May 2020 Grocery Challenge

abrooksaver

joedenise said:

That's the best way to start abrooksaver.  Collect all your receipts for the month so that you can see how much you actually spend.  You are then in a position to know whether you're happy with the amount or whether you need to reduce it and by how much.  You should try to reduce it gradually as if you just try to reduce it by a large amount you're setting yourself up to fail.  For example if you spend £350 this month, perhaps reduce it by £20 to £330 next month.  Do that for a couple of months and then reduce it again until you get to an amount you are happy with.  

Hope that helps.

Thankyou for your reply I really appreciate it do the admin forum keep our budget somewhere or do we just post amount  for accountability? Is there somewhere I should be putting up how much I’m actually spending ? 

abrooksaver

Please can you advise me how to put the money in at the bottom or grocery challenge in black and actual in red Thankyou I’m really new to this and doing it on my phone so I’m not sure it’s giving me all the options 

donkids22

I would love to join in my grocery spending had been out of control.  I am setting my monthly spend at £300 as i have not a clue what we are spending.  I'm hoping to come in under that and then reduce next month.

franby64

First shop of the month and I only bought oats and marg that we didn't really need straight away. I also bought a bag of sugar as we've got quite a lot of berries coming so I need to stock up for jam making. £10.50 spent.

elsiepac

Budgets updated to here 

@HighWycMum did you want to set a budget this month or are you going to keep your receipts and then look at a budget next month?

@abrooksaver I second what @joedenise said - keep your receipts and tot up at the end of the month to get an idea of what you realistically currently spend.  Don't try and economise at this point because you need to understand where you are at the moment to start making small changes!
Regarding the fonts unfortunately the new forum doesn't support font colours, certainly not yet anyway, so if you put it in Bold that'll be fine

Well guys, I invested in an air fryer - been umming and aahing for months over whether or not to get one and WOW am I glad I did!  I found the Tower one from Arg0s which has a 4.7 star out of 5 rating and over 1200 reviews/ratings and has been reduced to £40 from £55.  So I went for it. 

It is awesome - I've done cubes of tofu just chucked in (smoked tofu) and 15 mins later it's sooo crispy and crunchy on the outside and soft and delightful on the inside!  I've also just made "roasted" chickpeas - these never worked for me in the oven but I've just done one tin drained not rinsed, with a couple of teaspoons of a "mango masala" seasoning and cooked for ten mins and they are unbelievable.  Looking forward to more experiments in air frying!!

HighWycMum

I will keep this month's receipts and make a plan when we know what we've actually spent 

jam2019

First spend of May to log! £7.37 spent today, largely on cans of various descriptions and some fruit and veg. Due to massively underestimating how much pie filling I made last week (... lol) I've still got the tofu and eggs I bought last week, so those should do nicely for dinner this week! 

PipneyJane

chirpychick said:

Budget Update:

- £67.74 on 27/04/2020
Left: £307.76

So I didn't think I was going to get a delivery until next week, we were running low on fresh food and I checked sainsbobs and low and behold 2 days later a delivery slot. So have got shopping coming tonight. I like that they email you during the day to say what is out of stock (antibac wipes still!) so I know how my budget will be affected.  Thanks to the missing items we are £7.26 under budget for the week. But to be honest hubby did go to the garage on Saturday morning for sausages and bacon, I don't know how much he spent but it came from his wallet not the household. (Just wanted to be honest about that!) I had brought masks when the noro was doing the rounds in November and always keep gloves for dog jobs so he went there with both and stripped to his pants on the doorstep LOL!! 
I hate Sainsbobs prices. I made such a huge conscious effort with this shop and definitely made some sacrifices but can't complain because we are very lucky by all accounts! 
Shielding though makes me miss C@stco and yellow sticker hunting, i'm not used to paying full price!
I am trying to use a lot of things and not let stuff go to waste (which maybe had fallen by the wayside a bit before). We have made pineapple upside down cake with a random tin of pineapple and homemade bread too. The dogs are eating scraps that can't be made into meals and my ASD son complains he is hungry all the time because his usual things aren't available (don't worry he's not starving, just finding it challenging).
I desperately need to get the budget even lower and if i'm to be honest with you, I am worried how we will achieve that. It's almost a given my husband will lose his job after furlough ends, we have never been on benefits before, not even when he was made redundant 2.5 years ago, so the idea of having to pay our mortgage and be on UC or have no income whilst we wait for UC is petrifying me. Now is the time to be trying to put the pennies aside for when this happens which is why i'm trying hard now. I hope it's ok that I waffled. 
Back next week with next week's update. 
Love to you all, stay safe x

Big hug to you, @chirpychick.  It’s horrible, having redundancy hanging over your head.   You have a triple challenge: getting the budget down, in order to save money; ensuring you have enough to eat now; and ensuring you’ve got stores set by if your DH’s job is terminated, so that you don’t have to worry about food then.   You must feel quite stressed out.

Big hugs.

- Pip

Amandaa5449

Hi, I’m brand new here and would like to join in this challenge.
What do I need to do?

I did my first shop of May today and it came to £34

Rowan9

I’m reading along but probably won’t join this month. 
Well done everyone, we’re all doing the best we can right now. 

Elsiepac I'm so pleased for you that you got the insurance pay out. That’s great!