January 2018 Grocery Challenge

PipneyJane

cw18 wrote: »

I guess how do-able will be impacted by the size of the family you're shopping for. From your original post on this thread I see you're shopping for 2, but I know there are likely to be many on here shopping for larger family groups.

I only shop for 1 most of the time (me), but will also be feeding my OH for 6 days during February, so that makes me a 1.25 person household or thereabouts.

Even feeding just me I'm unlikely to cope on £50. I burn a lot of calories on a daily basis (partly due to work, partly because of additional exercise as I'm training for the London Marathon), so I have large meals and am working on a food only budget of almost £20/week just for me - plus anything I already have in the house that I use, which is probably accounting for around another £10-£15/week at the moment :eek:

Yes, there are just two of us. One online friend suggested adding £25 extra for her two small children or £25 each per additional adult.

There are a couple of reasons why it’s “£50 February” but nothing to stop you doing this in, say, June. The first is the alliteration: I like the sound of it. The second is that, in 1991, I had a really tough February, where I found myself with only £25 plus my train fare for the month. I had two adults to feed, with a handful of items in the freezer and some rice, flour and pasta in the pantry. I remember going to Mr T’s with a carefully collated shopping list: 1lb cheddar, butter, tinned tomatoes, rice, bran cereal, a couple of tins of tuna and pilchards, squash, a bag of minced beef... I found a local greengrocer, who was quite cheap, and lugged home 5lb of onions and 10lb of potatoes for £2.50. Londis own-brand coffee was horrible but it was 59p or 79p so I bought that to drink. I had no choice; Dumbo, (my now long-time ex), had wiped out my salary even before the month had started. I was lucky that work provided me with lunch everyday.

Each year, I try - and fail - to explain to my DH why I want to do the £50 February Challenge. It’s not as if we need to do it, but I’m trying to prove to myself that I can keep us both sane, well fed and comfortable on very little. So many people are literally one pay cheque from destitution and, in the years I lived with Dumbo, that would have been me. I lived with the consequences for years afterwards - it took a long time to recover financially. I guess I just want to prove to myself that I can do it if I had to.

Any money saved from doing the Challenge rolls forward and gets spent on treats/wine/whatever.

I am in awe that you’re doing the London Marathon. PM me and I will sponsor you.

- Pip

thriftwizard

I'm in awe too, cw18! And I'll be there cheering as OH is running too. I'm also in awe of anyone managing to feed two adults on £50 for a month; I know necessity is the mother of invention but that's amazing. And quite inspirational.

I'm going to have to declare this month a bust; £14 spent yesterday on various store-cupboard things that had dwindled away when I wasn't looking, and I still have fresh stuff to buy for the week. The drawback of my veggie/pescatarian girls doing their own catering is that I can't keep tabs on supplies the way I used to. However it's mostly advantage, in that I no longer have to cook two versions of everything, so I'm not complaining too loudly. ;-)

It's too wet to take too much stuff from the allotment; as yet it's still pure clay and if I tread on it, I'm going to compact the soil mightily & make digging a nightmare as soon as it dries out. And the river, not very far the other side of the fence, has come out of its bed to play in the water-meadows; there's a ditch and a bank and we're about 4' up from the water-meadow, but suddenly that doesn't look very much...

JingsMyBucket

Morning everyone. It's so good to be back. I haven't posted in the last 10 days. OH has been ill with what was first a cold with horrible full chest coughing. After finally prodding him to go to the doctor, he was diagnosed with a lung infection with fluid at the base of his lungs. He was given antibiotics and that has helped a lot. At one point couldn't breathe and talk at the same time but it's getting better. We've had so many sleepless nights due to his coughing but thankfully it has lessened. He has a follow up appointment tomorrow morning thankfully so let's see how that goes. I think he may have some form of walking pneumonia and would like for him to raise this with the doctor.

How does affect my GC? Well, it means that I've been carrying the grocery spending weight for both of us. He could barely eat anything and was drinking a lot of liquids so I've been spending a lot of money on ready made soups, Innocent smoothies and fruit. Also, something happened to his tastebuds and he really just needed to decide on the spot what he could or would eat then I'd go out to buy stuff for him. Last night he even said, "I owe you a lot for all the smoothies and things you've been getting for me."

In the last 10 days I've spent €175.33 :eek:. That also includes some bar/bath soap I bought for myself yesterday and some food for the dinner party we had just this past Friday. Also, some stocking up on proteins by me as well as toilet paper for the house, etc.

Due to having to buy for both of us after all, I'm going to readjust my spending limit to €550 from €250. I want to see how much it really costs us to eat per month.

There are a few more spends planned for the month as well as a Holland and Barrett online order I placed that I might cancel after all. We shall see. I'm on page 22 in terms of catching up but will try to read more tonight.

Totals So Far:
€351.13 / €550.00
4 NSD

klbooth

Last shop hopefully before end of month next week and topped up on milk, also some reduced irnbru for hubby jumped in my hand on the way round Lidl. Meant to be £3.72 for a 4 pack of 2L which is pretty good but when I got to the till it wouldn't recognise the bar code so her way round that was to scan one of my milks 3 times instead. So actually got it for £3.27, bargain!

£461.70/£450

Must do better in February!!!

Ginmonster

We enjoyed the chilli tofu so much last week that I went back to the Chinese supermarket today and bought some more, and a few other things like spicy noodles, fried tofu and jackfruit (never tried this in a recipe but have heard lots of good things so I'm going to give it a try when I finish work and have time for experimenting). So £7.98 spent there.

Then I went to Qual Save and spent £2.99 on a big bag of Celebrations for work for my last day. I'll need to buy some more goodies like cookies next week as well as there are a whole load of gannets in our office and one bag of sweets wouldn't last long.

I shouldn't need anything over the weekend apart from bananas so I should still be able to scrape in under budget.

£90.69/£100

trifle-wist

Last 'big shop' of January done for a total of £120.41 / £120.00. This food only takes us to Saturday, maybe Sunday, and my budget was supposed to last until 31 Jan so I will be creative but will have to spend a little more.

It's especially frustrating because if OH didn't insist on buying random packs of apples and expensive medjool dates I would certainly have been under!

caronc

Shop today of £16.00, this should be my last GC spend of January so £55/£120 which I'm pleased with.

thriftwizard

Well... didn't think I'd get to the market at my mother's this morning as the weather was so foul, but I had another urgent errand down there so had to travel, but then - road closed! So the other errand got cancelled anyway, and I did get to the market & stocked up on meat for the week. £20 spent, just £16.82 left in the budget, which I suspect isn't going to do. Needless to say, we now have a guest tonight; not that she'll cost us much as she'll be happy with whatever we're having, but OH's family have started to mutter about a weekend visit as they couldn't come over Christmas... if that does happen, the budget will be blown wide open, as my nephew has some very dangerous food allergies & I can't just feed him whatever I've got in.

Ah well! It would just be possible to coast through til next Wednesday if they don't come; there's fruit in the bowl and all I'd need to buy would be veg & bread. But - it would be nice to see them anyway...

PennyGrabber

Another nsd for me today, so that's 10 in a row!! Three more in a row planned before Sunday's shop too, as no need to get anything in.

Enjoyed my dinner tonight - jacket spud, tuna and salad. Not had much of an appetite lately, so fancying something was a nice change. I have two extra jackets ready to zap tomorrow, whenever I'm hungry. I love basic food!!

PG x

Mrs_Cheshire

Decided to do my main shop this evening, as it fitted in better with my plans and I had a triple points coupon that had today's date on.
Spent £16.99 in tosco then went to Ald! spent £53.84. This should last until when my new budget starts next thursday.
Current spend stands at £387.52/£400 so £12.48 left to get any extra bits we need like milk/bread/bananas.