February 2016 Grocery Challenge

zippychick

Lynne, i'm so sorry - can you copy your lists over again please? We've had a bad run with this . Any time the team edit my threads (ie include in the weekly email) it means i can't copy and paste anything which is why we keep starting again like this i've even got the totals and recipe the wrong way round but I don't have any more time to spend on this today so it will have to stay like it is.

Sorry love:( very much appreciate the help with this

here's your links

Jan 2016 - Post 348 Minestrone Soup and


Jan 2016 - Post 383 Squash Curry

good luck this month people

Zip

lushlifesaver

New month starts on Monday - not a moment too soon for us! Thank you so much for keeping us all going.


Saving money as I'm no longer on that other eating plan - it just didn't work for me or our budget! I found I was spending money on that but still spending the same on food for the household too! Not good!


Could my target for February please be amended to £130?


Finally got OH off those darn cereal/breakfast bars. He is now taking real food and more of it to work. Probably works out at the same cost if not cheaper in the long run!


Littlie isn't eating as much as usual at the moment but I need to do a full restock of her drawer (will divide it half to her drawer and half to the back of a cupboard along with the bits I don't want inhaled by OH!)


Plan is to go to Makro on Sunday and get Chicken, cheese (we use a lot of that too atm), oven chips, some baking needs and some offers. The rest of the budget will then be split for weekly/fortnightly shops as needed.


We are all eating more fresh fruit and veg now so I won't do one big shop and then a load of tiny top ups it will just be a regular weekly refill. Hopefully I soon get used to the quantities needed to keep us going all week


Aldi baby event is almost due and we need nappies, wipes and a few other bits that are event regulars so going to try and hold off for that before I get those.

wuvvies

Can I join in? I spend far too much on food,I've made a big (for me) change recently.ive always made my own bread but now I buy a long life milk so there is NO reason for me to pop in and do a midweek shop.as we all know you can spend £20 on an extra midweek shop. I shall continue to do this but I'm now starting to save for Xmas in a sealed tin. If I could drop my weekly shop a bit then that's more for my Xmas tin. I currently spend between 75-85 per week for two adults one child and a cat. I would like to spend about 70 per week. I'm not willing to totally cut out treats. My husband and I both work full time and hardly spend any money on anything else. I shop at aldi and I know I can get this down. Imagine if I could put 10 pound a week aside for Christmas. I have 5 weeks in February from one payday to the next. I'm going to say 375my budget for the month.

Need2bthrifty

May I join in too. Its been a couple of years since I last joined in the challenge and have become a bit lazy about managing my resources, saving or meal planning. Stumbling from month to month or dipping into savings has become the norm.

There's only me in the household and pay day is the 20th so I will be starting today with a monthly budget of £50 and aiming for at least 21 NSD's.

My store cupboard and household necessities are pretty well stocked up after making good use of a December £10 off a £50 spend in Lid!. There is a good selection of hm meals in the freezer which should last well into the middle of the month. I rarely eat convenience foods and try to always have a couple of veggie meals and a couple of fish based meals during the week.

Fresh fruit and veg is probably the area where I need to have a bit of a re-think just because of the wastage - I get fed up eating the same veg day after day, the bag of french beans always seems to go mouldy and a head of broccoli always ends up yellow before I finish it. I'm not keen on the texture of some frozen veg so tend only to buy peas, sweetcorn and broad beans.

Anyway off to the bank and will start as I mean to go on by getting my cash into a separate purse.

Stoneleighblue

Please may I join?

Spending on food is our biggest weakness and something we really need to get under control.
Our household consists of two adults and a toddler and at one point last year we were spending over £700 a month on our groceries. I have now got this down to around £400, so my goal for February is £350. Eventually I would like to get our grocery spend to under £250 a month.

Mrs_Cheshire

I'm in again this month - the month will start in the 28th Jan and run till 25th Feb, so exactly 4 weeks. Would love to come in under £300, as I still have an almost full freezer. That's for 2 adults, 6 & 4 year old boys who have lunch provided at school and a 12 week old baby on formula milk. The 4 year old wears pull up's at night and obviously the baby is in nappies, although I do have cloth ones I can use once the disposables are all used, but will probably wait till the better weather as I don't have a tumble dryer. I'm including all food, household stuff and toiletries.

lynnejk

Hiya and a warm welcome to the new peoples :hello:


Thank you to Zippy for running the thread and Coxy for doing all the budget admin


I'm in again and am going to
reduce my budget to £200 again for February.
I have a fair amount in stock and enough in my 'bulk buy' for meat and a stock-up on non-food items fingers xd. Oh well will see how it goes


Good luck everyone and hope you all have a frugal February. I'm still in January until the bitter end, though I'll pop over and see how it's all going.
Lx

Scrimps

I would like to join please and set our budget to £200 for Feb. It starts for us on the 29th Jan.

There is only 2 of us, we do like our food! We eat fairly high protein and not really much pasta etc, we do have a good butchers and buy the sainburys value white fish fillets for lots of curries and stews etc. The cats already have food to last the month. I would like to reduce it further but will do it slowly.

jlhmd666

I'm in for February please. £300 for the month again. This includes cleaning and toiletries.

I would like to reduce this a bit in the coming months but January has been surprising to say the least. £300 is a significant reduction compared to what I have been spending but with one shop left to do, there's still the possibility we could go over budget. That said, there are also areas where spending could be avoided so we will see. Ultimately I want to get the shopping bill down to between £200 - £250.

For February I'm going to make more use of the recipes listed in this challenge, make cheaper meals. This weekend I'm going to try making baked beans rather than buying tinned. Hopefully they will be nice and I could save money.

The children love Options orange hot chocolate but it's £3.49 per week I would rather not spend. I haven't found a cheaper orange flavour yet and as they have a cup before bed I don't want to just stop buying it so I need to think about alternatives.

Food waste has been reduced significantly in January although OH has been wasteful as he suffers from 'eyes bigger than the belly' syndrome. This, I need to tackle without him getting into a strop because I'm nagging

Coxy11

Hello everyone and welcome to February's GC!

I've updated the budgets list to here

Welcome/welcome back to:
wuvvies, Need2bthrifty, Stoneleighblue and Scimps

Good luck everyone.
Coxy