November 2016 Grocery Challenge

meg72

Declaring today as off to Portsmouth tomorrow and only spending Christmas money.

Decided this morning to take a flask and coffee as when I totalled up what I spent at Gloucester Christmas market last weekend discovered a whopping £25 went on coffees and two cakes.

So happy to declared came in well under, actually only spent half of what I thought I would.

Franalamadingdong

It's a no spend day for me today. The boy has been home poorly, and with my parents at the hospital I had to take the day off work. Going a bit stir crazy but I'm confident he'll be well enough for a day at school tomorrow, with the weekend to rest. No doubt we'll be frog marched into the horror that is the school Christmas bazaar, but the boy has £3.75 left from the £5 I put to one side for him so he can fritter that on stuff and nonsense. And I've made a plate of iced biscuits for the blinking plate they send home for you to fill and return to have them sell back to you. As you can tell I'm getting royally peed off with it all! Not long left and the other terms aren't quite so demanding. So there may be some begrudging spends tomorrow, but having given the boy his own fund it shouldn't be too bad, he also has £12 from selling a toy, which he might spend a bit of.

I do have a question: what do people do with the money they come in under budget by? Do you save it? Do you roll it over? Do you put it towards Christmas/bulk spends? Do you spend it on a family treat?

thriftwizard

NSD grocery-wise; some spending did happen at a Scandinavian emporium I happened to be passing, but I actually spent less than I'd budgeted for when I realised I just didn't need one of the items I'd gone in for, as I had something else that would not only do the job, it'll do it better. I also picked up two blinds I'd been budgeting £30-£40 for, for under £20 the pair. So my wallet is happy tonight!

Caterina

NSD for me but DH had his work farewell drinks and meal, however that's something I had nothing to do with, so I can happily declare it an official NSD and go to update my sig.

t14cy_t

spends of £4.10 in the farm shop for local fruit and veg. the apples are to die for! and i get to fuss the beautiful cat that lives there!xx

kkffoo

Franalamadingdong wrote: »

I do have a question: what do people do with the money they come in under budget by? Do you save it? Do you roll it over? Do you put it towards Christmas/bulk spends? Do you spend it on a family treat?

Idea not fully formed yet, but going to add any surplus to my imaginary month budget, and then use that maybe for eating out, cafe stops on trips etc...once our proposed monthly takeaway night is covered. That way the money is still going on food.

Hubby went to Áldi. I am getting over my guilt for not going there. He tells me the place is crammed with 'men with lists' (MWLs ?)

Spent £8.49, and we expect to spend £30 ish this weekend on veg and bits, so on target!
After that will have four interim days, Wed - Sun before the new four week budgeting plan kicks in. Hopefully the part week pro-rata budget will cover that weekend's spend, and I'll start afresh on the 5th Dec.
It should be a great deal simpler always ending the grocery spend on the same day of the week, and having the same number of days in each grocery 'month'..

Now on £270.78/£350

pinkypig

Final shop of my month was £12.11 once I used some vouchers. This was mainly fruit and veg plus a few essential fridge bits.
I am over budget by £42.02 which isn't great. I did a couple of little shops early in the month which got me off to a bad start. Three family get together meals also pushed my costs up as they were last minute and therefore not budgeted. Hugely enjoyable but each added an extra bit of spend.
My only consolation is that I realised I'd messed up mid month but I focussed on damage limitation which worked as I only spent £42 in the last 2 1/2 weeks of the month.
The cupboards have plenty of staples and there are loads of leftovers and batch cooked meals in the freezer so I'm going to batten down the hatches in December:)
I've also learned from my mistakes and the extra catering I'm doing in December has been budgeted for. I've not allowed a huge amount extra so I'll need to plan carefully and shop prudently which will do me good!
Declaring at £202.02/ £160
See you over in December :)

Franalamadingdong

NSD as far as grocery is concerned today! Quite a few other spends though! A smart jacket (£17), LED lights for the tree (£12.50) should make running costs lower and some of ours died last year, sellotape (£1), HDMI cable (£6.68) and a new TV!!! For £150. This was from some gifted money and I'd been looking for over a year and the only full price thing was the cable. Shouldn't need to shop all weekend and I'm hoping to see how long a NSD (grocery) we can run for.

Thanks kkffoo, I have put £20 in an eating out budget for November, separate to groceries, but the boy wants fish and chips so it shouldn't be the £20. Maybe I'll move it to discretionary!

[Deleted User]

Franalamadingdong wrote: »

I do have a question: what do people do with the money they come in under budget by? Do you save it? Do you roll it over? Do you put it towards Christmas/bulk spends? Do you spend it on a family treat?

The original intention was to use towards bulk buys (which I rarely buy), but I find it much easier just to bulk buy and put a price sticker on them. When I come to use them, I incorporate the price into that monthly budget. I haven't really come under budget significantly, but I think I might just use it as a treat box for anything, for doing well on the grocery spends.

Spent £9, £5 of that was on my toothpaste - it's expensive, but it lasts a while. Have updated sig.

JAMIEDODGER

Reporting another NSD for yesterday. That makes 14 so far this month:) Hoping for another one today, but need to go into town with DS3, as he wants to spend some of his money, and I need to go to the post office, but neither of those are included in my NSD rules;) Just need to stay out of all the food shops in town:D

Will be making chilli in the slow cooker this morning for tonights dinner, there should be enough left for a couple of meals for me for the freezer:)

Have a low spend day all x