April 2008 Grocery Challenge

procrastinator

Hi
I am a newbie at this so please have patience. I would love to join you for May's grocery challenge. I have a Tesco plus card and we PAY 300 gbp (no sign sorry) per month direct debit, however we keep going over so start the month 100 or so down. I want to set a budget of 250 for May starting today. I have been reading the posts for the last two weeks and have copied some of the recepies into a word doc to give me inspiration.
There are four of us in our house, 2 adults and 2 teenagers. We are all veggie. I don't own a breadmaker but as the adults are both overweight this is probably a good thing - the temptation would be too much. I have a slow cooker but it hasn't had much use for a few years. I have got it out of the cupboard and dusted it off so will give it a go. My first try will be a bean soup/stew. I have listed the meals I normally cook and was surprised at how few variations there are and how limited we have become.
I think you have all done so well you are inspirational, and as several people have commented even if I miss my targets just working towards change is good the loss is less than if I don't try.
Can anyone tell me how I put the amount in the signature?
Good luck everyone.

jessie18

procrastinator wrote: »

Hi
I am a newbie at this so please have patience. I would love to join you for May's grocery challenge. I have a Tesco plus card and we PAY 300 gbp (no sign sorry) per month direct debit, however we keep going over so start the month 100 or so down. I want to set a budget of 250 for May starting today. I have been reading the posts for the last two weeks and have copied some of the recepies into a word doc to give me inspiration.
There are four of us in our house, 2 adults and 2 teenagers. We are all veggie. I don't own a breadmaker but as the adults are both overweight this is probably a good thing - the temptation would be too much. I have a slow cooker but it hasn't had much use for a few years. I have got it out of the cupboard and dusted it off so will give it a go. My first try will be a bean soup/stew. I have listed the meals I normally cook and was surprised at how few variations there are and how limited we have become.
I think you have all done so well you are inspirational, and as several people have commented even if I miss my targets just working towards change is good the loss is less than if I don't try.
Can anyone tell me how I put the amount in the signature?
Good luck everyone.

Hi there, to enter signature amount go to quick links at top of page, press enter then enter again on edit signature. Enter amount and press save at bottom of page, hope this makes sense. I love it on this site and hope you do too, ive only been on here since middle of feb myself but ive managed to save enough this month to buy a breadmaker. Everyone is really lovely and so helpful, lots of lovely cheap recipes too, good luck for this month:cheesy:

Snugglepuss

I definitely need to join this challenge! Having totalled up March's total spend in food shops from my bank account, it came to a ridiculous £300. I haven't seen April's yet but I'm going to be very upset if it's that high. However, there is no reason for me to keep it well below that level for may, so the challenge starts here!

Menu planning, only buying what I need, buying in local farm shops rather than stupidly expensive supermarkets, putting the effort into cooking rather than buying junk all the time - hell I might even lose weight as well!

Great determination from me on a good day - but will have to see how I manage when I'm having a bad day.

Sx

Sunnyday

Hi there procrastinator,

welcome to the GC, you will have great fun whilst saving money here.

To edit your signature go to the top of the page and click on the usercp button when that page loads you will see the edit signature button on the left hand side, that leads you to a page to set a signature and preview it - don`t forget to hit the save button afterwards.
SD

EDIT jessie beat me to it :-)

the_cat

Well April certainly didn't go to plan!

TBH I stopped counting so I don't know how much I spent, but def too much!
With the price rises I decided to let go of the purse strings and stock up. I now have a huge supply of basics and a fair bit of meat etc. Hopefully will claw some of the overspend back over May/June.

So budget for May will be £180 (thanks MrsMc!)

procrastinator

Thank you. I love this site. I am a bit of a luddite with all things techno. Don't do online shopping or banking (scared of fraud) and only use the computer occasionally till I started following all your comments this month now I becomming addicted. So as well as saving money I may become computer literate!

~jules~_3

Hi everyone,
just updating my sig sorry haven't been able to post much this month.

Mrs M could I join the May challenge please, my budget is £40/week again.,
Thanks.

Angelraesunshine

last spend of the month now down is a pain only had to wait a 2 more days never mind.

went to aldi and spent £4.44 on this months food an started to shop for next month food to put in freezer. my bill for next month has already reached £115 and tescos are delivering the rest tomorrow night. by the time it comes tomorrow i will of spent most of next month budget (omg)

Final Total for April £290.09p

Bargain_Rzl

Unlike the_cat, I haven't stopped counting, even though maybe it would be less galling if I had done

As you can see from my sig, the budget is shot to pieces, but there are four pieces of good news:

1) Although my "month" isn't over until the end of the week (I always count the weeks by which month Monday falls in) I actually don't need to buy ANYTHING this week. Except possibly milk.

2) I am still going to come in at less than what I would normally spend in a month (£20 a week, so £100 for a 5-week month) so although I haven't succeeded in doing a Storecupboard Challenge, and although I haven't boosted my savings as I would have liked, I haven't actually had to borrow from other budgetary areas.

3) My April spend includes about £10 worth of yellow-stickered bargains for the freezer (RRP about £40) almost all of which are still there and ready to feed me next month, plus £12 worth of Oriental ingredients from the Lidl special (12 tins coconut milk, 6 jars curry paste, 4 bags dried oyster mushrooms), over £6 worth of bread flour (white and wholemeal, all bought at pre-price-hike prices) and about £7.50 worth of seeds for breadmaking which will last months and months. So although I'd have gone over budget anyway, all but £5 of the overspend was prudent "investment" on stuff for use in future months.

4) Due to the items listed in point (3), there is very little I should need next month, either (however that's famous last words, obviously, as that's what I said this month ) I'm not sure whether I should put myself down for £40 (a "storecupboard challenge" budget level) or £80 (normal budget level, but then I'd feel much better about the savings I'd make doing a storecupboard challenge, especially if I only manage to spend £40. If you see what I mean.)

WorkingHardDFW

Hi I joined this challenge at the start of the month and have failed .....:o

My budget is £300 for a family of five (2 adults and 3 kids with good appetites).

I thought I was doing OK. Buying sensibly, shopping not just at Tesco but also at Lidl and Aldi for fruit and veg and bargains. Although I have two kids birthdays this month (so extra spending on homemade birthday cakes, sweets etc etc) I've managed to spend a whopping £362 :eek: .

Short of listing out everything I buy I not sure where I go from here. We eat well using fresh ingreidents, cooking from scratch (One child has a wheat/gluten intolerance) and I have started using lentils, beans etc to bulk out mince type meals - still I have overspent.

I don't think my budget is too tight from looking at what other spend per month so it must be something that I am doing wrong...

Thinking about it over the weekend I thing that I need to do the following a little more:

• Start being systematic with buying ie buy my fresh veg/fruit for the week on a monday to last through
• Plan my meals a little more - I shop online and I am good at stocking up the freezers with staple ingredients but we've fallen a little short this month so perhaps I need to revisit the quantaties.

Hopefully these actions will help but any suggestions appreciated:rolleyes:

I will try again for May although we've got a family party at the end of the month so that will either have to be a seperate budget or I will go over again.