December 2008 Grocery Challenge

katie_jane_2 · 8 December 2008 at 3:31PM

Hi been a fan of this forum for ages and although i cook from scratch and shop round i never seemed to be any better off!
ive just started giving myself housekeeping money to see if it makes a difference.there are 6 of us 2 adults 4 small kids (7421) and went for 100 quid for a weeks food toiletries and nappys and wipes.
cannot believe that i did it and not only that there is money left in the bank as im not using the debit card for day to day stuff it has to come out of my 100 or we dont have it!
this is my second week and im aiming to come in below 100 this week with the difference going in the holiday pig! wish me luck.

taplady · 8 December 2008 at 3:32PM

well done Katie Jane! keep it up!:T

katie_jane_2 · 8 December 2008 at 4:02PM

thanks i will its become my new mission !

Scubabe · 8 December 2008 at 4:08PM

Oh congrats!!!
That's the way I do it too - a purse with the housekeeping money in it, and once the purse is empty, that's it, we just have to wait till next pay day.
(It's never truly empty though, I usually have £20+ left at the end of the month, I just don't tell hubby that else he'd want to buy beer and pizza at the end of every month hehehe)

katie_jane_2 · 8 December 2008 at 4:16PM

im itching to get it lower we get through 8 pints of milk a day and a bag of apples so that may be unrealistic but will kepp trying!

belfastgirl23 · 8 December 2008 at 4:34PM

Money_saving_Diva wrote: »

Oh dear

I failed my challenge in November and have been hiding away and feeling hopeless for days. My OH can't/won't stop spending and we have spent a silly amount already for December.

If it isn't too late, can I try for £340 for December. I have had to put it up cos our spending has been out of control for the last week or so plus we have christmas..

Am a bit blue about it all actually but know I won't get back on track unless I come back here with all you wonderful people supporting me, so here I am.

Hope I can do better this month.

Diva.x

Hey Diva, I don't often post chat here but I just wanted to say that it took me a full year and a stand up row in tesco before I managed to (semi) train my DH. It might be worth trying to think about what exactly the problems are with him and post them and see if we can help

we've all had to find ways around on this. I know with my DH I use either the 'it's fattening' or 'it's not very green' arguments. The first one holds a lot of sway and sometimes the second one works, depending. The other thing is that we had some rises in bills and I told him that we were going to have to start paying some more money into the joint account unless we made savings. This helped too. But every man is different. don't give up hope, rome wasn't built in a day....lots of us on here will tell you the same.

I really try hard not to bring him to supermarkets though which is why I'm doing a lot of internet shoppping and I try to drop in to the supermarket when I'm out and about for work etc ... no matter what if I bring DH I end up spending at least £5 more and not getting stuff that I need

Pink. · 8 December 2008 at 4:40PM

Hi katiejane,

Congratulations on the savings you've made! :T I changed to using 'housekeeping' a couple of years ago and it does make a big difference and really makes you think about what you're spending your hard earned cash on.

As you'd like to cut back further I've added your thread into the Grocery Challenge thread where you'll get lots of help, support and inspiration from the regulars there.

Pink

katie_jane_2 · 8 December 2008 at 5:19PM

dunno if i will be able to achieve these kinda figures i read on here would be intresting to see if anyone else is feeding afamily of six or larger and how much they come in at anyone wanna share how big their family is?
x

keld · 8 December 2008 at 5:20PM

I've just gone through our receipts for the first 8 days of December and so far we've spent £131.86, which if you pro rata that for the month would be £511.00 :mad: so over budget and that's not allowing for the additional Christmas food:eek: . Well I'm just going to have to see how it goes this month. No point spoiling Christmas:rotfl: . However we are fairly well stocked up now, fridge full, freezer full (of bulk cooked dinners for the children courtesy of DH:D ) cupboard full. So the plan is to eat what's in the house over the next fortnight, and only buy fresh veg, bread etc, then stock up for the family entertaining over the holiday period. We have loads of visitors over the two weeks were on holiday:rolleyes: which is usually very good fun.

Good luck to everyone else.

keld · 8 December 2008 at 5:27PM

katie_jane wrote: »

dunno if i will be able to achieve these kinda figures i read on here would be intresting to see if anyone else is feeding afamily of six or larger and how much they come in at anyone wanna share how big their family is?
x

We're a family of five, two adults plus DS8 and 2DDs4, and I'd love to spend as little as everyone else. However I've just started so I'll wait and see how it goes. I've been keeping a spending diary for one month now, and I've included everything I've spent plus anything that DH has spent that I know about. Thankfully if does any grocery shopping he always leaves the receipt in the bag, so I've still been able to enter it into my (ever expanding)spreadsheet.:o

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December 2008 Grocery Challenge

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