April 2015 Grocery Challenge

cw18

I find it useful to see where I 'should' be at any given point in the month - but it really only works when I fill my spreadsheet in on a daily basis rather than weekly or less frequently I need to do a major claw-back this month (overspend I couldn't really afford in March), so am trying to start off April as I mean to go on with daily updates of my accounts and on here

Some months I have a major overspend early on (normally when I do a stock-up at Costc0 - especially when it involves meat on offer), but I do find that seeing that makes me more determined to not spend for the rest of the month.

PennyGrabber

I generally budget for £1pppd, and then round it up, so about £100 per month for the three of us. This is plenty when I'm good, as I have huge stocks of things we use regularly and am always on the lookout for bargains. Doing my shopping at aldililly has helped hugely as well, as there is less choice, and my children have less toys etc to ask for there!!

Meals today were great - toast for breakfast, bits for lunch, then bf provided dinner! And there's enough for tom dinner! And he's taking me out for lunch tom!! Result!

I did have a little spend of £2 today on a huge tub of cocktail sausages for the picnics next week.

£2/£100, 2nsds

Night all,

PG x

Hoipolloi

An NSD today. Cooked dinner x 2 so one for today and one for tomorrow were plated up. Sunday may be a lunch out day at a restaurant. Not sure yet.

Have bought no Easter eggs, but have made some treacle toffee for sunday, as a toothsome treat :beer:

Happygreen

1st NSD today, yippieh.
Cinema with both DDs tomorrow so will probably get some bits of Lidl weekend offers when in town...

CountingPennies

Had my first spend of the month yesterday. Wanted to keep it to £20. Went slightly over as I forgot I needed tights and some cough stuff. So spent £27.24 on a couple of freezer bits, plenty of veg, some condiments, some bread, marg and milk. Ohh and some fresh fish.

Was hoping to keep out of the shops today but I do need milk (forgot it last night). Might see if my parents are popping to the shops and ask them to pick it up for me, that way I won't spend any extra!

Need to sort some sort of meal plan for this week. Just the 3 of us instead of 5 for a week so that will help. DH is working all week, i'm working 5 days and little one will be going to childcare who will feed him some meals so fingers crossed I don't have to spend much this week!

CP xx

craigywv

hi all had quite a few nsd recently haven't bought a big shop in nearly 2 weeks using up what I have ,I did buy half price leg of lamb for sunday from mr t last week so will go today for veg and dairy stuff and that's it. choc eggs etc all in will make apple crumble tonight for tomorrow dinner. really pleased using up stuff in freezers they reducing nicely. I also have run out of mince but will eat other things first before I buy any more as I made a stack of hm burgers and spag bol and froze these so they there would like another week before I get mince. have a lovely easter everyone xxx

mrsd

I have had 5 NSD this week, only went to Ald! thursday, spent £59.18 which was little more than I was expecting, but this did include extras for this weekend (inc choc eggs for kids) and few extra bits for birthday tea for my mum. Have both kids at home at the moment and DD loves to bake, so while I have spent bit more on home baking, we are reaping the benefits in bread and cake. I am going to round up my spends when updating my total, and will put change in my holiday piggy bank. I will have bigger spend this week as have in laws coming to stay they say overnight but am sure they will be here for the week. At least I will have couple more weeks to reign in spending until end of the month, if I come in under budget will go for smaller one next month. I have no idea how to update the bit at the bottom but will find out and update later.

Frizzle_2

Anyone had any dealings with muscle foods? They have an offer on Groupon, but don't know what their prices are like compared to butchers and what the quality is like. X

Hoipolloi

£10 spent on groceries today :beer: £190 left :beer:

nyc_451

Hello everyone, can I join please

I've recently left my job for personal reasons, have no income at the moment, no family support, so living off my savings while job hunting... I am used to having quite a bit of money left after paying my bills, buying the best quality food, getting take aways, not planning my meals which always ends up by wasting food, and on top of that I honestly hate cooking...but all of that will have to change now! So i am hoping that coming here will help me stay on track.

I am single, don't know how much money I should be spending on food but I am aiming for £100/month, that would be a big cut for me. I've stocked up quite well, have a full freezer of meat and a bit of fish, so this month I should spend even less.