October 2007 Grocery Challenge

freyasmum

Another day, another shop... or three :rolleyes:

On my quest to find cornmeal, I visited three shops:
mum's local tesco: 2 x 4 beef kebabs; curry sauce; cream crackers; soya mince = £1.46. No corn meal!
my local asda: 4x 500g bitesize wholemeal pasta, 10pk tortillas, 2 sub rolls = £1.40. No corn meal!
another blooming tesco(!): pk 6 potato scones; pistachio bar (very yummy!); sesame snack (x2); Sandwich filling; Corn meal(!!!!) £2.95

So another £5.81 for me and another good few meals or accompaniments and snacks

Lx

Angelraesunshine

OH no I done it again what is it with October was already gonna be a bad month for me, 5 weeks, with extra payments coming out of account that i would be only just able to cover.

CR*P cr*p cr*p cr*p cr*p cr*p

I have £2.75 to last me till 31st october when we are paid.
ok i do have a full freezer, and the fridge is full for now. Have everything for meals for the rest for the month, have enough flour to bake all the bread for the month. But will need more milk and potatoes, have some frozen veg but would prefer kids to have fresh. I have 55 days of cat food too. But bold 2 in 1 was cheaper than the store brand so i got 2, and a few meats were reduced so got some. Spent £74.33.

I have been doing so well and come in under budget every month until this month.

God was already having a bad week now feel really down cr*p cr*p cr*p.

WelshWoofer

Well, I haven't done so well either - £37 shop and, last Friday, a £52 shop at Tesco. Total so far is £89 leaving just £11 budget for the rest of the month (until 26th Oct):eek: . I definitely did a "buy what you fancy" shop last week - just been looking at the receipt and some of the purchases were unnecessary.

I have all of the household stuff, pet stuff, washing powder, toiletries etc that I need, and enough food to last until hopefully next weekend (20th).
Will really try to stick to the £100 budget for October as I need a kick start - have been very lax lately. Am also going away to Cork for the weekend on the 26th and woud rather spend my pennies enjoying myself there than in Tescos!

Must try harder!!!

pixie1973

Hi,Can some of you help me? I would love to join this and definately want to budget and cut down but really dont know where to start..............any ideas? thank you xxxx

Gytha_Ogg

Hi all, first post in OS.

Been inspired by you all, and decided to try and cut my frankly silly shopping spend - going to start next month though, as I have no idea how much I spend so I'm saving every single receipt this month. It's going to be an eye opener. I'm useless at making meals myself etc, so I really need to sort myself out and make the effort.

10 days in and already it's shocking - just me, the OH and the cat and I've spent over £100 already.... :eek:

Good luck to everyone this month - I'll be joining you in November.

rosieben

Angelraesunshine wrote: »

God was already having a bad week now feel really down cr*p cr*p cr*p.

Angel you have full freezer, meals for the month, double lot of washing powder, cat food to last for nearly 2 months – you’re doing well! make the best of what you have left for milk and potatoes, and dont give up! :T

rachelmk wrote: »

Well, I haven't done so well either .....
Must try harder!!!

Rachel, same for you, if you have store cupbard and freezer well stocked you are doing well. :T

Pixie and Gytha – welcome to GC!! :j

Suggest that you start by keeping all receipts for the rest of this month, including local shops trips for milk! Checking through receipts is a really useful way to pick up unnecessary spends.

Don't start off too low with the GC, best to reduce by a little each month.

Best help for me has been meal planning (week, fortnight or month, whichever suits you) and make a shopping list with the meal plan in mind (dont forget breakfast, lunches and snacks - ask me how I know this ) and stick to the list! I allow a little over for bogofs or other bargains on the day, usually less than £5 though.

There are loads of ideas and suggestions for cutting food spending, meal planning and recipes on OS; Have a browse here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=33

If you have any specific questions please post, someone will be happy to help. OS is the friendliest forum!!

Jacks_xxx

pixie1973 wrote: »

Hi,Can some of you help me? I would love to join this and definately want to budget and cut down but really dont know where to start..............any ideas? thank you xxxx

:wave: Hiya Pixie!

I started by keeping receipts so that I'd know how much I was actually spending - then getting through a lot of :coffee: on here reading through posts and working out what would work for us.

The first thing to go was ready meals and takeaways, then we investigated shopping at Lidl, buying everything value / smart price, bulk-buying things like beans and rice in the local ethnic shops and doing dummy shops at all the online supermarkets to see which worked out cheapest.

We eat a lot of mince cos I'm not a great cook, my family have massive appetites - and huge quantities of Chilli, Spag Bol and Shepherds pie can be made for small amounts of pennies!

Once you get started it gets easier.

Love Jacks xxx

rosieben

I havent updated my spends for a while :j

I had a mr t delivery yesterday - £67 - and dont expect to need anything else except for fresh fruit and veg; have £13 left for the rest of the month.

Still reeling from the shock of milk price increases, I've bought in lots of dried and long life milk. I've enough fresh milk in the fridge/freezer to last about 2 weeks though, and plenty of fresh fruit and veg for this week, also have a sack of potatoes (bought for me by my sis :happyhear )

I've been stocking up over the last 2 or 3 months anyway (with winter in mind, and no car now) so I've plenty of tinned and frozen veg, pasta, rice; and enough laundry, cleaning and toiletry stuff to last for a month or two. I'm aiming for one online shop a month!

My situation is quite simple as I only have myself to cater for. I take my hat off to you with families, I know how much more complicated your lives are! :T

Gytha_Ogg

rosieben wrote: »

Pixie and Gytha – welcome to GC!! :j

Suggest that you start by keeping all receipts for the rest of this month, including local shops trips for milk! Checking through receipts is a really useful way to pick up unnecessary spends.

Don't start off too low with the GC, best to reduce by a little each month.

Best help for me has been meal planning (week, fortnight or month, whichever suits you) and make a shopping list with the meal plan in mind (dont forget breakfast, lunches and snacks - ask me how I know this ) and stick to the list! I allow a little over for bogofs or other bargains on the day, usually less than £5 though.

There are loads of ideas and suggestions for cutting food spending, meal planning and recipes on OS; Have a browse here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.html?f=33

If you have any specific questions please post, someone will be happy to help. OS is the friendliest forum!!

Thanks Rosieben! Yeah, there's so much advice here - been reading loads - really hits home how much I've been wasting. Got all my receipts collected together, even the small bits here and there, so should be interesting to add those up.

Will certainly be badgering you all for help next month, I'm sure. especially for cooking help. *is crap at cooking*

Right, I'm off to read more....

Shortie

I'm joining back in for next pay month (19th - 18th) but on holiday over that time and food coming out of our holiday funds :T

We put aside £200 pm for food and am hoping we can get it to £160. I can't see why not for the first few months as we have meat in etc and I'm at home on Maternity Leave so can cook cheaper meals rather than "what do we fancy for dinner tonight ; no idea luv; oh heck lets do chicken nuggets and chips" ... which isn't really healthy, plus for the same cost I can cook a dinner and end up with spares for a dinner for another night.

The money not spent out of the £200 will go towards overpayments off debts so a good incentive me thinks