February 2016 Grocery Challenge

mumofthetwins

spend of £50.10 this month so far .. got loads of YS bargains so hopefully a few NSDs ahead


Lisa x

patentgirl

Not so good on NSD s this month but plodding along just going to update total with quite hefty Ocado delivery but should have enough food in to last for quite a while thankfully.

moneytree1

Hi All
My spends for the January Challenge were £162.56 of £200 budget so saving of £37.44.


Aim again for February challenge is £200 please need to spend as little as possible to pay an extra bill this month.

HornetSaver

Hardly been around MSE this week, but finally have some well-earned time in front of a computer.

The good news is that the only things I should need to buy for the remainder of the month are milk, eggs, fruit, veg and bread, and that the bonus Nectar points I got for this weekend covered my delivery costs. I also got the £18 bonus for my first online order.

After thinking about it, I'm not counting the £18 bonus for the purposes of this challenge (though I'm not counting delivery costs either). The main reason is that if I get used to some of the foods I treated myself to with the bonus, then I will buy them again and therefore that saving will be a false economy. To give the most expensive example, value for money wise I wouldn't usually touch prawns with a bargepole. But given that I was somewhere in between £42 and £60 after stocking up on everything I wished to stock up on and would ordinarily buy, and getting to £60 would cut £18 off my bill, it was hardly wasteful spending.

The bad news is that because of how busy I've been (or more accurately how little time I've spent at home) I've had not one, not even two, but three takeaways since my last post, plus a slight overspend on my personal budget :eek: One takeaway was on a night out, but I budget for the occasional one of those. The other two were sheer disorganisation and laziness respectively. Two unplanned takeaways a week and I won't hit my £150 target, never mind trying to reduce that spend in future months.

Updated total £98.79 of £150. Because of the way I have gone about this month's spending I'm still pretty confident of hitting target, though it will actually be quite close whereas I previously thought I'd walk it.

flipper_72

flipper_72 wrote: »

Can I join this month please.
I budget £320 per month but as the freezer is heaving I am trying to eat from there, I will therefore set £200 as the budget for February and hope having the kids off school for a week doesn't blow it!!

Tonight's dinner is cooking, Jamie's fish pie, and I didn't have to buy anything especially for it. Free meal (sort of)!!

1 week into the month and 4 trips to the supermarket, 2 by me, 2 by hubby. One of mine was the weekly shop and one was for lunch stuff at work for the month. Hubby is lunches and ?. Total spend £49.57/£200 so £150.43 left in my minimised Feb budget.
Tonight is LO beef pie with pastry that has been lurking in the freezer, in fact all lunches and dinners are covered up to and including Saturday. Next week will be the test, I have promised DS he can make some meals he likes as an attempt to get him to understand the effort that goes into cooking and maybe be more willing to try things.

Wysiwyg49

Very pleased with online Tesc0 shop including £10.5 vouchers off, came in at under £30, with fruit and veg and a few favourites from A1di - total for the week so far £54.08. May need more chicken and realised I was much lower on rice than I'd thought, but even so it's not too bad...have updated sig.

On the meal plan this week: mince n dumplings / chicken risotto / HM pizzas / spag bol / philly stuffed chicken breasts with ham.

Not sure if I've mentioned before, I get a garlic & rosemary bread flour and use it for garlic bread and pizza bases - get 3 out of one 500g packet, for about 90p :j v popular with family and very economical!

jlhmd666

Wysiwyg49 wrote: »

Not sure if I've mentioned before, I get a garlic & rosemary bread flour and use it for garlic bread and pizza bases - get 3 out of one 500g packet, for about 90p :j v popular with family and very economical!

I like that idea as my lot love pizza night.

I made some very simple flat breads today and added garlic granules to the dough to give them a nice flavour. Normally I use strong bread flour and yeast to make naan which can then be used as a pizza base but the flat bread used sf flour instead and turned out quite well

Katsmum2

Hi,
Haven't spent on groceries today...but...£155 at dentist (no chance of NHS around here unfortunately).
Keep safe and warm
X

cowboymum

Weekend spends;
Sainsburys £10.30 ( mainly bits for my sister who is poorly)
Tesco £77.82
Tesco delivery saver £6
Second purse £7

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Budgets updated to here

NSD today, but tomorrow I will need fruit and veg plus eggs if I have enough space in the bag for them.

We are off on holiday on Sunday for a week which is fully catered. I do need to buy food for the journey (8 hrs at least....) plus chocolate bars to have on the slopes. Will probably go to £land to get 4 bars for a pound.

Have a good evening all.
Coxy