October Grocery Challenge

moo842

hi guys, well i've decided to join in this month, i have set a budget of £300 for the four of us but plan to buy everything out of this, so clothes and shoes as well!! i went £36 over last month so i'm gonna try really hard this month!!

kiwichick

Hiya,

Quick message for Tiababy, its my first time too and some of the other OS'ers have suggested that rather than set a budget for the first month you should keep all your receipts for the month instead. That way you will have a far more realistic idea of what your outgoings are and will be able to set an achievable pin goal for next month. I have decided to ive this a go first and so have been saving all my food and household (toiletries, cleaners etc) receipts. I will then tally them and try and set a saving target (not too big or it will freak me out) for next months challenge. Prehaps you might feel better about doing it this way too just to start with? I am amazed, prehaps inspired is a better word, also by the budgets on here. There are 5 of us, no pets and I spent about £460 last month, thats without counting all the trips to the corner shop which occur on an almost daily basis!!! :eek: I aim to save my pin money for a few treats for our new house in the new year sales............yay.

Good Luck
Al.

benjacksmum

Right, this is it! I have been lurking for almost 6 months now and I've finally decided to commit myself to this challenge and contribute more in general to this fantastic forum. I am thoroughly inspired by everybody's budgets here and although I would like it to be lower, as a realistic starting point I have set myself a budget of £250 for 2 adults, 2 kids and a dog. This should definitely be do-able as we have lots in the freezer and cupboards. I'm halfway through setting up a four week menu plan and will endeavour to get this finished this weekend. My theory is that it will stop me impulse buying at the supermarket and also hopefully not get takeaways as a last resort when I've had one of those days where I'm completely uninspired to cook and time has marched on and there are empty stomachs abound! I have sorted next week out and although it was bought yesterday, the £28 I spent was for this coming week so will count that.

Thanks for inspiring me guys!

Sweet_Pea_2

Just finished my second week of Octobers grocery challenge.
Went over last week, so I was determined to stick to budget this week. I was slightly under and I have bought some extras. I bought two bags of chicken breasts, three packs of braising steak and some salmon (fancy a fish pie) anyway to stock up the freezer, but also bought two boxes of belgian chocolates (DD's teachers Xmas presents) a bottle of wine for MIL and FIL's wedding anniversary, a bottle of sherry (Xmas pressie) and some electronic kitchen scales (this weeks Aldi offers) and I'm now 30p over for the month so I'm really pleased. I'm hoping that once I have got the Xmas pressies and extra food/alcohol in, it should be easier to reduce my month;y budget even further but I'm leaving it as it is until Xmas.

Penny-Pincher!!

Afternoon All,

My Oct 4 week cycle (how I work it..lol) starts this monday. Last 4 weeks I came in under budget by £100 :eek: so that will be going in the conservatory fund pot (have saved £600 now).

My mad method is...£75 a week for food, toiletries, wash powder, loo rolls, everything household basically and petrol. It sounds alot but if you consider last 3 months Ive put £25 a week in roughly into the savings account where I havent spent or needed it-thats works to £50 a week including petrol :eek: I buy all loo rolls, coffee, tea, kitchen rolls, fabric conditioner, sugar and other special priced items at Makros every few weeks and stock up and the main shop is done at Asda online using voucher codes of course. Then every 2 months I do a meat shop at Ocado/Waitrose and fill the freezer using the £15 off a £75 spend and this is normally enough meat for 6-8 weeks.

This month is going to be cheap as I have soooo much food already. I worked out I have enough food for about 45 meals if used wisely. I will try not to spend but if see good offers then will buy All excess money agin will be put in conservatory fund-which is looking good for next May.

Cant believe 12 months ago, I only bought from M&S and Waitrose spending around £100 a week minimum and then having 3 take aways aweek. No wonder Ive saved over £700 a month on outgoings.

Good Luck everyone.

PP
xx

jaybee

I did my first shop of the month today and spent £51 in Sainsburys. This month will be 5 weeks (by the way I calculate it - I always shop on Saturday & there are 5 Saturdays this month!). Intend to keep it under £300.

brummiebabe

Tesco on-line shop today! Total spent £59.10 (£3.40 under weekly budget):D

Need to keep on target this month - don't want to touch my overdraft by the time pay day arrives!!!:rolleyes:

skylight

Our budget this month is £250 - for 2 adults, 4 kids and a dog.

So far spent £29.54 - the farm shop and the local shop

HOT TIP!! I actually took my shopping list into my local shop today and bought the cheaper items. Okay, so there wasn't a lot there that was cheaper than Tesco, but Curry Powder, stock cubes and corn flour were cheaper in my local than Tesco! And I saved a whopping £0.81p!!! (But hey - 81p a week for a year is £42 thats mine!) I will also be checking next weeks list to see what I can get.

My shopping list at tesco's tomorrow should be no more than £32 and thats almost it for the week - apart from milk and more salad stuff.

Bogof_Babe

TiaBaby wrote:

First of all, Hi, I've just found this board and I think I'm going to cry after reading all your monthly budgets. I need ALOT of help with this, any and all suggestions will be greatly recieved.

Tesco average per month - £280
Bargain shops (toiletries) - £20
Milkman - £50
Dog food - £40

We are 2 adults, 1 child (7yrs old), 2 dogs and a garden full of hungry wildlife.

Yours hopefully, Tia x

Welcome to the site TiaBaby, the future starts here! I just wanted to say that I did a double-take at your £50 per month to the milkman. That is equivalent to 80 x 2-pint cartons bought in a supermarket, or 5 pints a day! If you can buy your milk locally while shopping for other things, that is an instant saving.

jeppy

I am going to join in next month!!!! I just don't think i am ready yet, I am fairly new to this site and i find I am spending more as I can't resist a bargain but my shelves are full (well my bathroom ones!! as I am addicted to BOOTS!! )
I don't have the bottle to do the tesco thing, I tried it once (my nearest tescos is over 5 miles away) and everything was the right price. However I didn't pickup the things that were only 1p incorrect as I really don't have the bottle to query this error!! My sister bought a bottle of wine and it was £2.00 dearer so she took that to cs and they gave her the bottle. She was so happy!!! I wished she'd told me that is the kind of thing I would query!!