January 2025 Grocery Challenge

Blackcats

Well done to us all for doing our best with our January grocery spends.  Whether we are over budget, under budget or exactly on budget we have all tried and done better than if we didn't have this thread and support of this community.

I'm under budget this month because of Christmas surplus food and doing a cupboard inventory.  I've also been more systematic with meal planning and creating shopping lists based on planned meals and known supplies.

I'm now working on £80/week rather than a monthly spend when a 5 week month caused me to fail.

average weekly spend in January was £68.57.

January spend £342.86
surplus of £57.14 winging its way over to my repair and replace savings pot.

THANK YOU @elsiepac - you are helping us cumulatively save £££'s

Spendywendywoo

Final total for January (half month) is £246.82/£250.

By this point last month we'd spent double that, so very much a win this month! 

Black_Saturn

Subscribe and save items delivered today came to £61.20, so my final total for January’s budget came to:

£446.83 / £600

Much of the savings came from depleting stock in the cupboards / freezer, so I’m not sure it will be as low as that in February, so I will stick to £600 again for the month.

I have already booked a delivery for tomorrow, but will move that over to the next grocery challenge thread.

PipneyJane

Good evening All

Congratulations to everyone who has come in on/under budget! I have a couple of small spends to declare from this week, both in MrT’s:  28p and £4.24 on fruit, plus 8p of shrapnel to go to the moneybox.

I’m declaring for January at £154.70/£160 leaving £5.30 to roll into February.

- Pip

Pennypincin

I'm about halfway through the budget, with lots of bits and bobs being spent on again.
I'm going to have to look through the freezer, fridge and cupboards and think about what I need.

Doom_and_Gloom

Doom_and_Gloom said:

£245.77/£248.
£2.03 left.

99p spent on a large persimmon, couldn't help myself as they looked so good 😅, it ended up tasting just as good as it looked so well worth it in my opinion.

Our January totals as such

£246.76/£248.
£1.24 left.

Well done too those of us who came in budget, even if it was just like me lol.

To those who didn't come in budget it likely would have been worse if you hadn't felt yourself accountable on here. I know how not being on the thread can allow the budget to go awry. Also it is just but a month so if you did go over badly just remember that.  Budgets have a habit of balancing out eventually I find. 

Onwards to February. Good luck to all.

diminua

Declaring at £18.89 over - including a bottle of wine (as I'd gone over anyway, and it's Friday) still, as @Doom_and_Gloom says above, although I'm over budget I know that if I weren't on here I would be worse. 

Pauper1

I've got lots to catch up on in here, but just wanted to put my final January spend up. I'm finishing the month on £369.29/£400 (I technically did cheat a bit as OH bought Gousto boxes twice this month, as well as a takeaway yesterday. But for me the challenge is all about reducing my spends anyway haha)

AnotherNewDay

Declaring January final spends £76.42/£100.....happy with a £23.58 underspend  
Mainly possible because I was using up things from the freezer and stores.

EcoIntent

Wow it is February!!

I'm closing out week 2 of my 4 week month on £237.49/£520, this week was £133.85/£130.

I can't believe I am saying this but I am loving tracking. Feel so much more in control of what we have in to eat, and using things, plus have without spending extra built small stocks of regular products