January 2011 Grocery Challenge

Having quite a good month, so far only spent £188, but i suspect there may be receipts hiding somewhere. Hubbie hasnt been to the shop since he spent over £90 in morrisons on !!!!!! all!! I managed to get last weeks shop for £33. We have a new store near us called Booths, which whilst expensive has fantastic markdowns and staff will mark stuff down for you if you take it to them! so have been popping in there late in the evening and then trying to fit the plan round the markdowns,
Also morrisons is doing some really good offers at the moment.

good luck all for the rest of jan

Haven't really had the chance to update or catch up on most of the posts... i can't get my head around meal planning at all I work 2 jobs and my OH works shifts so one week we are both at home for dinner all week and the next its only 4 nights out the week we are both in.

If i do decide to plan what we are having by the time i get home i don't want what im supposed to be eating and neither does he How do you all manage it??

I've got beef olives and mince defrosting in the fridge at the moment.... the beef olives are for tonights dinner and im going to make lasagne for OH to take to work for dinner for this week but thats as far as i get.

I've still got £29.70 to last me till the end of january and only really need to get bread and milk which i will do today.

We seem to be managing to stick to the budget but we aren't including things that we buy for lunch if we could have taken something out the house... its coming out our own money so its making me more likely to take something out the house as i really don't want to spend my money :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Buddiebabe x

catslovelycats wrote: »

updated siggy to reflect £5.49 spend at Toby Carvery today
Although not groceries, my food budget includes eating out
hoping I can come within budget for next Monday

In my grocery budget, I count my lunches, eating out and takeaways as well. Its all too easy to pop to chippy and sandwich shop - also more expensive, better for waistline and less food waste. :j
Kx

Another 89p for milk - which leaves me with 18.31 till next Monday:eek: I have a small shopping list made out for during the week and am determined to stick to it:)

Hello All, :hello:

katholicos wrote: »

... Just wanted to say echo what others have written about there being no 'particular' way of participating in the GC challenge. Just as there is no one way of participating in the NSD challenge. It's only right that each individual should decide what they will record as 'spends'. Also, i find it is important to maintain a healthy attitude towards both challenges ...in other words, if i have spend days i had hoped would have been NSD's or if i go over my GC monthly budget, that is not a bad thing. It is an experience i will try to learn from, but it really isn't worth beating myself up over. Any attempts at 'cutting one's cloth according to one's means' are attempts well made, at least in my book. Not that there has to be a financial motivation for all of us, some of us may want to participate in the GC so that we feed ourselves and our families healthier, home cooked food, eat better quality food but less of it, shop for food that is locally produced, 'live better on less' as the saying goes.

There are no right ways and no wrong ways of approaching the GC.

Speaking from my own experience participating in the GC has had a significant impact on reducing my spending, and as my financial situation is currently rather dire, i couldn't be more pleased that I joined in the challenge. This thread has been enormously helpful in influencing my personal approach to getting the most out of every penny spent on groceries, without compromising on the taste or quality, and even quantity of them (for the most part).

Well done to EVERYONE who is/has participated in this months GC.

I'm so glad to be back on board

What a wonderful post katholicos. :T I agree wholeheartedly with everything you've said.

supersally01 wrote: »

... I was chuffed that I had done a shop week last friday, and did not enter another shop till today - over a week of NSD!!!! NEVER known that before, so pretty chuffed with myself. Now I know I can do it, hope for a repeat this week!

Some good progress on the home improvements! Now getting the bathroom floor tiled first, and the plumber is coming to replace the bathroom taps and lift the toilet. The tiler cannot do the kitchen until a week on monday, at at least things are moving now.
The plumber is also putting a quote together for fitting a new shower, so I MUST KEEP UP THE CHALLENGE!, to pay for that. I am so pleased that I started this, have not felt that I have skimped on food quantity or quality - just shopped smarter, and got out of the spending habit. Keep up the good work all, here's to Feb's GC!!!

Brilliant achievement on the NSD Supersally! :T And how lovely that you are able to make positive improvements in other areas of your life that really show you the benefits. A wonderful story! :A

Ooopps, meant to also quote Missus AKA but missed it! :doh: For the most part I will list things bought in bulk in the month the money is spent. But for some things e.g. wash liquid I do transfer the spend to the next month or two. This is easy for me as I have a spreadsheet to log my spends (so in January I had a £6 spend but all NSDs as I bought wash liquid a couple of months earlier that I knew wouldn't be touched - and it still isn't!:p) but wouldn't be so easy if I didn't use that. However, I don't ever bulk buy in the way that you have which I think would be difficult to allocate to months. So, for what it's worth, I think the plan you have devised for your household is great and will relieve any stress for you. :whistle:

I've updated the sig. We went and got bits from town yesterday, grocer, butcher and coop and we now stand at £110.87 so far. I will need to get milk at some point, probably tomorrow, and unfortunately will need to get this at MrT due to the uncooperation of the coop!

This is such a long month. It still seems like ages until the month end on a week Tuesday. _pale_ And while we should be fine on the GC budget this month, the more I think about it the more likely it is that my OP on the mortgage will have to be reduced at the start of Feb due to other expenditure 'catching up'. :huh: I've spent a year without using the overdraft and it's killing me that we have slipped into it now. So need to steady the ship a little bit. :think: I could just leave it run and adjust later but I'd rather keep the bank account steady and chuck extra in to the mortgage later in the year once we are back on an even keel iyswim. :undecided

On a more positive note, OH is currently making up our last batch of marmalade at the moment. :dance: The first lot is delish but could have done with maybe 20 minutes less cooking as it is very thick and sticky. A bit like the consistency of thick golden syrup but with a fantastic orange flavour. :drool: Mind you, if I can get any more sevilles I may get him to make some more and then we definitely wouldn't have to buy branded stuff again this year.

I'm just gonna have some lovely toasted hm malted bread with good Welsh butter and the hm marmalde then off into the garden to do a little bit more pruning. And maybe walk out the area where we plan digging over and putting in raised beds to grow more veggies this year. :T Also I'm gonna calculate how many fruit bushes I can get into the borders so that we'll be a little more self sufficient with that too. I lay in bed just dreaming about it and mentally planning this morning when I woke up. Very excited to be moving on with this project. :dance:

Right so that's me for now. I'm gonna look at the boards for a few minutes while I have my toast and I'll be back to read about your weekend later. Have a great Sunday and keep up the brilliant work everyone. :wave:

All the best,
Spigs