February 2025 Grocery Challenge

MissRikkiC

What a great idea @TravelCrystal using long life milks for sauces etc! I can buy the cheap stuff for this and save the good stuff for my coffees! 

All this talk of carrots too which coincides with me googling what are horse carrots having seen cheap nets of them twice this week. Does anyone use these in place of supermarket carrots? 

@t@thriftwizard where do you get your oats from if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve just bought 5kg from grape tree but we get through about 1k every 5 days so it won’t last that long 🤣

patentgirl

Count me in again please, @elsiepac.  Thank you for running this thread can I please change Feb to £ 250
Reason being had extra supplies in last month and was not doing full month to start with this is from 1st to 28th Feb every thing apart Alcohol for 2 adults but looking after 2 of our grandchildren for a week while daughter goes away one of which is a 15 year old with hollow legs 😂

Miss_Behaving

Thanks for the new thread @Elsiepac. 

Please may you put me down for £250 again this month (I was listed in January as having a £50 budget)?  That's for 2 adults, all food, toiletries and cleaning products. 

BudgetingBelinda

I’m going to try very hard for £550… again! 

85/550 current standing.
I’ve got my game face on for groceries this month. 💪🏼💪🏼

ancientmum

Glad you are ok elsiepac, and thank you for running the thread.  I'm back for February with £1398 left for the rest of the year, that's just for me and occasional family meals and visitors.

Mags x

LotsOfTea

I'm back in for my usual of 

£300 for the month please. 

Thanks for running the thread @elsiepac. It's much appreciated by us all.

SausageDogSandwich

Thank you @elsiepac for running the thread. I’ve had a few months off here after struggling with various things. I have been trying to keep up with reading the January thread so now I feel ready to try joining back in again. Also been keeping track of my spends, just need to get into the habit of doing it at the time instead of letting it mount up again. Anyway, can I please have

£400 for feb please.

As always this is for two adults, three kids who eat more than me and cleaning supplies etc. I have upped it from £350 as trying to find a balance between low spends and kids having a good variety or everything they need in their diet. 

Suffolk_lass

RandomOne said:

Thank you to so many who answered my questions on Januarys GC challenge. 
Up till now I've been spending around £800+ a month on food for my family of 3. I've taken all of the suggestions on board, and therefore I'd like to set a target of

£400 for Feb please. 

I know this is a substancial drop, which is not advised for the first month of doing a grocery challenge, BUT I've meal planned at least 2 weeks of main meals for Feb, thanks to all the advice i got on here. So I'd like to try and give £400 a go. 
Please bear with me as I know I'll ask a lot of questions as this is all new to me. I'll try to find the answers to my questions, but if i cant find them, I hope its OK to ask lots here?

That's what's so great about this thread - nobody minds, we all do it a bit differently and "failure" is part of the progress pathway (never a straight line) - anyway, with lots of new people, you are never the only one thinking "how does that work?" After goodness knows how long on this thread, there are always lessons and other people's systems and wisdom to learn from

RandomOne

Thank you @Suffolk_lass

I am kind of treating February like an experiment/trial run, to see where i go wrong, how i can learn from it, what my downfalls are ( i already know one of going to be buying meal deals or ready meals to take to work). 
Whatever happens in February, I'm going to learn from it and hopefully get better each month. 

cheerfulness4

That's the idea, Random.  Just watch your spends like a hawk for the first couple of weeks because its a really common mistake most of us have made to think I'll do a big shop for the month and spend half your budget in one go.  I've never found that works and last month I finally just bought what I really needed to fill the gaps each week.  I was delighted with my underspend.

You watch and see how tight you get when you realise how much cheaper (and better) you can make a lunch for work without resorting to the expensive meal deals. Its gets quite addictive counting all those saved pounds!