October 2008 Grocery Challenge. Please read first two posts.

funkyfunkymonkey

Mrs M, could you put me down for £250 for October please. Thank you.

FFM

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I made a pastry by mixing together flour, suet and water and rolled it out. and lined a dish with it. Then I emptied out a tin of corned beef and half a jar of piccalilli into the dish, covered it up with more pastry and baked it.

rellaella

Well, I have just completed my 1st week on the Grocery Challenge and don't think I did too badly! Spent £125.07 - I include everything in my budget except for clothes and birthday presents. There are 4 of us (me, hubby, 2 children aged 6 & 4). Had school trip to pay for and am still waiting to have a NSD!!!! Have been batch cooking, that feels great to know that for the sake of a couple of hours cooking we can have meals prepared for the week!!! I've been making Slimming World curries and this week plan on:
Stir-Fry - using leftover beef from todays dinner
Caserole - makes enough for 2 days
Fish with tomatoes and homemade chips
Chilli chicken noodles
Homemade fish & chips
Have been given a breadmaker by a friend who no longer uses it and have been making my own bread - so much easier than kneading it by hand and very tasty.
Have been to Mr S today and only bought the things I needed to see me through the rest of the week - spent £46.27 today so heres hoping I have a better week budget wise.
Good luck to everyone this week .

Pink.

toottifrootti wrote: »

Hi angelatgraceland - thanks for posting this sausage cass in the SC - just what I was needing - new to the batch cooking scene - what is soup mix????
and how long do you do it in the SC?

Sweet and sour por - again thanks - will give this a go - how long for and what heat?

sorry for the stupid questions but I am a beginner!!!!

TF xx

Hi TF,

They aren't stupid questions! These threads may help you:

Does anyone have a recipe for a simple sausage casserole I can make in the SC?

Help, Soup Mix!

Pink

betterlife

hi please can you put me down for £60 per week. this is for me, oh, 4 children (between 11wks and 7yrs) and 2 cats. this is to include nappies and wipes aswell for 2. i know this doesn`t sound alot but i cook from scratch, grow some veg and my local coop which i find over priced has had good offers lately and are also allowed to reduce the whoopsie right down in the morning rather than the end of the day which is great as i pop in after dropping son to school. last week i bought 4 pks of richmonds sausages for 60p each and 4 loafs of warbertons bread for 25p each and a free range chicken for £2 which we had for roast, hm chic and veg pie then carcess made soup.also had organic eggs for 38p anyway spent this week £59.09p 91p saved lol. i also get milk vouchers £36 per month x

Julimk

I did the first main shop of the month, which came in at £32.18, so not too bad. Would definitely have been less if I didn’t have DD with me, but she was reasonably good. Did include whoopsied ½ price quiche (this is a weakness of mine – but I need high calorie & high calcium diet for medical reasons! ) and whoopsied ½ price chicken breasts.

Haven’t used many chicken breasts recently as the last two whole chickens have been well & truly vulcanised! But the last of it went into HM cream of chicken soup for lunch today. For now the chicken breasts & quiche are in the freezer (still have HM quiche in the fridge).

I am happy with the sausage casserole I did in the SC today; I didn’t put any chilli in & just used herbs, as I was using Lincolnshire sausages, which are my favourite!

Will make some apricot flapjacks tomorrow. Bought dried apricots for DD pack-up (after checking with her that yes she did still like them!) and then she said ‘Mum – the dried apricots were a good idea but please don’t put them in my lunch again!’ Kids!!

lilmisskitkat

Evening all

Just posting an update on our challenge, hope no one minds but it helps me to think clearly by writing it all down here

Havent spent anymore money so far out of the £300, just the £57 in my sig below, have got quite a lot in so i've made a list of meals around what i've got and it should keep us going for a week or two. My main problem with trying to meal plan is that i dont know too far in advance when OH will be working away so i try to plan 7-10 meals and have them in whatever order suits at the time, rather than having set meals on set days. Heres what i've got so far...

* Lamb Hotpot and Lamb Rogan Josh (lovely grandad got us 2lb diced lamb). Will have extra to freeze for another time when i make both of these.
* Roast chicken dinner
* Toad in the hole
* Sausage casserole
* Lasagne
* Chilli wraps
* Corned Beef hash
* Egg and chips
* Pasta bake (with leftover chicken)
* Chicken curry (leftover chicken again)
* Rabbit stew and dumplings

Dinners are either HM broccoli and stilton or spicy carrot and lentil soup with sandwiches, leftovers, toasties etc

I really really need to come in under budget this month, with xmas coming and having new windows at the house we need every penny we can save so i'm hoping that getting it all down here will motivate me, well i know it will cos it did in the past lol, i just got into bad habits *slaps hand*

Good luck all

Kate xxx

MRSMCAWBER

Hi Blairweech

Im sometimes like a human avalanche where shopping is concerned.. I can pop out for 1 thing then find various whoopsies and go loopy -I would do very well on supermarket sweep:rotfl: ..

The freezer is packed and the one above the fridge is just the same.. so im trying to get them run down -I can't get my sausages made until I clear space for them all

I must admit that I find it easier to stick to NSDs once i get going..the more NSDs I have the more determined I am to keep going..If i went out for 1 thing Im sure it would be the slippery slope -

We have eaten really well so far.. In fact we have had more variety as im making an effort to use stuff up my meal plan has gone to pot -(but i don't mind as im using up lots of odds n sods ) we have had :-
roast chicken dinners, pasta bakes, beef casserole, turkey + bubble n squeak pie, potato n onion layer etc

My aim this month is to spend as little as possible in the hope that I will be able to put most, if not all of next months house keeping straight into the savings account -and just use the budget left from this month -

heck thats a waffle again

mhe

Put me down for £200 please for the month - did well last month and came under budget but want to start buying and putting some stuff away for Xmas so might be getting a bit harder in the next few weeks!!

princess_leia_3

Well, not spent anything over the last few days :j which is good, but our freezer has finally broken and the telperature has been swinging all over the weekend :mad: so I managed to offload all my meat and some fish fingers etc to my mums and we have been eating the rest.....12 chicken dippers, 15 yorkshire puds, HM chicken pies (yummy), frozen fruit.....I am so glad we have been running it down over the last few weeks and the only thing we have lost is veg and chicken stock and some value chips, veg mix so that was quite good really!
I have had to order a new one though :eek: and I think its gonna be smaller than the one we have but we really don't have the money or space to get the one I wanted so I picked the best I could :rolleyes: So roll on wednesday when I can get some shopping in!
Will have to pick up milk tomorrow but at least I won't get tempted by anything else :rotfl: as I have no where to put it!

Mrs Mac how are you getting on with your remoska? I am so thinking about getting the grand one for Christmas as I usually get quite a few Lakeland vouchers