March 2008 Grocery Challenge

Sunnyday

mardatha wrote: »

Ok, thanks to Sunnyday and I will join in for april. Erm dunno how but I'm in anyway !
When I worked I spent £100 a week, then when I had to give up I got it down to £80, now we are both off it needs to come down a lot more. Let me try for £60 a week, includes everything eating and cleaning.

:wave: Yippee! welcome on board, the more the merrier.

There`s lots of help and support here, everyone is fab.
You will love it and make lots of friends while you are saving money.

It`s very addictive though, i find that if i can`t get on for a couple of days i get withdrawal symptoms lol.
Good luck!

Sd

annie123

Well its been a bit tougher this month as it is a 5 week month for me ending this coming Friday. but in spite of my marks and Spencer £28 carrier bag...whoops! I think I will come in around £350.
Still cant believe I used to spent up to £500:eek: so pleased I joined in January.
That's a months free shopping saved so far:j

DH has been told he has high blood pressure and as he is not overweight, never smoked, drinks 1 bottle if wine a month, and goes to the gym twice a week. Doctor said try to reduce salt intake also may have high cholesterol levels even though weight ok so reduce fats as well to start. so will be interesting to try cooking slightly differently from now on. I am sure I will be asking for alternative ideas here in a matter of days.


I am going to go for £350 for APRIL PLEASE MRSMCAWBER

Well done to everyone for trying.:T during March and good luck for April:D

candygirl

Spent a bit today but got loads for my money at Cool Trader:

A loaf
warburtons sliced rolls
snackajacks
2x jaffa cakes
dairy milk multipack
cheddars multipack
cheese
garlic bread
black pepper
came to £10.49, so a bargain!!

Hope you're all having a great BH, it's just started snowing here:T :T

pink_princess

Hi been watching this thread since jan but never had the guts to post please could we join in for april starting on friday dont know how much to go for were a family of 5 me oh dd13 dd11 ds 9 used to spend 650 a month but since reading this have reduced by 150 any ideas from people on how much its possible to reduce this by would be gratfully recieved
pink princess

minibudgetgal

ok ok i have had a small accident at tesco and overspent by £20 this month. have fed my family of 5 (three adults two kids with big appetites lol) three dogs and three cats on £270 this month, so dont feel too bad lol. put me down for another £250 this month. have just put internet order for £170 but that will stock up the freezer with meals once i batch cook over the school holidays. totted up the school meals bill and decided to put the kids on packed lunches. at around £17 per week for my two i dont think it is such good value, esp as things like nuggets, chips and battered fish seem to be making a regular appearance. anyone else think packed lunches are better value? not planning to send the kids in with biscuits/crisps/sweets (far too mean mummy) so might be a bit healthier too.

pink_princess

thank you mini budget girl i dont know how you manage to do it so cheap i already have mine on pack lunches as ds has a peanut allergy and dont trust the dinners to be safe i think it saves over 5 pound a week per child i already make my own bread aswell but cant seem to get the costs down any further any tips anyone sorry to be a pest

galacticgreen

I updated my sig over the weekend with the stuff I bought on Thursday evening. Now just over £5 left, with definitely milk and maybe cheese to buy. I told the kids that we would probably go over budget this month and they said "No, we can do it, what don't we need to buy?" That was really nice to hear and I'm pleased we are all involved and want the same thing. Reduced our shopping bill by about £250 per month and we've upped the direct debit in to our savings account by £300 so hopefully we'll have some savings to spend on doing some jobs on the house and having a few nice days out over the summer. Well I must stop rambling and go and see how the pizza dough is doing in the bread machine.:D

minibudgetgal

hi pink princess. cant say i am a very interesting cook but i am determined to be debt free in two years. jeanette orreys book dinnerlady is a cornerstone of my cooking. it is cheap and cheerful but my husband hoovers the food up too. he reckons it is as good as the nigel slater recipe i used to use.
this is what i do:
- learn to make your own cheese sauce if you dont already. this can be added to macaroni, lasagne, brocolli, cauli etc to make a cheap meal in itself.
- use the breadmaker to make pizza bases then make your own.
- buy value products if you find them ok. i use tesco lasagne sheets, baked beans and tinned tomatoes. they are just as good as the premium brands. tesco peanut butter is great too, but not suitable for you as the label tells me "contains nuts" how helpful lol
- buy all fruit and veg, eggs, meat and fish from the market if you have one.
- do one internet shop per month then only a take a tenner each time you go in (and make it less than once a week if you can)
- get your milk delivered. it will save popping to tesco and spending what you dont need.
- make a monthly meal plan and only buy what you need
- reduce kids sweets to minimum. mine get 2.50 each week pocket money and if they want sweets it comes out of that.
- freeze leftovers. dont throw anything out. if it is getting to the nearly throw out stage turn it into something else and freeze it. eg. soup, or shepherd pie etc. i like a full freezer and a sparten fridge. full fridges scare me cos i know i wont get through it!
- say no to convenience food. make your own convenience food!
- batch cook once a month. ball ache but saves a lot of money in the long run.
- buy pet food in bulk from pet food shop

keep all receipts and beat yourself up with them lol!

i dont feel like we are eating any differently than before, but i am saving an arm and a leg.
good luck

MRSMCAWBER

Hi Pink Princess and welcome on board

So your budget at the moment is down to £500..... thats a great saving so far :T ...Do you do the famous meal planning??? that would be the first thing i would look into ..if you aren't doing it allready

I just list 7 main meals a week... then choose which 1 to have when..depending on the weather and what we are doing etc....
It means you can draw up a shopping list for the week and then you have less chance of getting caught short -running out of milk and having to nip to the local shop and pay higher prices

Do you have much lurking in your freezer, cupboards etc?
A lot of us keep a list of what we have, adding to and crossing off as we need to (saves time and stress )
Try and meal plan around what you have that you can use up... so my first week of April is like this :-

1. roast chicken dinner
2. chicken in hm tortilla wraps with salad
3. salad with feta cheese and steamed potatoes
4. hm sausages with potatoes, broccoli, carrots and cabbage
5. prawn salad with hm coleslaw and potatoes
6. thai turkey curry, rice and hm naan breads
7. pasta bake

What i have found is that like April.. Im using as much as i can from the freezer, so need very little at all..so some of my shopping budget can be used to take advantage of reduced items, special offers -so the following month will be cheaper too.. it sort of rolls on

Im sure you will get loads of help on here and shrink your budget further in no time at all..
As you have children i would just take a little bit off of the budget every month and make small changes..so that no-one really notices much difference... if you try and cut back too much at once you might end up with a mutiny on your hands :rotfl:

getting-sorted-sarah

pink_princess wrote: »

thank you mini budget girl i dont know how you manage to do it so cheap i already have mine on pack lunches as ds has a peanut allergy and dont trust the dinners to be safe i think it saves over 5 pound a week per child i already make my own bread aswell but cant seem to get the costs down any further any tips anyone sorry to be a pest

You aren't a pest, welcome on board!
Hanging around here (I try to pop in once a day) will give you ideas, and motivation not to buy things you don't need. Cutting down further really depends on your lifestyle, if you like to cook you may find recipes on here and batch bake, for example. It has really helped me to start meal planning and buying what I need, rather than chucking stuff into a trolley and working out what to do with it later...which meant lots got thrown away . Another MSE idea is to trying going down a brand, if you usually buy premium, try the regular, or if you buy the regular try the value brand - see what you save and see if there is all that much difference.
Good luck!