October 2007 Grocery Challenge

taka

Hi all... well I finally worked out I (only just) came in on budget last month. I was doing so well until about 4 days before payday when I just went mad and blew about £27 on nothing in particular/eating in my work canteen all 4 days. Argggggghhhhhhhh!!

Oh well... the budget for Oct is £120.40 (£4.30 per day - 28 days) for me. I am gradually trying to reduce this each month!

I'm now on day 3 with £12.32 spent. This includes pittas/rolls for lunch this week so I don't spend in the canteen :rotfl: ... hope it works!!

suzialwaysbroke

Hi everyone, this is my first post here for the OS grocery budget.
Reckon I spend about £50-60 per week for 3 adults, 3 cats & 2 dogs,
so with Oct being a longer month I will allow £250 & then see how much I can get it down by, fingers x'd

Lucina_2

Hi All, I'm joining up for the first time, my budget is £120 for the month for me, DS, 2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 rats, 2 guinea pigs and the fish! Luckily my freezer is well stocked as well as the pantry so I'm going to try and not buy anything at all that we don't need. I did buy a load of meat from the meat van about a week ago so have lots of chicken, steak, mince etc... I'm interested to see how this works out for me.

Money is really tight anyway and I do try and stick to budget, having a fussy eater is a pain but I think he's coming round to the idea if he doesn't eat it he'll be hungry!

Good lucky everyone

JAMIEDODGER

been to tesco this morning and spent the first lot of my food money for the month. £67.68

got quite a lot for that amount:T

30 days to go, 232.32 left:D

teedy23

I would like to endorse my moneysaving chum MikeD,s opinion that when a month is done it,s done. If you have any money left from your budget, I think it should be paid to any debts you may have, or stashed away for emergency booze ups or some such eventuality. Welcome all newbies and good luck

flossyblog

Hello everyone, this is my first grocery challenge.
I save all my receipts and after sorting them out I was surprised to discover that I had spent €162.55 in September. I thought I was really frugal!
For 2 people I’m setting the budget at €100. I have 5 hm chilli’s in the freezer along with 4 chicken fillets. I have a small store cupboard consisting mainly of spices, pasta rice and flour.

good luck everyone

redmel1621

Hi all I agree with the MikeD and teedy23.
If you have overspent on month x how will you meet budget the following month if it is even lower than month x. If I come in underbudget for the month any leftover money will go into savings.......

Tesco came today costing £67.75. i didn't really need any meat, only a small bacon joint. But I did get the kittens meat for the month, will get their biscuits weekly.
So £22.25 left for week, still got to get rabbit food, hay etc...

mel x

Natty_82

Count me in for this month too, I usually spend £200 for two adults which seems very extreme when i write it down! Like a lot of fruit and veg which isn't cheap but I'm loving the Lidl prices! Have a fairly full cupboard and got some bits of fruit and veg yesterday so as long as i'm sensible I have got a pretty good start to the month. Going to aim for anything less than £200 and go from there! Good luck everyone

elly2

Count me in for this month as well total will be £200 again my month will sart on weds (pay day) but i have enough bread and milk till then so wont need to shop at all untill weds (have just emptied my purse, had £60 in it so have put it away to go towards a cc payment this month, and updated my sig so things are going okish for now)

Jacks_xxx

Just wanted to say a big hiya! :wave: to everyone doing this for the first time. I've found it a really great help for us and I hope you all do too. :j

We've just finished our first month, (although we saved receipts all through August to give us an idea of what we were spending) and just paying attention to what we spend makes us spend less - if that makes sense?

I've got a receipt envelope and a desk top icon for a word page where I just note everything down - and I add it up at the end of every week to see how we're doing.

I really want to get into proper spreadsheets, but I haven't managed to make time to sit down and work them out yet.

We used to eat a fair bit of takeaway, and loads of ready meals because we all ate separately so things like home made Pizzas, burgers, hotdogs, curries and chinese style stirfries go down well with my lot, but I also do a lot of mince based meals such as Spag Bol, Shepherds pie, Mince and onion pie, Chilli, etc.

For the last 12 years my kids had their tea at their granny's house most nights as I was a bar manager and never there at teatime so cooking tea like a "proper mum" is still a novelty to me.

Well that went on for longer than I planned! I only clicked reply to check in and say hi and instead I wrote my autobiography!

Ooh and I also meant to say... any money we haven't spent on food out of our budget goes on a small family treat (dvd rental and box of choccy Heroes this time) and the rest is funnelled straight to the debt.

I get quite a kick out of this moneysaving lark! :dance:

Love Jacks xxx