September 2008 Grocery Challenge. Please read first two posts.

cammumof3

crockpot wrote: »

Hi

I am manageing well on my cash purse of £50 a week for 2 adults and 2 school adged children.

But we were invited out to lunch the other day and it got me thinking.

My friend has 4 children,2 homes and a much larger income and mortgage than me, but as a % greater debt than me I guess.

Anyhow lunch was bogof pizza £3.50 each plus salad with shop bought goodies for afters.

I know she had been shopping the night before,but I have never seen a fridge so full or cupboards with not a smartprice/value tin anywhere!

I would not pay £3.50 or a pizza even on bogof, I make my own in the bread maker,fridge and cupboards are never full but half full with lots of smart price/value/lidl tins and packets.

I never buy branded items unless on offer and cheaper.

I cook from scratch and home bake.

Should i worry, admit we do not have much freash veg-use frozen but fruit bowl always full.

Blimey, I'm with you on this one.
I buy cheap stuff, own supermarkets stuff.
Years ago I used to buy branded items but then realised we couldn't actually afford them so went to the cheap ones. Hubby moaned and said he didnt like them so I said tough get used to them. Hehehehe
I used to buy pizzas, but NEVER would pay a price of that much, esp at a BOGOF price.
I have made my own dough before (once) and wanted to do it again but didnt want to have the wait for rising etc, so was just buying frozen CHEAp ones, now I know I can do the dough in my BM I will not buy a frozen pizza again (a supermarket pizza again)
We dont buy much fresh veg, we have what we get from the garden and we buy frozen veg, MY fruit bowl is always full too.
We have nothing what so ever to worry about.
Sorry but it's them that have something to worry about.

Herewegoagain

Hiya guys,
Just got back from mr m £14.78 and Lidl £3.49 totalling £18.27 so far for Sept, and had 2 NSD's too:j

I'm away on fri to my aunts funneral and so am going to try not to spend anything for the rest of the week as I have no control over what my relief will spend while I'm away and do not want to have the budget blown:eek: :eek: :eek:

EL, I do the same with my creditcard but have opened an e-saver account with the same bank, transfer the GC money in there until needed, making much more interrest, and it can be transfered between the accounts in 5 seconds, amazing:T :T :T I love it, BUT make sure it is all done on time and CC is paid on time and you can't lose:D
Good luck guys with Sept, especially to the newbies hugs to those who need them

HWGA xx

cammumof3

Janey51 wrote: »

Hi. I have seen so much written about this challenge that I would like to join please
I am recently widowed and am also in a DMP with the CCCS.
Shopping only for myself is a whole new ball game....not a situation I wanted to be in :sad:
I have just had the annual review of my DMP and the CCCS counsellor says I can have £140 per month for food, toiletries etc and £20 for 3 cats :eek:
This seems a huge amount to me as I don't eat a lot :rolleyes:

I think I will go for £100 in September though and save the rest.
Does that seem reasonable to all you experts as a starting point?
I have been monitoring my spending closely as I belong to the £4000 challenge as well but things fell apart when my DH died suddenly in June.

Hi
Sorry for your loss, but welcome to MSE.
I'm sure someone will be able to help you more, I haven't been on here long my self, I have 2 adults, 3 kids and 2 dogs so wouldn't know about feeding 1 person.
Someone prob replied by now any way
Caz

Moniker

Hello everyone - have been really busy the last few days and it has taken me about 2 hours to catch up with all the posts! Back to work tomorrow, so not sure if I will be able to keep up!

Have updated my sig and you will see that I have spent nearly half my September budget already! This was mainly because of a bulk online order from Sainsbury's which covered cleaning materials and stuff like flour and cereals. Now well stocked up and will only need to buy the fresh stuff each week.

Today I tried a new dish in the slow cooker - a stuffed loin of pork. I bought one in Sainsbury's because it looked so lovely and fresh. When I got it home I decided that I could cut it in half (it weighed about 2lbs). One half went in the freezer and the other I unrolled and stuffed with hm sage and onion stuffing. I tied it back up and sealed it in the frying pan then bunged it in the slow cooker for about 2 1/2 hours on high. It was fantastic! I sliced it really thinly so that there's enough to have cold with jacket potatoes and salad tomorrow. So I will get 8 meals for under a £1 each out of this - I know some people do better than this but it was really nice and cooking in the sc meant it was tender and didn't shrink as much as when you use the oven. I still did roasties though and as the oven was on I made a batch of Twinks and a victoria sponge for the freezer.

Have been good and made a proper spreadsheet with my freezer contents on so I am hoping that this will help me stay on track and on budget this month.

Not looking forward to going back to work - I have enjoyed playing at being a domestic goddess this summer! Still with your help I hope to maintain the same high standards!

Good luck everyone.

love Moniker

jackk_2

cammumof3 wrote: »

Blimey, I'm with you on this one.
I buy cheap stuff, own supermarkets stuff.
Years ago I used to buy branded items but then realised we couldn't actually afford them so went to the cheap ones. Hubby moaned and said he didnt like them so I said tough get used to them. Hehehehe
I used to buy pizzas, but NEVER would pay a price of that much, esp at a BOGOF price.
I have made my own dough before (once) and wanted to do it again but didnt want to have the wait for rising etc, so was just buying frozen CHEAp ones, now I know I can do the dough in my BM I will not buy a frozen pizza again (a supermarket pizza again)
We dont buy much fresh veg, we have what we get from the garden and we buy frozen veg, MY fruit bowl is always full too.
We have nothing what so ever to worry about.
Sorry but it's them that have something to worry about.

Hi there, i always make my own pizza bases, but never wait around for them to rise, i'm far to impatient . i just whack the topping straight on, but we all prefer a thin crust pizza.

Jackie x

Borneogirl

BigMummaF wrote: »

Welcome Newbies--hope you enjoy being in Our Gang
Welcome Back to those who have abstained for a while, whatever the reasons.
Good Vibes to the home movers/ students/ job seekers.
Hugs & handshakes to everyone

Special mentions for the newly singles...for whatever reason...please remember that you are having to adjust to a lot of different situations just now So while keeping an eye on what you spend in the supermarket is a good idea, try not to give yourselves a bad time if the bargain hunting gets a bit lost in the whole scheme of things OK?

BorneoGirl are the cereal bars you make similar to flapjacks? I adore the chewy type that has seeds &/or dried fruit in them but can't get the mix right, so would you mind posting your recipe please? Mine are too dry & crumble when I take them out of the dish, let alone trying to wrap for lunchboxes Need to research an asian market but think they are rarer than Hen's Teeth down here like many other places you folk mention.

Spends are £14:06 in MrS; £10:74 Farm Shop & £16:91 in Wilkos but that inc a new curtain rail but it's for the Kitchen & downstairs loo :whistle:

Hi Big Mamma F, Yes mine are like flapjacks, heres a link to the recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1605/ontherun-breakfast-bars.

As long as the basic quantities for the component ingrediants are the same, I chuck in whatever I've got to hand - nuts, seeds, raisins, dried apricots etc.

I've just made my 3rd batch of these (This time with 1/2 oats and 1/2 fruit and fibre cereal). The last time they came out quite crumbly, but I think this is because I substituted 1/2 the butter for mashed up banana, or because I used jumbo oats rather than the finer oats which may bind better to the other ingrediants?. This time I also used 1/2 banana, but cooked them for longer - more like 45 mins (having checked them after 35 mins), and they've turned out much firmer. Might also be firmer and chewier if you tried using all butter. Guess when it cools the butter 'solidifies' to hold the bar together.

Hope that they work out ok for you!:j

kellitots

Well, we have worked out our revised budget for the month and it looks like we only have £160 MAX to spend on groceries so it looks like I shall be having a fab first GC, at least £40 under :rotfl:

OH has agreed to have a beans on toast week so we can have the £160 to spend from next week. Well we do have a few other jars and packets in the cupboard to use up so I am hoping we will have enough to last a week, then can go spend £50 at the supermarket.

Went to a wedding yesterday and had a huuuge carvery, still feel full from that! So at least we haven't spent today. :A

xx

Edited to add: Soooo grateful we managed to quit smoking...not sure how we could have afforded it this/last month!

toottifrootti

Hi everyone
have just declared on august challenge - My first Gc challenge and came in at £16.28 UNDER budget so well pleased.
Can I have a target of £100 for September please?
I was hoping to keep up with the thread this month but there's already 10 pages!!! lol
Good luck all
TF xx

*BigBird*

cammumof3 wrote: »

Oh no, I know how you feel.
This happened to me.
I bought a bag of Mr A's own flour and went to make something with it that afternoon. Well, I opened it and it had loads of moving things in it, I couldnt look. I screamed and jumped back by about 2 miles :eek:
Lucky my mum was here so she checked it and she had to wrap it up and seal it so none could get out. We took it back to Mr A and had to fill out a form and I got a Mr A card with 5 pound credit on it, to encourage me back again. (It worked)
But I cant stand things like that.
I too emptied out my cupboard and checked every thing, I have my flour and stuff like that in Tupperware (and empty squash bottles now too) but I still checked everything.
My mum put celotape over the top and I made her wrap it tight in a Asda bag,
Caz

Eek, there must be some kind of weevil pandemic :eek: Took a bag of MrT bread flour out of the cupboard earlier and spotted a wee beastie strolling along the shelf. After I had splatted him, I opened the bag and found his friends!!! Will they have infested the rest of the cupboard? All of the other flour in there is in plastic containers - would they get into anything else, like the custard powder? I'll have to go weevil hunting now... Then off to find the receipt and take my infested flour back to MrT tomorrow :rolleyes:

Have just declared my August spends on the August thread - £432.42. A whopping £84.42 over-spend :eek: (and not helped by having to spend £1.25 on a replacement bag of bread flour in the local Co-Op earlier :mad:)

Have done an inventory of the freezers and worked out a meal plan for the next week. Will work on it some more tomorrow to cover the rest of September. I've already dipped into my September budget as I popped into Makro on Friday to see if buying rice and pasta in bulk worked out cheaper than getting it from MrT. Rice didn't seem to be much cheaper, but pasta was so I now have a huge bag of tr-colour fusilli. They also had 24-packs of Charmin loo roll at £8.99+VAT - on BOGOF. I worked that out as 22p per roll, so we now have over 50 loo rolls in the house, which should last till til the end of the year :T

Been a busy bee in the kitchen today as I have to take cakes to work tomorrow, since it was my birthday last week. I have made gingerbread men, millies cookies, banana & choc muffins and iced buns (well, they aren't iced yet - in fact I may take the icing sugar to work and do them there so that they don't all stick together in transit). I'll also take some of the apple & blackberry muffins I made earlier in the week. Just hope none of my home-made goodies poison anyone!! :rotfl:

hoglet121

Hi everyone,

My first month doing the Grocery Challenge and I'm feeling very motivated! Bought no treats at all in weekly shop and have been doing some baking instead, all of which received very well by kids - very happy about that!!

Trying to cut down spending as I'm getting married next year - having a fairly cheap wedding but hoping to ahve some spare cash for a fantastic honeymoon.

Fingers crossed for a successful month!