October 2008 Grocery Challenge. Please read first two posts.

Barneysmom

HI, just updated my sig, spent £29 in Mr.M's today. Got 6 carrier bags :cool: of shopping, including whoops chicken and potatoes so did a nice tea.
Coated the chicken in cajun spice, put it in the bosh pan with onions, carrots and tinned toms and served with jackets spuds with chilli and cheese in. Yummy, sleep like a log tonight!

Julimk

I had my first experiments today with stretching my mince. I don’t have a slow cooker so it was all hob cooking. I turned 800g of beef mince into 8 portions of chilli con carne AND 8 portions of cottage pie.

I used 100g of reconstituted soya mince (about 25p) & a couple of handfuls of red lentils (about 10p) for each 400g of beef mince, added with the wet ingredients after the beef had been browned.

It needed a lot more liquid than I would normally use & I added a splash of hot water from the kettle whenever it looked a bit dry. Otherwise I pretty much made them as I would normally but with double the amount of other ingredients (such as 2 cans of tomatoes rather than 1). And kept it simmering until there was a consistent colour & texture.

DD didn’t see me cooking the meat mixture for the cottage pie but said that it looked delicious when she saw it in the oven dish. She helped add the mashed potato topping & polished off a plateful for supper, declaring it very meaty. So a success I think!

I also had HM ‘Anglo-Indian’ cream of tomato soup & HM quiche for lunch (with more portions for later in the week).

Slight dent to this month’s target, due to a couple of bits that couldn’t wait; feeling fairly optimistic though with today’s cooking, also 8 portions of fish pie before this & still some UFOs (mostly chicken curry variations, I think) & left over roast chicken from the weekend.

BigSpender2_2

Please count me in.
October budget 330

Sept actual 318 - family of 4

gtx

kiwiblue wrote: »

I have printed out a calender for the month and stuck it on the fridge, will record all spending on it

- what a good idea, i'm definitely stealing it!

came in under budget by a couple of pounds for sept - my mth runs 23rd - 22nd so i'm almost through my 1st week - determined to do even better this mth.

thanks for your recipes everyone (specially mrs m;) )- they've been a big help, spent most of yesterday cooking and then freezing stuff for this month.
i've even done a meal plan for the month to help keep focused and i've posted this weeks on that thread!

apologies to anyone who hasn't been thanked - yes i have read all 7 pages - but my laptop seems to be picking and choosing who to thank - i promise i've clicked them all

off to join the dfw thread now - os has helped so much getting bills down - i actually have some money leftover now and want to seriously tackle my debts instead of just not increasing them - hope that made sense.

good luck for oct everyone:T

BigSpender2_2

Now here's a puzzler!

I have set a budget for October for groceries of 330. I have just realised we have friends coming over for dinner on Sat.

My question is - should I work out how much the food costs and ignore it for budget or count it as part of main 330 budget?????

morwenna

What's the occasion - what do you have planned? My take would be to include it in the budget, unless you can lose it on business expenses or whatever, the budget IS what you have to spend on food IYSWIM?

vickistorey

Hi all,

This is the first time I have done the grocery challenge so hope I do it right!!!

My budget for the month is going to be £300 - this is for myself and hubby and 2 small children.

I have no idea how much we normally spend on groceries so this will be an interesting month I am sure!!!

Right, I am off to do an online shop and hopefully grab some special offers too - good luck to everyone!!!

BigSpender2_2

Would it be possible to amend the list so it shows how many in the family? 4 in mine - 2 adults - 2 children, 1- 2.5 yrs, 2- 7 mths. Can then decide what is the average per person?

urg123

Hi Everyone,

Please can I go on for £90 this month?

I failed miserably last month - takeaways and snacks at work were my downfall. I WILL achieve this month.

Good luck everyone.

URG x

echelon101

Bought some Natco Palm Sugar 500g for 99p