April 2016 Grocery Challenge

msgnomey

£250 for me please (really need this)

lynnejk

Evening all and a warm welcome to the returners and new peoples :hello:

Thank you Zippy and Coxy for the work you do on this thread.

I'm back from my holibobs - very enjoyable apart from the chest infection someone kindly shared with me, so not feeling that good atm.

I'm aiming for £200 for the month in April. This is all household spending - food, cleaning, general toiletries etc for DH and myself.

I will need to do a butcher run but have surplus in the bulk buy to cover this. I am also going to try to run down some of the stock cupboard, as not expecting to have to live in lock-down :rotfl: Anyone else seem to need oceans of tins in stock ??

I will sort the recipes by the beginning of the month.

Good luck with the challenge and hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. I'm in March to the bitter end so 'see' you all later
Lx

pajama

It's a five week month for me so please put me down for £450
Hope to do a lot better than last months disaster.
Good luck everyone!

Persephone_Mulberry

So how do people make this work? I think i am going to find it Hard

Soworried

Persephone_Mulberry wrote: »

So how do people make this work? I think i am going to find it Hard

I find it easier to make a list of everything I have in the fridge, freezers and then the cupboards.
Then I write a meal plan or to bake list around that.
I start with the fridge, so say I have some mushrooms looking ropey, then the first meal on to the planner would use them up in some way.
If I want to make a meal and I'm missing an ingredient then that goes on to my shopping list.

Once I go shopping I always go at a time they are doing the reductions. These are then frozen and become part of the freezer inventory to be meal planned further down the line.

Try to set your self a mini goal at first, like not to waste any thing you have in. Any progress is better than none.

And just ask or list ingredients you have in if you'd like help to come up with meal ideas

NewShadow

Soworried wrote: »

I find it easier to make a list of everything I have in the fridge, freezers and then the cupboards.
Then I write a meal plan or to bake list around that.

I'm a little more ad hoc.

I can't keep lists up to date, but I aim to use something from my long term storage every meal.

That means on a Saturday I pull out or pick a few things things (chicken breasts and pork chops for example) to defrost, and by the time I go shopping Sunday morning I've done a list of meals I fancy and planned leftovers (I don't generally pick specific days for each meal) and I've checked my stocks to see what I'm missing.

Last month I then set myself a weekly budget (around £25) for anything I needed for that week and took this out in cash - this worked really well for me, so I'm doing it again this month.

Then I have an extra £25 in my budget for anything I fancy (coffee at work for example).

Structure and freedom combined

THIRZAH

Having failed to keep to my budget in March I am determined to stick to it in April so please put me down for £200 again. It should be easier this month, I hope, as we are not going away and -so far-not expecting any visitors.

[Deleted User]

I haven't done this for sooo long. Both my kids are back home, well not kids, 22yr olds, so its for three of us. I have loads in the cupboards and freezer, so am going to say £80 for the month, which will include all food, cleaning stuff, alcohol (ouch) etc. Im hoping to not spend that much and anything left over will go into an overflow pot weekly. Am gonna have to get used to doing meal plans again - quite looking forward to it.

pretz_2

Ok so I have been gone a long time and I have seriously fallen off the os wagon and need to get my back side firmly back on, so I'm taking this by the reins and I'm going to challenge myself with £250 for the month of April. This will be for 2 adults, 2 children and 3 dogs. Looking forward to the challenge.

Willow92

I've just moved out for the first time and I'm not sure how much I need to spend each month but can you put me down for £100 for this month please?

I live on my own so that may be a bit high but I'll reduce the amount next month if I need to.