March 2008 Grocery Challenge

Moniker

Well, just got back from town and have spent another £5.95 on groceries (mainly in Somerfield) and £10.99 in Robert Dyas buying water filter cartridges. They are essential here as our water is so hard that the kettles fur up really quickly without using filtered water - plus I save by not buying bottled water to take to work - I just fill recycled ones. I could have spend less by buying just one filter but they work out cheaper in bulk and I got 4 for the price of 3 which will last us four months so I can live with that. Total overspend is £15.60 - have updated signature.

I have worked out that next month will involve 5 main shopping days for me (I shop on a Thursday for the week ahead), and although we will be away for five days in the middle I don't think I can cut back any more this month so Mrs M please put me down for £300 for April. Thanks.

Love from Moniker

funkyfunkymonkey

Hi Moniker, I live in a hard water area too. I put a stainless steel mesh in my kettle which rattles around as the water boils and stops the calcium carbonate from depositing on the element. I rinse the kettle out on each use and don't have a problem with scale build up. There is a certain amount of scale but my kettle has survived for years (poss 5 to 10??? really can't remember when we bought it).

Kettles also don't cost that much to replace these days - so you might find it cheaper to try one of these meshes and if the scale builds up in a couple of years then buy a new kettle. Drinking hard water doesn't present any health issues, but some filters remove the chlorine which could leave the water unprotected from bacteria.

The type of mesh that I use is similar to this item http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kettle-descaler-Wire-mesh-Stainless-steel_W0QQitemZ250228456051QQihZ015QQcategoryZ20634QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


FFM

mikeD

Oh My God!! Just had the latest re-assessment of our Gas & Electricity costs from Scottish Power. Our monthly Std. Chg. will go up from £55.50 pm to £88 pm. :eek:, have been to Uswitch :money: and can't find anything cheaper. Oh My God!!............... faints :eek:.
When I wake up I'll try to catch up with the posts and update.

Help the FM

getting-sorted-sarah

mikeD wrote: »

Oh My God!! Just had the latest re-assessment of our Gas & Electricity costs from Scottish Power. Our monthly Std. Chg. will go up from £55.50 pm to £88 pm. :eek:, have been to Uswitch :money: and can't find anything cheaper. Oh My God!!............... faints :eek:.
When I wake up I'll try to catch up with the posts and update.

Help the FM

I've just switched from Scottish Power to E.on and although the year's saving was less than £20 - through Quidco I got (will get) £55 cash back.... so that cheered me up a bit! (I know USwitch will offer some cash or wine, but I found Quidco better this time.)
Hope this helps someone.

Keeping_Positive

Got £70 due from quidco for swaping to eon

cheerfulness4

Have loved this thread especially this month. A wonderfully atmosphere and some great tips and recipes.

Bad news is that I've now overspent by £18.14. It could have been less as I swooped on some great reductions at Morrisons earlier as I knew they would be great for next month.

So my grand total for March was £153.14. :rolleyes:

Obviously room for improvement next month. Main prob was in forgetting a top up shop and discovering the receipt later....I'm normally so careful with this, too. :mad:

Looking forward to starting my fresh budget next Friday.

getting-sorted-sarah

wendy24g wrote: »

Got £70 due from quidco for swaping to eon

It has gone down to £50 now, but more for some other suppliers.

belfastgirl23

Hi everyone, hope you're all well this sunny easter saturday. Except you of course Mike, that's a nasty shock, no advice here (NI has only one supplier for elec and one for gas so we can't switch) but much sympathy, hope you get something sorted.

Anyway I'm a bit over budget. Got a party to go to on Sunday and ended up buying some extras I hadn't foreseen. So far have made a large potato salad, a huge tiramisu and a batch of peanut biscuits that I've had to hide from myself :rolleyes: The real kicker was needing a bottle of marsala for the tiramisu, ended up having to buy a big one but I will get the use of it eventually. I'm guessing I'll end up about £20 over on the month and I'm setting a new target of £150 or else I'll just spend and spend. My other indulgence was an M&S superfood salad at £3.99 which was worth nearly every penny - bought it to see if I could replicate it so I aim to try this next week sometime. I think I'll be able to keep the budget down again next month since I've also stocked up a lot this month on BOGOFs etc.

I'm thinking a lot about health in fact, partly because I had an eye problem last week and the optician must have mentioned diabetes about four times when I went to see about it. Luckily I'm clear but the extra weight is not helping and is putting me more at risk (family history) so this is the last of the peanut biscuits for a while! I have btw been diagnosed with ocular migrane which basically means my vision goes all funny for about ten mins at a time and so far as I can see there are no predicting factors at all. Anyway enough rambling but it's making me grateful for the good health I normally enjoy and mad at myself for allowing my weight to creep up again. No easter eggs for me! All the more since my new glasses prescription will cost £150 :eek: for just lenses, using the same frames.

And Happy Easter to all of you - sorry my thanks button isn't working again but I have been keeping up with the thread after my break. We're all doing okay considering Easter etc....

DonnaP

Hi

I am an avid reader of this thread and have decided that I will do the challenge for April. When does it start? My OH gets paid on the 28th, so I will start it then, spending as little as possible until then.

I will aim for £250 which I think is achievable (2 adults and 4 year old twin DD's who eat huge portions!). I will aslo include cleaning stuff and things like loo roll etc.

I feel excited about it (how sad is that!!!!!!!!!).

Donna

lil_me

mikeD some of the increases are huge, a lot do recommend other comparisons rather than Uswitch, there is quite a lot of info on the utilities board on here. I switched to southern electric (via moneysupermarket on quidco) JUST before the price increases on a capped tariff for this year, so pleased I did as they were loads cheaper than who I was with in the first place, but we'll no doubt feel it more when the capped tariff ends. Of course it does depend on area etc as to what price you are offered. My partners Grandma is with a 'stay warm' tariff and hers has just shot up. Fingers crossed you find something cheaper.

Donna, I think the date usually stated for the new thread is the 28th of the month, which would be perfect for you.

Well NSD here because I'm hibernating!!! The weather means I am not even considering leaving the house so won't be spending anything. It looks great, all sunny etc one minute, next minute blizzards, so I'm staying in!!!

Will confess that it's ages since I did a big shop and I am missing it, I usually hate shopping, I am getting this urge to go out and spend a lot, or even online, then I look at my meal plan for next week, look at my shopping list and I know I just don't need to....it's purely psychological.