October 2016 Grocery Challenge

Caeraugirl

Can I try again this month please, with the same budget of £450 for two adults, two teenage boys (aka eating machines) and all dog food - despite last month's epic fail excluding this. Our month will run from 1st - 31st as it makes things simpler.

At last count for September I was almost £100 over and I've still got some bits to get tonight, but husband is now officially redundant and we can't keep spending at our current rate on food - or anything else - or we'll whittle down our savings very quickly. Like some others who've already posted, I don't think we're particularly extravagant or wasteful, but we spend way more than we can now afford and I really need to get it under control. I learned some valuable lessons completing the September challenge so now I just need to act on them...!

LesP50

Been lurking a while. Can I join this month please?
No idea where to start, 1 adult, DS at Uni but eats here at least one day a week. Will try 200, to include all food,cleaning products and toiletries.Month starts Friday 30th (payday). Need to get my spending under control, only a salary coming in now, all CTC and Child Benefit has stopped.

pamsdish

I am in again for October, £100, grocery inc cleaning products and dog food, plenty in stock cupboards and freezers to use up.
I would also like to restrict my others spends to £100 too, this is just a personal target, last 2 months have cost £800 in vet bills and car repairs.

Suffolk_lass

LesP50 wrote: »

Been lurking a while. Can I join this month please?
No idea where to start, 1 adult, DS at Uni but eats here at least one day a week. Will try 200, to include all food,cleaning products and toiletries.Month starts Friday 30th (payday). Need to get my spending under control, only a salary coming in now, all CTC and Child Benefit has stopped.

Best advice to start with is to do a stock-take of everything (yes, even those things lurking) - cupboards, freezers, veg in corners :rotfl: and do a meal plan to reduce this (I well remember one of our number who had insulated her loft with toilet rolls :eek:) so don't forget any offline storage locations!

Next thing is to write a list and only buy the things you need for your meal plan - lots of end of day yellow sticker bargains so maybe put green veg (e.g.) rather than broccoli so you can take advantage of these if that suits your pattern of shopping. I always look but Friday is not a great day for these.

You might want to check out some of the systems like second purse that are referenced in the first few posts (carried forward each month) for a system of buying store cupboard items and "buying" them back when you use them. I split my annual budget into 13 months and use the 13th for stores or Christmas but this is all up to you.

Most importantly, use a system to track your spends - with 200 you have either 40 or 50 a week (depending if yours is a 4 or 5 week month) but that might not work for you. Lots do a big monthly shop and just top up fruit, veg and dairy. Each to their own. Don't be too ambitious but do stretch a bit more once you get it under control.

I started at £750 a month and now spend less than £230 average. Our quality has not changed, just the way I shop and when (and I finally realised another Suffolk siege is unlikely for a while yet).

Best of luck to you and all our new people
SL

Tink_04

Ok did a little experiment- made my shopping list on tesco on line then went between tesco - Aldi and asda and bought the items - knowing what was on offer where- I was really pleased that I got everything I needed and it was £63 at tesco online - added my receipts up and it was £55 to physically go to the shop - it was a lot more effort to go to three shops and took a long time. I was expecting a bigger saving - I think I'll just get the on line delivery next time and save myself the running around in the rain!!!

Pepperoni

Me please, signed up for September and haven't quite managed it! Will try harder this month.

£250.00 for 2 adults & 1 toddler, inc. household cleaning products etc.

Slowly57

Little spend today - big cooking session tomorrow.
Coooooo-op - bananas, yellow sticker bread £3.70
Liddle - mashed potato mix for loads of pie toppings and will help use up our milk glut if I make it up with semi-skimmed (not water), cheese (for cheese + onion pie), salmon paste (on offer) for lunchbox/supper, small crusty bread stick to go with soup for tea, chocolate (will need a treat after medical appts lol) £6.28

Lulabelle06

Can I join please? I did this years ago but have since had 2 children to add on! I am going for a budget of £400 inc all food, toiletries, nappies, formula, cleaning products etc. I'm on mat leave at the moment and am hoping to go back part time so really need to budget! My month starts on the 18th (husbands pay day) and I've already spent £240.62 but I have enough nappies for the youngest for a few months I think and the eldest for a couple of weeks. 20 packs of wipes. And enough snacks for toddler for the month and enough washing stuff for probably the rest of the year! And formula is fully stocked! I've done the shopping for the next week though need to pop to get some more fruit as my toddler has expensive taste (strawberries, blueberries) and they had ran out in aldi when I went.

Geldsparerin

250 for me for October please.

Meekie

Hi

Just reporting first spend of the month- about £72 online at mr t including quite a few cleaning products, loo roll, kitchen roll and baby wipes. I have redrafted my October meal plan to include more of the food I actually have in the house! Chuckled at the lack of sieges in Suffolk recently- I think I also have the seige mentality:rotfl: Trying to Un-learn it! I also have the mindset of bulk buying nice meat then saving it for a special occasion- this is fine but the special occasions don't come often enough to really warrant this treatment!