April 2019 Grocery Challenge 28 July 2018 at 11:09PM edited 15 March 2019 at 1:57PM in Old Style MoneySaving 202 replies 18K views

elantan

Hi all would love to join if I may ?

at this stage I'm more collecting information on how much and what we spend our money on, groceries have been a pain in the neck for us for years, something that I have tried and tried again to get on top of and yet I still seem to constantly spend too much.

i have been including takeaways and alcohol in my shopping bill as i feel it is part of our spending that needs addressed.

it would be helpful if I could join just to add our spends with a view to start reducing next month ( well to be honest probably more likely in June as we are away for 9 nights in May)

the aim is to get me used to logging, checking, altering and trying again.

so with this in mind so far this month we have spent

£36 alcohol
£21 takeaways
£273 on food ( I'm just heading back out to Asda to get stuff for soup and salad for dinner)
and were only on the 8th ... sigh


there is just OH and myself living at home

thriftwizard

Welcome, elantan! You're off to a good start there; keeping track of spending is the essential first step, so that you can work out where to start cutting back.

A quick trip to the farm shop this morning has added £12 to the grocery spend, on a sack of Wilja spuds, and £11 to the pet & livestock category, for sacks of poultry corn & layer's mash. The mash gets mixed in with just about all the fruit & veg peelings, cooked up overnight in a Wonderbag, for the Girls' breakfast about twice a week. Beak-smacking good! Mash & layer's pellets only get bought 2/3 times a year, but the corn only lasts about 6 weeks thanks to the pigeons, collared doves, jackdaws & Mrs. Crow & her babies, who turn up for breakfast each morning, not to mention the blackbirds, robins & sparrows who live here & also dine at our expense. And the wren in the bush by the gate. The finches & t1ts generally don't come down to the ground & stick to the bird-feeders, but things are getting slightly ridiculous - there was a heron in the pond yesterday evening! We don't keep fish, it's a wildlife pond, presumably with a few less frogs in it now...

Not sure that expenses incurred in keeping the local birdlife thriving count as either groceries or pet & livestock feed...

Puddleglum

Time to 'fess up to an extra pound spent on eggs yesterday.

Hopefully things won't be as tight as they are now for much longer. I'm knocking my coffee habit on the head for a bit. Have loads of herbal teas that need using up. There's a small veg mountain in my cupboard and fridge so I shouldn't need to buy anything else for a few days

shirlgirl2004

Spent £76.84 on Friday so £8.16 left to spend to stay in budget this week.

elsiepac

Welcome elantan, it's really good to start by keeping track of spends, that's the hardest part I think!! Sometimes it's difficult seeing how much we have spent but it's important to be aware of it. Nice to have you with us!
thriftwizard if I was a bird I'd be visiting your garden too, it sounds great!!

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here

I've done my reconciliation and things are not looking good!! I have £8.64 left as it stands. However, I've just sold something on e8ay for £62 so I'm going to add some of that money back into the GC so that I don't go over. This is just the way I do things - I'm not saying it's ideal but the point is it's extra money that I'm using to offset my overspend. In fairness, that £16 on tea has not helped matters :rotfl: But it's definitely not the only problem here. My issue is DEFINITELY going to the shops too much. I'll try and focus on that for the rest of the month and next month when I have new budgets.


...............................£202.50 Budget
Date......Shop......Amount....Remaining
24 Mar....A5da......£12.12....£190.38(WEEK 1)
26 Mar....eBay......£08.00....£182.38(STOCK)
27 Mar....Sup3rdrug.£20.01....£162.37(STOCK)
27 Mar....H&B.......£04.98....£157.39(WEEK 1)
28 Mar....C0-0p.....£02.90....£154.49(WEEK 1)
28 Mar....T3sc0.....£05.39....£149.10(WEEK 1)
29 Mar....T3sc0.....£06.54....£142.56(WEEK 1)
31 Mar....M&S.......£04.00....£138.56(WEEK 2)
31 Mar....Tesc0.....£01.89....£136.67(WEEK 2)
31 Mar....Tesc0.....£16.09....£120.58(WEEK 2)
1 Apr.....Tesc0.....£44.67.....£75.91(WEEK 2)
2 Apr.....Tesc0.....£26.02.....£49.89(WEEK 2)
3 Apr.....Tesc0.....£02.68.....£47.21(WEEK 2)
7 Apr.....Tesc0.....£29.85.....£17.36(WEEK 3)
7 Apr.....Co-0p.....£00.34.....£17.02(WEEK 3)
7 Apr.....Tesc0.....£08.38.....£08.64(WEEK 3)

elantan

spent £4 today on bread and milk ... all written down and added to my wipe sheet

did manage not to buy anything I didn't need though so that's a bonus

Airthrey

I'm just about on target with spends of £21.89 so far. Mostly milk, bread, eggs, fruit and veg. Plus some quite unnecessary Jaffa cakes, but they were half price. No meat yet, but that'll be coming later this week.

thriftwizard

We really shouldn't need anything else this week except perhaps carrots; there's plenty in the freezer & the cupboards. Let's see whether I can restrain myself...!

Ooops... forgot I hadn't been to L!dls yet! £83 spent on general household stuff like washing & washing up supplies, loo roll, coffee, orange juice and a shipping order of butter & chocolate; the girls are planning to make all the Easter supplies this year. Now standing at £255/£420, which is rather more than I'd like at this point in the month with 3 weekends left to go and the budget out of my own control for the last week... a bit of discipline is called for!

ditty1234

Well this is my second 3 person week. Boy 2 took 3 bagels and snacks for his lunch today! So you can only imagine how much is left of my big Saturday shop. Fridge is running on empty. Trying to emphasise that this is a good thing as it means nothing is wasted. A NSD day today. So jubiii and more details later.