March 2017 Grocery Challenge

Suffolk_lass

Coxy11 wrote: »

Annual 2017
DanielleNic87 £2200
FurryBeastOz £3000
K9sandFelines £4000
Matron Midge £5200
mrsnicewriting £2000
Rachiedabbler70 £3250
squirrelgirl £4800
Suffolk lass [STRIKE]£3600[/STRIKE]
willowx £1560

Please can I change my annual budget to £3000 instead of £3600. Cheers Coxy

XSpender

No meal plan following a tummy bug has pushed our spending up last week. I also stocked up on chicken and turkey mince to make meals for this weeks plan.

Total is now £363.87/£400

Spending Split is:


Lunches - £25.93
Beer/wine - £79.59
Takeaway x 2 - £17.20
Food - £241.15

I am hoping to go no more than £50 over budget. We still have some way to go to reduce our budget to a level I am happy at while still eating the healthy diet we prefer. Bearing in mind in February we spent nearly £700 and don't have masses of food in the cupboards/freezers to show for it we are heading in the right direction

Redshank

March Fail *head wall*



April it is then.

Ginmonster

Redshank wrote: »

March Fail *head wall*



April it is then.

We don't have failure here we have 'alternative success'!


Seriously, have you reduced your spends from what they were before you started the challenge? If you have then it's still a win even if it's not where you want it to be yet. You might not have got the gold medal but maybe you got the bronze or the silver. :-)

*Margaret*

I've been to Aldi today and spent £8.31 so I'm up to £28.26/£45 which is fine. I'm a bit low on storecupboard items but should make it through the month and then I can reassess - I really don't have space for things I don't use often, unless I want to go back to keeping tins of potatoes in the wardrobe. I am having a no cheese week so that's shaved off a few pounds from cost and will hopefully help shave a few lbs off me!

Ginmonster

Small spend of £1.71 on 2 bags of bread flour and some vinegar. The wholemeal flour was 6p more expensive than the white. I've found that's the same with rice, pasta, everything. If you want the healthy 'whole' option it costs you more and it annoys me as logic says it should need more processing and therefore cost more to produce the white version. I can afford to choose the more healthy option but some people can't and then politicians moan that we're all costing the NHS too much by not eating healthily enough. If I was in charge we'd be taxing sugar and subsidising veg. Of course then I'd get carried away with the power and reduce the tax on gin to zero and before long it'd all go a bit 'Gin Lane' and the NHS would be coping with a whole load of liver problems.


That was a bit of a rant over 6p wasn't it? Maybe it's time for a cuppa.


£75.10/£100

Islandmaid

Ginmonster- don't see it as a fail, look at what you would have spent if you weren't keeping an eye on your budget - so it's still a win, just not first place in our own heads - bit like eating a chocolate bar on a diet, it's only you that is dissapointed, and makes you concentrate harder in the future

NSD here again, but shopping day tomorrow - I,m over budget too due to DS2 appearing 3/4 days a week from Uni as his seasonal job has started.

LesP50

Between 9/3 and today I spent 53.08 on 3 Aldy /lih1 shops and a couple of top ups. So 91.02+53.80 = 144.82 total.
175.00- 144.82 = 30.18 til payday 31/3. Should be do-able as I have meals for the rest of this week.

Wysiwyg49

Woohoo made chicken pie last night with mixed meat (breast, leg, etc.) from roast Sunday chicken and NO-ONE noticed! Normally I only buy breast fillets.

Meal no. 3 from the chicken was some pasta, garlic/herb cream cheese, sweetcorn and peas with more LO chicken stirred in. Did my lunch at work and I still have the carcase for stock to use in a soup.

Tonight is baked fish (cod cooked from frozen) with peperonata and potato wedges.

Bought more milk so £1 to add later.

PennyGrabber

Hi armchair,

I meal plan a month at a time...

I start by writing down the dates and days (helps to know which are weekends!). Then I cross off days that my ch are with their dad - I just eat leftovers or freezer surprise those days. Then I put easy meals on the days I know we're busy - weds is a difficult day for us, so pizza or stuff on toast, or soup. Then I get my children to choose a couple of meals each which I spread out. Lastly, I fill the rest of the days with things I know we have in the freezer etc.

Every week, all I then have to do is look at the plan and write down what I need to buy for it. Usually not a great deal, as I've got the hang of planning from what's in!!
The trick is to remember that it's just a plan, and you can deviate from it without punishing yourself - in fact, I quite like having to carry meals over to the next month, even less to buy!!

Hth

PGx