December 2011 - Grocery Challenge

mummyjane · 5 December 2011 at 3:52PM

Failed to have a NSD yesterday as I went online and spent £30 on approved foods. Seems a lot but will save me a fortune over the next few months. Stocked up on toilet rolls and cereal bars for the kids school snacks/lunches. Also included a couple of gift items for Christmas but will include them in my budget as they come under food. Ended up having a takeaway for tea last night as pork belly roast was a disaster, the meat was really really fatty and neither myself nor dh could it eat (so it must have been bad). Thankfully, dh treated me out of his money so it didn't dent my budget

We are going to the Christmas charity fete where my son has his club after school so will have to be extra careful, I'm thinking I will give the kids a set amount each to spend so we don't overdo it. I am starting to think my first budget was wishful thinking!

quintwins · 5 December 2011 at 4:00PM

snow stopped and thawed abit so i managed a trip to the tip, got 2litre milk for 90p and spent £8 in poundland on 3 packets of batteries , 3 xmas plates and 4 xmas cups for the kids, some candy canes for the tree, a packet of chewits for them and a packet of chewing gum for me so not too bad all things considered £8.90 to add to my spends

Yum · 5 December 2011 at 6:18PM

Heey, im been reading these threads for a while and finally took the plunge recently and registered. Badly need to join this thread in the new year. My online money manager tells me im spending on average £180 per month on food shopping!! Quite a lot for two adults and one formula fed baby!!!! Ive really been cutting back recently as we are on a low income and hopefully i can carry this on when im back at work and save lots of money!!

tink1981_2 · 5 December 2011 at 6:49PM

Had a spend of £7.17 at Mr A today. Had only popped in to get some bread flour but ended up getting some woopsie veggi sausages which should hopefully do us for 2 or 3 meals. Got some beans a bits for making stews so hopefully should be able to make the money go a bit further.

Can't beleive how expencive beans and pulses have got!! :mad: I'm vegi and it's one of my main sources of protein so usually get a fe tins a week. The cost of some tins have almost trippled in price in the las year :eek:

Thinking of starting with dried beans that you soak and then cook. Does anyone know if these are ok for freezing after they've been cooked? Was thinking could do them in batches and then freeze them so they'd be almost as convenient as tins

mooomin · 5 December 2011 at 7:36PM

£10.78 spent in Aldi today, well under the £15 budget I set myself.

£129.08/£200

Flat_Eric · 5 December 2011 at 7:45PM

visited the local Express store today and bought milk (49p) and two weight watcher$ veg pot things (2 for £4). They were a waste of time really but I'm never organised enough on a Monday to prep lunch and trying to avoid the supermarket doesn't help.

So spends so far this month £30.27.

Really trying to use up what I have and stay out of the shops but difficult when I have no salad stuff or fresh veg and need to include it in my meal plans to help my sw efforts.

mandco · 5 December 2011 at 8:24PM

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

Rant away my lovely. For what it's worth I feel £50 is to low a contribution. I think you should sit her down with the bills and food reciepts and petrol reciepts for mothers taxi service and show her how much it all costs and ask her what she feels is a fair amount to pay. We always paid a quarter of our wages and I started on the YTS scheme (now that dates me ) plus I had bus fares on top. But then I am an oppininated cow and you can feel free to ignore me if you want to.

i'll second that when i lived at home it was 25% of your income in keep and any extras like travel /snacks had to come out of your own pocket

Hear! hear! it is excellent advice, thank you Spiggles. ditto

Thank you everyone who also listened to my rant. I have had a long chat with DH and he has spoken to his line manager and the LM thinks from a conversation that as the Head has encouraged him to to apply for Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) next September she wants him to concentrate his energies on gathering evidence for that. But she hasn't actually said it to him. How much would it hurt her to say to him 'look don't apply for anyting and concentrate on the AST blah! blah!' But no she won't as she has her agenda and she will run the school to it. The teacher who got the job hadn't even hit DH's radar. He had to go and look up who she was and what she had acheived. So he is fed up and miserable at the moment. TBH so am I as the extra £300 a month would have been useful. soz hes having such a rubbish time esp when it seems so unfair but hopefully something better will come his way soon

Just a £2.75 spend today on a box of GF cereal :eek:

well never manage my planned nsd ended up going past lidl so popped in for some more nappies (was pleasantly suprised at how good they are esp for the price so will def be using them in future) and a few bars of the 17p choc

£11.85 spend.
than another £7.04 spend today on not alot :mad: must do better no dount will have a few more spends to add in the next few days but hoping to keep it below £20 for the rest of the wk

meg72 · 5 December 2011 at 8:28PM

tink1981 wrote: »

Can't beleive how expencive beans and pulses have got!! :mad: I'm vegi and it's one of my main sources of protein so usually get a fe tins a week. The cost of some tins have almost trippled in price in the las year :eek:

Thinking of starting with dried beans that you soak and then cook. Does anyone know if these are ok for freezing after they've been cooked? Was thinking could do them in batches and then freeze them so they'd be almost as convenient as tins

These are fine,soaked cooked and frozen,I do it with butter beans red kidney beans,dried peas for mushy peas and chickpeas,I do it mainly because its such a faff otherwise when cooking for one but having looked how prices are rising for tinned I think it wil work out cheaper.

LittleMai · 5 December 2011 at 8:34PM

Yet again another spend today, I cant help myself! Its the lure of potential reduced things, I cant stop myself!

So today, I got some reduced crumpets, 24 for 18p, 4 egg custard tarts for 40p, 2 finest pain au chocolate for 49p, and some charlotte potatoes for 41p, plus a few other non reduced things.

All together, I spent £4.05 today, bring my total up to £19.87.

nannygladys · 5 December 2011 at 9:31PM

Small spend on milk and marg for me today, £2.25 should last a while though and tomorrow and Wednesday should hopefully be NSD's

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December 2011 - Grocery Challenge

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