November 2007 Grocery Challenge

QOTD

Just done my last shop of the month - payday is Friday so that will be the start of the December challenge for me!

I'm quite chuffed because I've come in £12 under budget and the only thing that I may need in the week is another loaf of bread.

I also include alcohol in this budget like some others which gains me some strange looks from my OH when I tell him that he'll have to wait another week before I can buy him [insert lager/cider/etc here] because it will take us over budget!!

I really want to start making my own bread like I know many of you do - I do make it by hand but I find it far too time consuming, so I want to invest in a breadmaker. I'm in the process of moving house though, so I'm holding off on this until we've moved otherwise it's just something else to pack... but everytime I go shopping and see the price of bread has increased, it really annoys me.

Nopot2pin I used to make wine, many years ago, so I think that when I've moved I may also invest in some kit to start thisup again. I'm not really drinking at the moment since I'm having a baby in February but I know that once I start again then I'll have to increase my budget to allow for increase alcoholic consumption!! At least if I start making my own it's got to be cheaper the buying it all

kbl

Thanks for the support folks!! Sorry I haven't replied before, felt really terrible after posting and actually writing down (and facing) how much I have spent, so went off and, instead of spending to cheer myself up I.....(wait for it :eek: ) started scrubbing the house from top to bottom!!!!!! You know things are bad when I start really cleaning!!:D Anyway, taken stock of situation, this month is shot for me, and next month won't be any better cos I have no tins of chocs or biscuits bought (too much temptation to try keeping them in house), but am feeling much better having started planning. As said before, am not far from Derry, but (hangs head in shame) have both an Aldi and a Lidl side by side and it's only twenty minutes drive from me!!!! Again, thanks a million for your help, I do really appreciate it, just know I am going to do better as I go along.

nopot2pin

QOTD wrote: »

Just done my last shop of the month - payday is Friday so that will be the start of the December challenge for me!

I'm quite chuffed because I've come in £12 under budget and the only thing that I may need in the week is another loaf of bread.

I also include alcohol in this budget like some others which gains me some strange looks from my OH when I tell him that he'll have to wait another week before I can buy him [insert lager/cider/etc here] because it will take us over budget!!

I really want to start making my own bread like I know many of you do - I do make it by hand but I find it far too time consuming, so I want to invest in a breadmaker. I'm in the process of moving house though, so I'm holding off on this until we've moved otherwise it's just something else to pack... but everytime I go shopping and see the price of bread has increased, it really annoys me.

Nopot2pin I used to make wine, many years ago, so I think that when I've moved I may also invest in some kit to start thisup again. I'm not really drinking at the moment since I'm having a baby in February but I know that once I start again then I'll have to increase my budget to allow for increase alcoholic consumption!! At least if I start making my own it's got to be cheaper the buying it all

Well done for coming under budget :T

I made bread yesterday... for the first time. Its lovely
I made it by hand, as I dont have a bread maker. I wouldnt say it took loads of time... about 30 minutes to do the mixing and kneading. The proving part you dont have to be around for. Then 30 ish minutes to bake it. What a lovely smell in the house too:D
Check out this thread for the details for making it by hand..... More spot on advice from MRSMCAWBER
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=589223

The wine I have on the go at the moment... after including sterilising solution, corks, labels...ect ect works out at approx £1 for the white and £1.75 for the red. I do find it fun though

QOTD

nopot2pin wrote: »

The wine I have on the go at the moment... after including sterilising solution, corks, labels...ect ect works out at approx £1 for the white and £1.75 for the red. I do find it fun though

Thanks for the advice on the breadmaking front Nopot2pin - and WOW :j the price of the wine you make works out really cheap. I can't wait to get started now... unfortunately it will have to wait until after the move!!

fingersxed

Hi everybody

Not been here much this week and boy does it show on my shopping bill!! £100.13 on food this week. will have to be very careful for the rest of the month to meet budget. Mind you thats nothing new!

Hope you all doing better than me

nopot2pin

QOTD wrote: »

Thanks for the advice on the breadmaking front Nopot2pin - and WOW :j the price of the wine you make works out really cheap. I can't wait to get started now... unfortunately it will have to wait until after the move!!

I know.... I can hardly believe that it does work out so cheap. The red is a better quality one this time, which is why it more expensive.
Hopefully, when I get a little more confident at it, and into a better routine, I will be able to make wine from actual fruit instead of the kits. I think that may work out even cheaper

Hope the move goes well... and your all settled before your new arrival

Moniker

I've not had time to post or even read much of this thread for the past couple of weeks, though I have popped in to update my sig from time to time. Went to Sainsbury's last Thursday and spent more than I intended - but in my defence I bought a nice leg of lamb for next weekend when we have visitors and stocked up on 2 for £4 mince and a bag of chicken breasts, which should take me into next week and beyond. So the £53 odd that I have left to the end of the month should be do-able if I am careful!

I have read the comments on alcohol with interest. Fortunately, my OH is not a big drinker and doesn't want beer or lager or whiskey, so we can confine ourselves to a couple of bottles of wine a week. I always look for the special offers and rarely spend more than £4 a bottle (usually much less) so I reckon we spend about £20-£25 a month on booze which I count in my 'food' total. With Advent coming up we will abstain for four weeks, which is good for the waistline as well as the soul!

I have managed to acccumulate about £50 worth of Nectar points during the year and plan to use these to pay for the groceries in the last week of January when finances are usually tighter, owing to the fact that I get paid before Christmas and the credit card bills come in before the next pay day!

Unusually, I have not begun to plan Christmas spending this year (I'm normally all sorted by mid- October!) but don't have many presents to buy as we only buy for under 18s and our parents! It takes a lot of the stress out if you limit the damage!

Keep up the good work everyone and have a good week!

mikeD

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

Mike out of interest what is your wine budget? Ours seems to be 'spend £100 every time Tesco have a 25% off deal' :A so I would guess probably £50 a month on general house wine. Plus the odd 'special' bottle. It's the one place where DH has real trouble with any MS happening...it is an area I should try to get under control a bit I guess *sigh* for waistline as well as money reasons...

Well BG, I don't have a wine budget per se, I have an entertainment budget, which includes, amongst other things, Booze. As a Management Account (ooo! that sounds posh doneit :cool:) our company ran a system called "Flexible Budgeting) which simply stated, if you think you're going to go over budget, than adjust it for your overspend whilst still reporting the original budget. Let me just say that my entertaining budget is, to put it mildly "Very Flexible" :beer:. The fixed budget is around £1,000 per annum :eek:.

mikeD

nopot2pin wrote: »

I have alcohol in my budget........although just before I started the GC's, I got out the old wine making kit from the loft bought a few kits .... and now I have a couple of demijohns fermenting and bubbling and stuff .

I should have really bottled the white wine today...
But I got side tracked (I always get side tracked) ... made bread.. made cheese and onion quiche... painted the kitchen .. watched the football.
So, will have to bottle the white wine another day.. and open a bottle of red now instead:D

Also did the number crunching...and so far this month I have spent £69.97. I have just over 2 weeks left, with £50 left. I am doing much better this month than last month so far. So I am very happy about that. And have only spent £39 on fuel.
Thanks to all you lot for your continued support :T

PS... I notice loads of peeps keep losing their posts because the site times out or some other techincal issue...
I always copy all of my typing... before I submit reply. Then that way if I do lose my post, I can go back into post reply and "paste" my original words that I lost. Also... if I do get side tracked:o with something, I know I have a wee backup for my memory.

And as if by magic... I got kicked out.... so the above is copy and pasted in. Off to open the red wine now;)

Thanks nopot2pin, so what do you do, copy it to a Word type file?

It really doesn't matter if you leave your wine for a few days when it seems to be ready, just bottle it when you've got time. If it's still bubbling it aint ready to bottle anyway. I dare not make my own wine these days as I would be permanently hissed. I used to, and if I say so myself, it was very drinkable. :beer:

Now then all you ladies who have "Dishwashers", how very naughty of you. They are environmentally unsound don'chya know. Some years ago I suggested to my DW that it might be a good idea to get one. Her reply was "I've already got one......YOU" :rotfl:

belfastgirl23

Aha MikeD this is an urban myth. Apparently so long as you use your dishwasher efficiently, which I have no doubt all of us MS do, ie only put on when it's full and use lower temp washes, it actually uses less energy than handwashing. I read this a few years ago, they did cross cultural tests watching how people from different countries washed up.

If any research says otherwise then I would question their methodology especially since I want to believe this.

I inherited the dishwasher when we moved house 2yrs ago and thought I'd only use it if we had visitors etc. Hah. Even when dh is away I still use it On the MS side I do find it encourages me to cook OS cos I'm not dreading the washing up.

And thanks for the entertainment budget clarification. When I think of it we do pay for wine seperately and I do tend to take it out of the pot for entertainment so I guess it's the same really. We eat out too much (DH says it's the only time he can get my full attention to talk to him!) so our budget is higher than yours. In fact so high it's a bit :eek:.

On the spends, just went to tesco and spent another £4 on mozzarella to see me through another pizza night on Wednesday (b****y football)...