November 2020 Grocery Challenge

gemmm

Hi there  I'm new to posting in the MSE forums but I have been reading along for a while and decided it's time to give it a go myself!

Can you put me down for £320 as a guess for my first month please? For two adults...hoping I'm not too far off!

Thank you 

Doom_and_Gloom

Thank you elsiepac for doing this thread. As I've said before it really does help keep us accountable.
Can not believe we are so close to the end of the year. 

Our November budget is £180.  Really want to come in budget as I know that the December budget will be high due to celebrating Yule. 

The month goes 1st to the 30th.

This is for two adults, my OH and I, and a chinchilla. Includes all food and drink (except alcohol), cleaning products, toiletries etc and all chinchilla items (food, hay, sand, treats etc).

£0/£180.

£180 left.

Disney_Princess85

Can I join this month too please. I stumbled on last months thread yesterday and I am in desperate need on cutting my monthly food budget.
I usually set a budget of £250 a month but know I always go over this so I went through my bank statement for the last month and was shocked to find out that I spent £367.53 in supermarkets and then a further £159.78 on takeaways. That's £527.31 in total which is an absolute joke! a lot of that was wasted as well which makes it worse.

I want to try and get that to £300 for this month from the 28th Oct - 27th Nov as that's when I get paid. I have already done a list of everything I currently have in so that i can use that as a base before I buy some more food.

VicVics86

Hello, could I join in this month please? Since March our food shopping has been out of control. There’s been no meal planning or shopping lists and we have had far too many takeaways. So November I’d like to get better control over it. I have no idea what we have been spending but hope to stick to £300 for the month. This is for 2 adults and 2 young children. My month starts on the 30th Oct and runs to the 27th Nov. 

joedenise

Thanks for thread @elsiepac.  Can I be put down for £250 again this month - I think I'm going to just sneak in under that this month with just under £60 left for this week's shop.  My month goes from 1st - 30th November.

goldfinches

Thankyou so much for this thread @elsiepac the last two months have been eye openers for me. I'd like to set a budget of £4 per day for November for the calendar month which is a total of £120 for the month. Meantime I'll be over finishing up October and will be back here on 1st to start really squeezing the pips, see you then, goldfinches.

BrassicWoman

Thank you for the shiny new thread! 

This month I would like to go for £100.

Last month I did one giant shop, which was fine, but a bit dull. I am going to do one £50 shop at month start (ordered - band on £50!) and then small weekly topups.
I am also going to record every single thing I use, because my stockpile is growing huge, and I don't actually know how much I need of anything. So that feels like a more useful start than "what I buy" for future planning.

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, lots of lovely new people joining in - you are all welcome here. Do ask questions as well as recording what you do.

I keep a list on my fridge for the next big shop and try to keep those trips to a minimum as I know I go off-list and buy stuff on a whim (so avoiding the SM helps to minimise this a bit!) - my milk and eggs are delivered. I'm still over in October at the moment and deciding if I need to shop again this month - bowl fruit is getting short and there are a few store cupboard things on the list. And only 1 carrot left so that might be the deal-breaker that means I go!

flow2

May I join, here as well please ? I have been reading about all the challenges every month, I will start at £300 from 1 st - 30th Nov, I love the vast recipe collection !
good luck to everyone.

joedenise

I do the shopping list on the fridge too @Suffolk_lass.  It's such a simple idea but so useful - as soon as I start on the last of anything on the list it goes, things like baked beans I buy in 4 packs and like to keep a dozen in the cupboard so when I'm down to the last 4 I pick up another 2 4 packs; tomatoes the same - both of these are used a lot!  Have about a dozen things on my list at the moment so going to pop to Lidl shortly to top up, as I need some more fruit I'm going to see if I can get one of the £1.50 boxes as that means there will be lots of stuff to choose from - probably won't be able to eat it all before it goes off so will also freeze some stuff if necessary!