November 2007 Grocery Challenge

freyasmum

going well so far, had a no spend day today

Spent £3.52 so far (baby milk on special 12xcartons for £3 - almost half price and it's handy), 2 x 4 custard tarts (my dad loves them ) 32p and a pack of sesame seed bars (yum!) 20p.

Lx

jenagain

:wave:

This is my first time attempting the grocery challenge but I was made redundant in September and my redundancy pay is about to run out and I still have no job (although will quite possibly be starting another one within the next couple of weeks). I was the main wage earner and we used OHs wages to pay for food, treats, petrol and other day to day things. Now I find myself about to use my last £1500 to pay November's bills, with only OHs low wages to live on next month. I am unsure as to how much we will get from tax credits/housing benefit/council tax benefit so at the moment we are -£493 for December's bills, without counting food/petrol etc.

We have a teeny tiny freezer so I can't go crazy filling that, we usually spend around £50 a week on food shopping, then go and buy extras like Coke and chocolate during the week. I'm on Weight Watchers now so need to stop this anyway!

I'm going to put my budget at £200 for the month and hopefully come in under :think: Thats for me, OH, DS (almost 2 and only using nappies at night and when we leave the house) and DD (7 weeks - she will only need nappies). We shop at Sainsburys as it's that or Waitrose in our town and it's a 20min drive to Tesco and Asda.

OH is a joiner and starts work at 7am and doesn't have breakfast. He takes 2 lots of sandwiches for work and eats one midmorning and one at lunch - he always has meat in these which adds up. We get ham if it's on offer. Last week we bought 2 packs of 88p sausages to go in them but he would get bored if thats what he had every week - any other ideas?!

We have a huge amount of cleaning products bought when they were on offer over the past few months so don't need anything like that.

We spend £11.72 each week on the babies - 1 pack of DS nappies, 2 packs of DD nappies and 3 bottles of Cravendale for DS. DS refuses nappies and uses the toilet at home so I'm aiming to have him out of daytime nappies when we are out asap.

I'm really looking forward to this and am about to plan this weeks shopping list....

Here goes :T

Jen xx

Angelraesunshine

Welcome Jenagain and any other newbies to this board good luck with your 1st challenge.

Well the shopping got delivered last night had a few things out of stock but got a result on the things i sent back sent 4 things back that were on bogof that i had changed my mind about and instead of getting the bogof price back i got the full amount back so and extra £2 to me. Total £143.43

Should have the month sorted except for veg & fruit and the few extras they had ran out of.

Did asda aswell came in ok they had Guinness on there 2 for £16 which never happens so got the last 2 boxes for th DH. Got a few clothes for my DS as on sale, not happy though as got home and was wrong hangers so wrong size got to go back now. Spent on groceries £48.44

My mum picked me up some Steak (did not ask for it she used to get it for me a few years back but don't want it anymore felt i had to pay for it though and bring home) and some white vinegar from macros vinegar was only £2 for 5 litres WOW thats under 1/2 the price i pay for tescos white vinegar roughly. So that came to another £9.

Buts thats it i am determined to to go wrong again like last month.

luxor4t

Right, time to commit my plans to paper!

I aim to spend less than £400 this month even with the extra Christmas items. I shall write down everything, just in case!

Off to use My supermarket now to plan my big Tesco delivery.

Mrs_Pinkerton_Trunks

Another month, another £250 in the pot for groceries. Will this be the month I actually stick with it? Watch this space............

zcrat41

Hi everyone, I'm really new to all this but am already addicted to MSE! I used to spend stupid amounts of money on groceries fifty plus pounds a week just for me!! I've recently been sticking to my own budget of 35 pw but looking on here I reckon I can do better - I'm going for 100 for the month. Don't have a freezer though so struggle for that. Can anyone help with 2 questions - firstly, I'd like to have a go at baking muffins etc but is it really cheaper than buying them?? Also, please can someone exlpain what DD stands for!!??

kbl

This is also my first try at grocery challenge (first time for posting also!) Currently spend about 170 euro per week for me, my husband and 3 kids (14, 13 & 9). Also bought a dog recently (but have recently bulk bought him his supplies so wont have to get him much else). Live in Ireland but fairly close to border so can go to Derry or Strabane every other week. Will try to reduce my overall w shop to 120 euro to begin with, not sure how that will go but got to try at least!

Bobbykins

Hiya zcrat41, kbl, and all the other newbies.

Hello again to all the oldies!

zcrat - I can't really answer your question about the muffins as I've only recently started home baking them myself - but I can tell you that they taste a d*mn site better than the shop bought ones! :j . as to the DD, DH DS bit, it stands for Dear Daughter, Dear Husband, etc etc (or Darling, or Dearest, or on a bad day, Damned!):rotfl: :rotfl:

zcrat41

Thank you Bobbykins, that makes more sense now!! I've always put off baking seeing as I work for a bakers! But finally got fed up of 'testing' all the new products!

kbl

Hi, me again, meant to ask when posting earlier, is it cheaper to bake your own scones or just buy it from Aldi/Lidl? My husband is a builder, really into healthy living but has a monumental appetite! He takes six slices of bread with meat filling for lunch with yoghurt and three different fruit. I send a scone (brown/treacle/fruit) with him twice a week for variety from ham/chicken sandwiches but his lunches still usually work out almost as much as our family dinner. Any suggestions?