchers. Held off using the other one so that will count as April!
Under £200 again this month. Going to leave target as it is because we are quite low on a few things and I want to check out a butcher for meat. I don't know why I am a bit apprehensive about this!

bargainhunterss

Well, that's it, the end of the month! And I think I've definitely lost count over the month. I tried to save all of my receipts but I must have lost some. I think I must have spent roughly £300 for two of us over the month, which is ridiculous.

I think I'll definitely try and reduce it this month! Going to aim for £250 and really keep track this month!

mrs-moneypenny

I went slightly over declaring at £423.38

Moving over to April now

e4rly

Oh dear, I was over budget...But its due to deciding to be a bit more adventurous in my cooking so I think its worth it (and no doubt also hampered by my love of berries and grapes!) Will be increasing my budget for April as I want to start baking more and need to stock up on some essentials.

cw18

Finally finished totting up for the month

Started with a budget of £253.10 for the month, then didn't feed DS1 for 2 days which should reduce it to £247.10

Against that I've recorded spends of £303.70 :eek:

That breaks down to £238.21 worth of food from shops (more than Jan & Feb combined ), £63.49 from stock and £2.00 loose change into my 'wants' budget.

Not happy with the shop total - neither as a figure from my budget or as a comparison to stock (desperately wanting to use up stock piles in the house). As such I want to buy as little as possible in April to see if I can turn it around and balance it out over 'year to date' figures.

But I'm not tooooo upset, as I can see from my spreadsheet that a lot of what I bought is tucked away in my freezers (£3 of fresh fish, £7 of frozen fish, £4.50 of breaded chicken, £14 of chicken fillets, £9.50 of lamb steaks, £4.60 of bread, £12 on ready meals for DS1 to take to work this week and next, £5 of meatballs) or fridge (£6 of margarine) or cupboards (£2+ of spaghetti which should last a good chunk of the rest of the year - bought to bump a bill as I had an £x off £y voucher that was worth using, £6 of honey which will last a few months, £4 on chopped tinned tomatoes to last several months).

I've various other bits carrying over as well (probably £10+ worth), so that's around £90 of my shop spends (certainly more than my £56.60 budget overspend) being carried over into April - and some of it should last longer than that

runrosyfox

Thank you Frizzle and Joedenise! Batch cooking definitely seems a simple way of saving money. Meaning for example I can take advantage of mulitbuys and larger pack sizes (if they are indeed good value), in the knowledge I won't waste them.

Happily I love lentils, pearl barley, rice so I'm on the right track. And to me, evening preparation is time well spent. Thanks for being welcoming right at the end of the month, and I'll see you over there : )