February 2017 Grocery Challenge

just_trying

New shadow can you get to Aldi, there corned beef is really good about £1.50 a tin. I don't like the cheap prince stuff. The price now is eye watering compared to what it used to be. You used to be able to make a cheap and filling meal from it.

Budget will be £70 a week please. Thank you. As I want my own little savings to continue to grow. Good luck all.

Franalamadingdong

I prefer pen and paper and for Christmas I treated myself to a lovely budget book. Although at £9 itself was not budget. I really love it though. It has an annual spend section, e.g. car insurance, then each month, which has income, standing orders, direct debits and bills, savings, these essentials are then summed up before the day to day spends section, then there's a monthly spends total and a monthly total (balance from last month, income, outgoings and balance to carry over) and a little receipts pocket. That's repeated for each month and then after December there's a Christmas section and an ocassions section (e.g. birthdays weddings etc). Each spend has date, details and amount. I prefer pen and paper, and now I don't lose anything and I have a better idea of all my spends. Especially handy now I've had so much change. It was just from Amazon and is by organised mum. That said it's not overly feminine. It's decorated with wee trees

JingsMyBucket

Hi all, I’m a total newbie to the forums and decided to join after lurking on the January thread. I’d like to get a handle on my/our grocery spending and refocus my plan to pay down debt this year. This is also driven by wanting to clear out the pantry and just eat down what we have. We also need to get our clothes washer fixed next month. A bit about me:

There are just two of us in our household; I’m an American and OH is Scottish. So, please don’t be surprised if I spell recognize with a “z” instead of an “s” at times. 😃 My other half is vegetarian and I eat meat with vegetables and virtually no pasta, rice, or bread in order to control a medical condition. If I do have breads or rice like that, it’ll be a rare treat. We do keep it in the house for him though. We’ve recently started buying more avocados because OH remarked how it’s his equivalent to meat: full of good fats, fiber and other nutrients he needs. That made me see things his way and I’ve now started buy several avocados a week for him. There goes a tenner out the door. Kidding. They’re thankfully not THAT expensive but can be. We live in mainland Europe so my posts will be in euros although I am still familiar with all the grocery store references y’all make due to my living in England for a bit. I miss several things about shopping for food in the UK (and the US).

For February budget, I’m thinking of probably €400. I just did the weekend shop and that should last us at least a week and a half. That said, I’m also about to do a restock of some stuff by putting in an order at Amazon.co.uk this weekend for household items. These range from toothpaste and detergent all the way to a can opener because ours is crap.

I currently track my grocery spending and it tends to be about €300 per month. That is split across a few categories:

Groceries
Work Food (lunches out, vending machine, etc)
Home (toiletries, paper goods, cleaning, etc)

Dining out is a whole other ball of wax. I’m trying to balance that out a bit though in terms of socializing and saving money. Hopefully March can be €200 just for groceries. That would be freaking great. For February, OH will be going to Scotland to visit his mum for about 10 days so our grocery bill could/should go down a bit during that time. I’ll do a proper inventory next weekend when I have time. But, I do have enough meat and other things in fridge, freezer and pantries to really keep going for a long time.

Right. This introduction is rather long enough now. Anyway, thank you for having me! x

wannalot

Hello all,

I hope the month is starting well for everyone.

I did my first weekly shop of the month today:

Bad News (1) - I succumbed to temptation and bought £2 worth of sweets. It's a little annoying that I spent the money on them, but the most annoying thing is that I really want to stop eating rubbish. (NO SWEETS TO ENTER THE TROLLEY NEXT WEEK!!!!)

Bad news (2) - I succumbed to temptation and bought a reduced-price cooked chicken. It smelled heavenly in the shop, but was completely tasteless and dry when I had it tonight. Unfortunately, I still have a lot left, so I'm going to try to use it up for Sunday dinner, hopefully with something else to give it flavour. (Memo to self - do not buy ready-made food just because it has a yellow sticker on it!)

Good news: I spent just under £30, which is great for me since I normally spend about £50! And this included not only bin liners and kitchen roll, but also a sympathy card for the family of an elderly family friend who passed on this week.

In total only £25 was spent on food and I have lots of "proper food" for my money. There is plenty of bread and milk for the next fortnight, cheese for snacks, and lots of veg in to be made into soup or roasted veg.

I made a delicious chickpea and butterbean stew today- it's delicious and is great as a side dish or by itself. I also made a butternut squash, carrot and sweet potato soup which is very orange but delicious. Both these dishes will play a big part in my eating plan this week!

Good luck all!

JingsMyBucket

Flat_Eric wrote: »

We were meant to be going out for date night tonight but I didn't get round to booking anywhere and to be honest I decided that something at home followed by wine would suffice rather than be out in the cold and paying over the odds for tea. Thus followed a trip to m&s where I tried to be good and not overspend. I.e. I didn't buy the chinese meal deal and stuck to just what I had in mind (although I did buy some mini welsh cakes that were not on my list!) I thought I would use the self service to save time but ended up needing help several times then needed to go to customer services so next time I'll just queue up and wait to be served rather try and do it myself!

Does anyone use an app to keep track of their grocery spends? I was looking for one last night and downloaded (several) but found them all a bit over complicated so I think I'll stick to pen and paper!

Flat Eric, I use an iPhone app called Trail Wallet that's actually meant for keeping track of travel expenses but I've adapted for daily expenses and use: voyagetravelapps.com/trail-wallet/. I first started using it because I was traveling between the U.K. and mainland Europe a lot for work. It's very simple to use and I add in expenses on the spot after I've spent the money. No more paper or holding figures in my head.

zafiro1984

Morning all, a soggy and miserable day here so aim to stay indoors for most of it.

First shop for Feb last night. Spent 38.27, went with a list and came out with nothing extra. Unfortunately I must have left the ginger at the cashout as I've paid for it but it wasn't in my bags when I got home. That will teach me to not chat whilst items are going through.

Wannalot Just looking at your signature, I certainly could put three out of your four on mine

karenccs67

Franalamadingdong wrote: »

I prefer pen and paper and for Christmas I treated myself to a lovely budget book. Although at £9 itself was not budget. I really love it though. It has an annual spend section, e.g. car insurance, then each month, which has income, standing orders, direct debits and bills, savings, these essentials are then summed up before the day to day spends section, then there's a monthly spends total and a monthly total (balance from last month, income, outgoings and balance to carry over) and a little receipts pocket. That's repeated for each month and then after December there's a Christmas section and an ocassions section (e.g. birthdays weddings etc). Each spend has date, details and amount. I prefer pen and paper, and now I don't lose anything and I have a better idea of all my spends. Especially handy now I've had so much change. It was just from Amazon and is by organised mum. That said it's not overly feminine. It's decorated with wee trees

May I ask what budget book you bought please?

debbym

Can you add me in again please, £600 for the month as it is one week shorter than jan for us. Used up all my stock last month so will be looking at how much I spend when I don't have this to fall back on and may drop Marches total down a notch then.

That's for 2 adults , 2 teenagers, one 9 yo who can eat for england, 2 cats plus toiletries etc with 4 out of 5 of us needing special diets due to health probs.

*Margaret*

First shop of the new month, although a day earlier than I'd originally planned. Have spent £8.39 at Aldi. I had a few bits and bobs of vegetables left over from last week so they've gone in the slow cooker.

I've bought one packet of digestives which should quite reasonably last two weeks, though realistically probably just one! Once they're gone they're gone though, I'm hoping not to spend anything else until at least Thursday, except for maybe milk.

mumto2girlsandaboy

Hi can i join this month have been reading along with January's and hoping for £400 for 2 adults and 3 kids