November 2007 Grocery Challenge

roxy7699

kbl wrote: »

If you don't mind me picking your brains, I live about an hour from N Ireland, which is better, Asda, Tesco or Sainsburys for value or is it much the same?

Dont know about the irish prices, but I find that asda is about a penny cheaper, however tesco has the clubcard benefits. I find sainsburys far too expensive. Cant comment on the actual food quality though as I buy the value version of everything.

valk_scot

After having said that I didn't need any more shopping this week I realised we'd run out of butter, so went into Lidl on my way home from slimming club last night. Got the butter and some Stork and glace cherries (found three tins of pineapple and a half tin of golden syrup in the larder...that ==== pineapple upside down cake to me!) so that was another £2.55 spent. BUT since it was late in the evening, they had a pile of groceries behind the checkout which were FREE on a "help yourself " basis because their date codes were about to expire. Got two packs of fruity tea cakes, two loaves of bread for the freezer, cream (there goes slimming club), two packs of fresh fruit salad, pack of chops, pack of mince and some flapjacks. The checkout staff were urging me to take more, because I'm a familiar face, but there was mostly bread left and I either didn't want it or I didn't have freezer room. But it was a good bag of shopping for £2.55!

Just a tip in case folk see this happening in their local Lidl....as you go in, glance at the packing shelf on the "out" side of the check-out. If there's a little heap of groceries out there on its own it's free stuff but won't be there long, so grab the nearest bit of your shopping list, get through the checkout and get your share before it's gone. You can always go back in again for the rest of your shopping list. My Lidl seem to do this on a completely random time basis over the day, however, so you just have to be lucky.

WelshWoofer

Fell foul of the corner shop on the way to work this morning!
Went in for chewing gum and bought soup for lunch, sweets and a Tracker bar - none of which I really needed! A total of £2.69. Don't normally count these little slip ups but I'm trying to be more realsitic about what I do spend so need to keep adding these in too.

The running total is now £8.19 (£91.81 to go!)

LouiseJ

OK this month I am going to try bulk buying. I have always had a problem with this as I dont like spending £7 on T Rolls all at once (its just a psychological thing) but this month I am going against my urges to buy only for the week and am trying to bulk buy to get me through the month.

So yesterday I went to Asda on a Mystery Shop - £13 + £5 towards shopping and bulk bought and my bill only came to £72.51 (had some money off vouchers too) Don't think that the food will last the full month but I will have enough TRolls, KRolls, Cleaning stuff, Cat Food & Litter, Bread & Meat.

We will See...

belfastgirl23

kbl wrote: »

If you don't mind me picking your brains, I live about an hour from N Ireland, which is better, Asda, Tesco or Sainsburys for value or is it much the same?

If you put your normal shop into this website http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/FirstTimeHome.aspx you can work out which is cheaper. Personally I prefer tesco but it can be variable and not all stores stock everything. But I agree with the other posters, sainsburys is def more expensive. For what I buy, Tesco and Asda are usually neck and neck but again the clubcard and the delivery service tip the balance for me.

Whereabouts would you be going over the border (guessing either Newry or Derry) - people might be able to suggest which supermarket is best taking into account your local area.

elly2

elly2 wrote: »

I have decided from this week (if it is allowed) to reduce my shopping budget by half, I am going to set a challange to myself to try and use up as much food out of my freezer and cupboards and spending as little as possible this month. So tomorrow(pay day) i will take £25 out of the bank (and put it in a little purse i have found) and that will have to see us through till next weds.
Tomorrow i need cat food, toilet rolls, more eggs (used alot for ds birthday party and made some quiche yesterday), more bread (dont know where it is all going tbh seem to be getting through the best part of a loaf a day), milk (which will come from using a voucher), some condensed soup(for pasta and a chicken pie next week). so my shopping list for tomorrow will be,
eggs £1.25
bread £1.50
milk 20p
soup 80p
toilet rolls £2.00
cat food £2.00
total £7.75p

went £2.60 over this morning (but still a huge improvement for me) got 2 tins of mushroom soup as well (thought i'd give this a go as usually use chicken) and a cpl of packets of pre-packed meats for sandwiches for the kids, as oldest dd has decided to take a packed lunch to school from now on (she says her scholl meals are inedible and i have dd3 of poorly from school.

mikeD

roxy7699 wrote: »

Dont know about the irish prices, but I find that asda is about a penny cheaper, however tesco has the clubcard benefits. I find sainsburys far too expensive. Cant comment on the actual food quality though as I buy the value version of everything.

The trouble with Sainsbury's is that it lies between "A rock and a hard place", i.e. between Tesco/Asda and Waitrose/M&S. They say that their quality is better than the former but from my experience it certainly is not better than the latter. So those that can afford excellent quality go to the latter, and those that can't (me) go to the former.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks you two for the corned beef hash and the pizza recipes, they sound really scrumptious!!:j

JAMIEDODGER

spent £23.72 in tescos this morning on various bits that i had run out of:(

i have quite a lot of food at home now so i am hoping i can keep in my target this month!

mrs_pokemon

I am so amazed my shopping this week is only £40.33.
Taking part in this grocery challenge has really helped.
Hopefully I can get through the next few weeks without blowing the budget.

MERFE

Well this month is definatley going to pot, had to go shopping mid week to top up on milk and spent 18 pound something, don't have the receipt anymore so I'll call it 19 pounds and am going to have to go shopping again tonight for more of that dreaded milk. Thats 8 pints each the kids have had this week which I suppose just over a pint a day isn't too bad really just with the prices going up and everything am feeling it. On the plus side my new job is in asda and I spent last night whoops loads of stuff to less than 20p so will pop in around 9pm tonight and see if there is as much as there was last night, might be able to get some oranges cos there were a few tray loads of them all going out today, can't wait to get the staff discount too even more money off the shopping only it takes a few months to come in!