October 2007 Grocery Challenge

DickDastardly_2

Count me in too! We were spending nearly £100 a week on two adults and one small child, which is silly. We have set a more realistic target of £60 a week to start with. We have just done a big monthly shop for all packeted, tinned, etc., with Tesco direct and this leaves us with £16 a week for meat and fresh veg/fruit over the next four weeks, so see if we can do it!

sexymouse

Right, after going over budget last month cos I hadn't accounted for increased prices for milk and bread etc, and there were a few lapses with the mealplans meaning we ordered takeaway or bought in quick food like pizza, I've decided to stick firmly to my budget of £100 for two adults for the month. So, I mealplanned for this week, and only bought what I needed for the week when I went to the shops today, and managed to spend a grand total of £8.61! Woohoo. Must make myself one of those tallies in my signature strip now.

nearlynewbie

Hi I'm in for October.As you can see from my signature September was not a great sucess however sure October will be better. Onto my winter menus now which I think willbe cheaper. Aim to spend £50 at supermarket and £20 at market on fresh stuff. This is for six- 2 adults, 3 hungry teenage boys and myDD. Off to do my Mr T shop on line

nearlynewbie

having completed my online shop I've decided im being completely unrealistic so have changed my aim to £320/month and edited my signature accordingly

Moniker

I am pleased that I came in under budget in September by £8.89. I have added this to my PMS total and banked £25.80 last Saturday. I am really surprised how it adds up.

I had very large delivery from Sainsbury's on Thursday to start off the new challenge which included a month's worth of household and dry goods (at least I hope they last the month!) However, both my DD's came home for the weekend and we had a big birthday lunch to do for my MIL. So with it being a five week month I am going to be realistic and up the total for October to £320. So far I have spent £156.19 leaving £163-81 to last the two of us until 31st October! Not feeling too confident, but going to give it a good try!

Found that I have been paid on the wrong salary scale at work for the last year and they have now corrected this - fortunately they have decided not to ask for the overpayment back - (it was under £100) but it still feels bad having a cut in pay however slight! Even more incentive to make this work!

Hollysan

I'm back in for October. It will be a long month for us, and I have already spent £96 on a wholefood order, which I only do every other month. I have 'saved' myself £40 during September, so will count that towards it, as it does for two months (and some of it will last us six months). I have also just done a Tesco online order (saved myself £7 thanks to everyone on the voucher thread - thanks!)

So, I will update once I know what Tesco has cost (should be around £90). I am upping my budget to £350 for this month, because of the wholefood order and the long month.

Good luck everyone, especially the newbies.

Hollysan

kittenpea

Hi everyone

This is the first time I have done this but I have set myself a tough challenge because last month I spent £133 for 4 of us and the freezer is stocked up good this month is a 5 week month so here's hoping to make it £100 but that is going to be very tough I know already spent roughly £35 on shopping need to get the reciepts out though

wilf55

Jacks_xxx wrote: »

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

i know exactly what you mean about all eating seperatly and lazy cooking so to speak

good luck!!

lil_me

Spent £2.34 on stuff for lunches, sure I can cope with that :rotfl: However today I need some other bits and pieces, loo rolls and spuds for definate, will have to work out what else as I haven't done a meal plan yet this week I thought I'll just go with what is left as I find it, but finding it a bit confusing I am used to being a bit more prepared since starting the GC, might have to do one.

the_cat

Following the advice on here (thanks guys!) I have decided not to deduct the value of my points from my Tesco shop. Therefore I have spent £100.79 so far........
Hopefully I have now got most of the meat etc and a stock of dry goods for the month and am spending today baking like a madwoman to stock up. Fingers crossed I should be ok.