my spending dairy

A question about : my spending dairy

hi i hope you dont mind but im going to put my spending habits down on this thread as it has been sugested that i start a spending dairy for a month to see how much money i waste (if i put it on paper i will only lose it) feel free to coment if you feel im doing somthing wrong so here it gose

monday 29 may
sainsburry weekly food shop 61.00

tueday 30 may
sainsburrys again items brought was one pack of choc biscutes 99p
one loaf of white bread 99p
four pints of milk 120p
2 slices of chicken 67p
2 choc muffins 139p
1 pkt of mushrooms 69p
2 toms 34p
i bag of toffees 78p
one paper 35p

i can allready see that i shouldnt of had to buy any of this if i done the shopping right yesterday will try harder tomorrow

Best answers:

• 99p for a loaf of bread? That's the only thing there that looks particularly shocking to me.
  I'm probably not the right person to give advice - I've never been one for the weekly shop, I'm just not organised enough.
• Have you thought about shopping somewhere a little less - um - expensive?
  I shop at Nettos, always turned my nose up but I'm now really impressed. The veg always looks really good, and the range of stuff is excellent. If you're not fussed on your food having a 'designer' label then it works out pretty cheap. I did my weekly shop this morning - bear in mind we're living outt he freezer at the moment, and I meal-plan like a demented woman. I spent under £6 - milk, cheese, 3 packs of butter (cos I bake a lot), biscuits for dd, chilli in a jar & garlic.
  Milk at Nettos at the mo is 99p for 4 pints, and on offer so buy 8 pints for £1.70. I buy the large packs of wafer thin chicken then freeze half to avoid it going off. Does us for 2 weeks and I pay £1.67.
  Don't forget your local markets, not only are they ultra cheap, but they need our support. I got a fantastic turkey breast steak for £1.49 that fed me and DD for 3 days!
  I'd give it a go, you might surprise yourself. (Sorry for posting a lecture!)
• Everything except the milk surprises me!
• I think you're right, you spent £61 monday and yet still needed to buy the other items tuesday!
  Did you go in with a list?
  I dont want to sound like I'm being mean because I get caught up in Tesco's buying rubbish because I fancy it, but none of it has any nutrional value and costs me a fortune!
  Something stupid like £1 in every £5 (spent by UK consumers) is spent with Tesco! Well I say NO MORE!!!!
  My £1's will not be those 1's!!!!
  It's hard to be super strict with yourself, I know, I'm still struggling now.
  £61 is an expensive shop for a week.Is that just on person or two?
• There seems to be a lot of this in your shopping:
  quite a bit of chocolate
  quite a lot of biscuits
  expensive meat (sirloin steak)
  more expensive meat (steak mince)
  mars bars
  snickers bars
  half a ciabatta for a quid!!
  ready made mash!! for the price of 10lbs of potatoes
  lots of butter
  lots of crisps
  cakes
  NOT MANY MEALS IN THERE AT ALL
• Hi Dazzanator (love the name btw!)
  well done for typing out your shopping - must have taken a while!
  There are loads of cakes on there! god I hope I don't sound patronising now - but have you thought about making some? Loads cheaper - the initial outlay of eggs, flour, butter, caster sugar, and icing sugar is next to nothing really.....could be something to do with the kids at the weekend as well.
  you could cut out the paper cost by reading it online?
  would you benefit from a bread machine maybe?
  Just suggestions, and again hope you don't think I am being rude. I might post mine at the weekend because I am sure I could get some useful insight into it too.
  Brgds
  Sam
• Yes, I think theres lots of room for improvments there.
  Your wife doenst have to be slaving over a hot stove all the time to knock up some sweet stuff like fruit in jelly or flapjacks. Way cheaper too, and so much better as they dont have weird chemicals in.
  theres hardly any veg in there, which is probably why you are snacking a lot too.
  Have a look at my diary thread to give you an idea what we have in a week, should give you some ideas. We do it for about 25 a week for two. all in, with the cleaning stuff, toiletries, lunches the lot. No wonder im skint when I was wasting over 75 a week !!
  Lynz
  x
• Dazza,
  Completely with you on the cheap meat idea.I never buy it for the same reasons you dont, and also OH has high cholsterol and so we cant have fatty meat in any case.
  If you cut back on the snacks, and just have HM cakes etc, then thats much better, a bag of value flour & butter goes a long way Snacks witohut fruit are toast, crumpets, flapjacks, breadsticks, crackers & cheese, stuff like that.
  I dont eat fruit much either, but will have strawbs & rasperries, one of my faves is
  https://www.waitrose.com/food_drink/r...e/jun03-02.asp which we have when strawbs are cheap, which is right about NOW! Of course we dont have the organic ice cream, it tastes fab with just bog standard ice cream.
  Getting your food costs down is complete meal planning. ONe takeaway a week, is wasteful really, surely the "lazy food" of fish fingers type thing could be done on the shopping day, its not that hard or time consuming to do really is it? :confused:
• Do you have a local butcher? - we've started buying our meat from there, it's better quality than the supermarket's and they often do 4 items for a tenner which is good value.
  Also, if you like mars bars etc have you tried Lidl? They do 'Mister Choc' chocolates that are really similar to Mars/Twix etc. My hubby is a bit of a food snob, hates anything Value etc but he eats these happily and has also been impressed with the quality of their other food.
• I think you could save loads of money on your food shop by improving your diet. You are hardly eating any veg at all, so if you don't eat fruit you should really try to eat more, and perhaps a greater variety than just beans, peas and tomatoes. You could learn to make your own tasty mash as well, it isn't difficult and if your wife just can't manage it why don't you do it? Having a take away once a week isn't going to help your budget either, and most of your meals sound pretty quick to prepare anyway.
  For snacks have you tried dried fruit? or rice cakes? orat cakes with some low fat spread, or maybe hummous? you could make your own flapjacks (only takes about 5 minutes to prepare before putting in the oven, and far better than shop bought ones). In the summer you could make your own ice lollys with squash or fruit juice. Also how about yoghurts as a snack? Just a few ideas tha aren't chocolate based, but still not fruit if you really don't like it.
• wednesday 31 may
  supermarket
  2 chicken slices 34p
  4 pints of milk 120
  4 twix 38p each
  the sun 35
  tobbca 536
  rizzlas 99
  total 862
  chemist
  drinking cup for son 449
  teats for bottle 249
  total 698
  bakers
  2 sauage rolls 150
  so in total today money spent is 1710 why i dont know i think my wife bordom shops
• Dazza,
  I think you need to get to the bottom of this.
  This drinking cup for your son, Im sorry, they can be bought WAY cheaper than that, poundshops, markets, asdas etc.
  2 sausage rolls from the bakers cost more than buying a pack of 10 frozen ones and heating them up at home. Buying 4 twixes seperately costs more than buying a mulitpack of them from tescos or wherever.
  I know you probably know this. Have you sat down and worked out how muhc PER DAY you & OH can spend? this might shock her into action.
  DOes she woprk or have hobbies? Maybe she should join up here and while away a couple of hours instead of spending :confused:
• hi i have spoken to wife about this and asked about the cup she said that she brought from the chemist as if she had brought from the suppermarket there baby range is better and she felt she would have brought even more stuff like plates bowles ect so she thought by staying out of that department she would have saved money
  the bakers thing was because she had to take little one to docs and they had to wait a long time and the time she got out it was past there lunch time and they was hungary so she got them some lunch but chose not to buy herself a sandwich and wait untill she got home
  the twix thing she says you are right but they was buy the tills the kids was pestering she was flusterd because of the wait in the docs and just brought them
  the reason i am doing this dairy is so i can look back see where the moneys going and change things so we dont waste as much i dont mind my wife buying things but if she can see on here where our money gose im sure she will do her bit to cut it back the choc thing is habit but we when we do the weekly shopwe will buy less junk and buy extra bread cheese crackers to snax on instead thank you for all you input its great