September Challenge

Mary over at Owlhaven has many times before set challenges to spend less each week on groceries.

She has even written 2 books on the subject of feeding a feast on a set amount per week and also how she survives with 12 in the family! Yes she has 10 children!

So I have decided that I am going to try my hardest to cut down on our grocery bill during September. It means no more impulse buys in September. No deciding to just nip to the supermarket for some meat for dinner when there is plenty at home in the freezer.

I do go to the supermarket during the week, but only for bread and fresh fruit. I have always done this and have always managed to walk in and walk out again with only the things I need. Sadly I love fresh bread rather than frozen and I am not stopping this as this is one area I will not compromise on!

It means sticking to the menu that my shopping list is built around.

It means using what we have at home in the cupboard first before deciding to rush out to the supermarket because we feel there is nothing to eat. Maybe even making up a batch of cookies from scratch so that there are sweet things to eat if someone fancies something.

I do already look at our weekly bill and sometimes wonder where the money goes, I do follow a budget shopping list that I created, along with the menu, with advise from Sophie Grey, Destitute Gourmet. But still each week I look at the bill as we pay and wonder what the hell I have brought that made it cost so much?

I could go the whole hog and totally buy budget products on everything, but I am sorry, you only live once so why should I have to eat tasteless spaghetti on toast and use shampoo that always seems to dry my hair out?

I do already look at the cost of what I am buying and see if there is something slightly cheaper. I also check out the cost of buying the product in bulk over the single pack we need.

A classic for this is the rice we buy. You can buy it in a 1kg bag or a 5kg bag.

The 1kg bag is about $3.75 whereas the 5kg bag is $19.99.

A quick calculation and you soon realise that it is cheaper to buy 5 x 1kg bads than it is to buy 1 x 5kg bag. Sneaky on their part!

I am also getting very good now at buying only what we need for that week, not just deciding that we need tomatoes, so lets just buy 3 tins, when in fact for the week we only need 1.

So here goes the challenge, on Saturday, our first weekly shop for September (as I only just read about the challenge today so couldn't start it at the weekend just gone!) I will indever to bring our shopping bill down, I will question every item that goes in the trolley to ensure we actually need it. I will try to find a slightly cheaper alternative with out compromising my taste.

I will also keep you posted with how it is all going.

Wish me luck....! Oh and maybe you could set yourself a challenge too?