A no spend January with limited grocery shopping spend

[MikeRafone]

Im needing a detox from spending for January

Ive cancelled my amazon prime account - for now as I rarely use it until easter so it saves £35

all my bills will go out by direct debit and standing order by 2nd of the month

Im going to set a limit of £4 per person per day for the grocery shopping so £28 per person per week. We have a lot of left overs, some of which im going to freeze for January.

Coffee at home rather than out in a coffee shop, no hitting the sales for stuff no-one else wanted!

Im wanting as many no spend days as possible for January

anyone want to join?

9/15 NSD is brilliant! I’m on six I think.

You say that as Im just looking at flights to malaga!! Though the price is very good for a quick get away

Ha! I've just been Googling flights to France so I am also guilty.

NSDs yesterday and today.

I've been out for a walk today and rather than buy a coffee I came home and had one instead. I'm going to try for NSDs tomorrow, Thursday and Friday as well, apart from bus fare to work (which doesn't count as I put money on my bus fare app last week).

Saturday won't be a NSD though as we have family visiting and are going out for lunch. I've just had a lovely 10 minutes or so looking at the menu and planning!

We're in credit today. DH bought some walking boots a few months ago, and despite being leather the outer layer is breaking up. Shop agreed to take them back - he realised after he bought them he'd made a mistake, so quite pleased he had a reason to return.

Staff double discount at work - so topped up on toiletries, but that's well worth doing as they work out a lot cheaper than anywhere else with discount.

3 weeks in total grocery spend is £271.21 which is half of what it would normally be at this point in the month (6 adults/teens, 2 cats & household stuff). In addition to that there's been some pharmacy costs (another £3.50 this morning) a couple of extra cartons milk from Tesco & a bottle of wine (paid out of the petrol account which is work related & I budget separately). I've had to get two birthday cards (nectar vouchers) and some bits from amazon (coffee & kids' school stuff - but I had amazon vouchers so have only 'spent' £8).

I do have extra costs coming up - ds needs some sports kit replacing (~£50), and I have a birthday present to get (again ~£50). I'll also have to spend more on toiletries which are running down - I tend to bulk buy x3/year. Big car expense should be covered reasonably comfortably by next salary without having to borrow from savings which is such a relief.

February is our tightest month (I'm self employed and it's my 'dead' month) so no let up. It feels much easier now a few weeks in.

Ended up spending £87 on food yesterday- hoping it will last a week.

I did stock up on a few things though. Just bought cat litter so that's another £25 as she likes the expensive stuff!

Not intending to spend anything today.

Hi everyone there is a link on money saving expert weekly email from yesterday to £20 off an Asda online shop if you’ve not used them before, min spend before the voucher is £60, just ordered mine total ended up at £43.50 inc delivery, I also used cheddar for cashback which came to £1.10

happy to share links if allowed

I have shopped at Asda before, but thats really nice of you to let others know they have offers

Im £400 up today as i noticed that an American company who provide details of people’s private names/addresses/phone numbers in the US had been taking £30 per month from my credit card for over a year!! Huge thank you to Capital One who refunded it- but I only use that credit card for Klarna payments I hadn’t thought to look at the statement on the app.

£302.00 spends to date
9/15 no spend days so far this month

Thank you for this, I signed up and have received a code for £20 off my first shop :-)

That’s a very good grocery spend @heatdeath- well done!

£302.00 spends to date
9/15 no spend days so far this month

Yesterday I got fruit and stir fry from M&S, as I didn't get food out of freezer soon enough.. £7.50

and today ive been to Costco - where I spent the grand total of £17.50

£327

9/15

What does this mean MikeRafone?

I think it means no spend days.
I would love a Costco membership, but I wouldn’t be able to trust myself.
I would end up with enough toilet rolls to survive a zombie apocalypse in a sugar coma from the birthday cake they sell.
I actually have a spare drawer in one of my freezers!!!

its the amount of no spends days I have achieved, 9 days so far and I set myself the goal of 15 days in January of not spending - not sure im going to get to 15...

RubySparrow

I don't have membership, my eldest dc does. So we went today but it's not a regular occurrence. I am very strict when I do go and know what Im looking for and how much it would cost elsewhere. I didn't buy chicken thighs as they were cheaper per kilo in Sainsbury. I did get a 1kg tub of options hot chocolate and this was £9 against £5.40 per small jar in Sainsbury.

My other dc wanted the XXXl fairy washing powder, so we picked her a box up and it was £24 with vat. The last one she had has just finished, she purchased it in September 2024 and washes laundry most days as has a family.

The fuel was £1.21.9 opposed to local garages £131.9 so dc filled up her car.

That’s brilliant, I’m not sure I have such self control!
My cousin has membership and was saying the fuel was great price. She checks prices. And I know she buys toilet rolls and laundry detergent etc.
She did offer for me to join when she next goes.

I returned £160 worth of clothes from this little escapade. Happy to have the money back. Quality of what was delivered wasn't worth the money even at reduced price. I have cut my reliance on ubers. Waiting for the bus has had to be fine! We are still not great with eating out. Its the one thing we enjoy. We don't drink or smoke. Still at least once a week. This has been a bad week, twice so far since start of the week. I tend to try to recreate what we like at home. Have managed to make decent onigiri, nasi goreng, mee goreng, chicken katsu curry etc but not brave enough for sushi or dumplings. May have to have another look to reduce the restaurant spends.

Its the 23rd of Jan. I get paid next Wednesday I have managed to keep the saved cash from Dec salary and I don't think I will need to move anything before next payday 🤞🏾. Overall I gave felt good/OK about the changes we have made. we are heading in the right direction.

We think we save money at costco, so we go, but once a month and no more than that.
It works for us because we do our big spends there. In the sale, always compared with what we would be able to get on the high street. New dining table and chairs is our latest(definitely needed - looking for the 18months prior) spend. We saved at least £900 compared to high street. More as it was in their sale.

We have had the executive membership for 3 yrs and we have not had to pay the fee in this time because we spend enough there to cover it. If that stops we will go back to the normal membership. The quality of the food from there is awesome. We buy our salmon and fresh prawns there. It's cheaper per kilo than from the fishmonger.

This is an impressive costco spend. This is the type of determination I need to find.

Good news, I’ve just been on my credit card app and they’ve given me a credit for the amount of interest they’d charged me 😃

I’ve spent £77.80 on groceries this week.
This included cake ingredients and sweets to take in to school.

We went out one night for ds’ birthday. The activity cost £70 but that was planned for so came out of birthday funds. We also had dinner out but were able to use Clubcard vouchers for the food so only paid £18 for drinks.

Our cat litter subscription came, I had delayed this twice and we were on our last bag so it was needed this month. That’s £30/month though so quite an expense -more than I spend on loo roll for human toileting that’s for sure! (one cat has allergies and reacts badly to the cheap stuff)

I also forgot to delay another subscription so have skipped it for next quarter instead. £44 for DH’s supplements. It’s so much cheaper to get them on subscribe and save but the max time they allow is three months and we only need them every six so end up with a backlog if I forget to skip.

With Costco I have an online membership which I mainly use for coffee beans (but they’ve stopped doing the ones I like). I do find I have to price check everything though as lots is more expensive per kg than the supermarket so doing an order takes me a while. The downside of the online only membership is that I miss out on all the fresh food which is where I think lots of the savings are.

@Ireolu our local Chinese/specialist supermarkets all sell frozen dumplings which my Chinese friend buys rather than making her own!

I have made them myself but they are really quite fiddly. But, impressive for guests.

I have managed 10 no spend days so far in Jan and my January credit card bill is £1,000 less than December (i do pay it off every month!)

Payday on Tuesday
Away for 7 of the days in February
I'm going to aim for 7 no spend days. This excludes groceries that we "need" I.e I'll pick up milk but not what I "want" a unplanned ready dinner because I am feeling lazy etc.
It's been a dreadful month here but I am firmly in the black so I'll keep it as a win.