March 2011 Grocery Challenge

HI, I've been lurking around viewing this post and I think it's time to join! Can I be put down for £300 for March? It's a rough estimate but I'm saving receipts so next month will be accurate. That's for 3 adults (including mother in law!), one child, one dog, the demented rabbit and a shoal of goldfish! Have to make more savings as the dog's insurance is up and we're due to start paying for his meds. Have found them online at half the price of the vet, who wanted £65 a month :eek:, but it's still a lot. Also MiL usually looks after tiny terror after school but due to health we're having to find extra for childcare.

Angel - so glad to hear the news - lots of "good result for Op" being sent

Now we need to concentrate on Spiggle too

Helen x

PS a NSD planned here but as we haven't managed 1 yet I don't hold my breath for a result today lol

hi every body

I had a tesco delivery this week. Got a email offering £10 off os jumped at it. I was very sensible and managed to only spend £59.42. only forgot carrots and milkbut got those now. I am amazed because i normally run to lidl, then b&m then finally tesco tryin catch bargains. This was so much easier. Think i might start lookin for the discount codes again. Updated my sig. Seem to be keeping on track. Got plenty of meat in freezer again now so with some careful planning should keep to budget for the fist time this year!!! Have a jusy jinxed myself saying that??

£230.65 spent so far including a first Ocado order coming today - £7.50 cashback from Quidco, and £15 off a £75 spend - bought nice nibbles for OHs birthday dinner instead of going out for a meal plus some storecupboard bits.

So busy I have forgotten to post. Please put Hex2 down for £500 for March

I have just popped on to update my signature. I did some very very careful shopping on Thursday, preceded by hours on end playing with Tesc0's price check thingy. There are a few people here who've asked about it so I'll go into a bit of detail - hope nobody minds!

Where it gets complicated is that Tesc0 will refund double the difference if your ENTIRE shop would have cost less at MrA. So if your bread would have cost 10p less at MrA but your milk would have cost 10p more then they cancel each other out and there is no refund. So the trick is to prepare, and split your trolley.

On the price check website ( http://www.tesco.com/pricecheck/ ) you can check the two costs for an individual product, or "browse by aisle" to spot real bargains. I did a LOT of this and made myself 2 SEPARATE shopping lists. You have to check the prices on the same day as you do the shopping as they're changed every day, and as far as I can tell you need to use the price check website because some of the others come up with different comparisons. I copied the info from the website & printed it so I bought exactly the right product at the right price - to make sure it was the comparable one.

There are a few things where the "double the difference" refund is bigger than the cost - so they're paying you to take it away :beer: Example was Banrock wine - priced at £10.49 a bottle :eek: at Tesc0 but £5 at MrA. So you pay £10.49, but are refunded double the difference - the difference is 5.49 so the refund is 2*5.49 = £10.98! BUT be aware - the refund is in a Tesc0 voucher and must be used within 28 days of issue. There is also a risk - prices do change often (both shops are watching each other and repricing daily) and sometimes things get excluded for no apparent reason. A lot of the stuff which I wouldn't have bought except for the offer I didn't unpack when I got home - I put it to one side until I got confirmation of the refund, so I could return it if I didn't get my refund The 4 bottles of wine in particular!!

So I have one list of stuff I want to buy which is cheaper at Asda, and one of other stuff. I go round Mr T's with my trolley split in half - to keep the 2 lists separate. I paid for the 2 lots separately. When I got home I put the details from my carefully selected trolley into the pricecheck thingy, and the following day they emailed me my voucher for more than 3/4 of my money back :j Of course the snag is that I have spent the money - it's come out of my account, even though I have this massive voucher sitting here ready for next month! In hindsight I should have split my trolley further and divided the "selected" lot into 2 batches so I would have got 2 medium vouchers instead of one huge one - it can only be used once, so next month I'll have to do a mega top-up shop at the beginning of the month to make full use of the voucher.

It's taken me a couple of days to work out how to account for it in the grocery challenge, but I think I've got it now!

Other hint for anyone who's going to try and work the system...
Particularly good deals are often things where Tesc0 has the product on BOGOF while Mr A is half price - I got cheese for £3.98, it was on BOGOF but I only bought one, didn't get the "free" one. It was £2 at MrA so my refund was £3.96 - meaning I got a block of cheese for 2p :beer:.

Anyhow, after pondering it, I am only charging the balance (what I paid MINUS the refund voucher) to this month's grocery challenge. More money than that has come off my credit card, but it will rebalance itself next month when I spend the voucher. It all gets very complicated. I kind of enjoyed it, it's like a game, to see whether I can beat Tesc0 on their home ground. Like most gambling, bear in mind that the house always wins in the end - I got a massive voucher, but I have to go back to them to spend it.