November 2008 Grocery Challenge

LearningToSave.

it lasts a lot longer! we had lamb shanks tonight that were bought and frozen 6 months ago.....they were as good as fresh!
the only thing you may get the longer you leave them in the freezer is a bit of ice or breezer burn and they may be a bit tougher.

cw18

depends on the star rating of your freezer. If you have a 'proper' 4 star one, then they will keep much longer than that.......

my parents used to buy half a lamb, half a pig and a quarter cow once a year -- they lasted until the next batch got bought !!

Baileys_Babe

So far we have spent £81.19, this was for milk, butchers & Novembers fruit and veg boxes. My sisters chickens generally keep us in free eggs :money: and she has also told me today about the chutney she has made/planning to make and that she is planning to give us a regular supply:D , which will save us a fortune as my DP uses masses. I love the support we give and receive from friends & family, sharing all that is good and plentiful.

Primula

Hi everyone
This is my first time joining in on your wonderful grocery challenge (I have tried on my own for several months now but keep going over and blowing my budget :mad: due to disorganisation mainly, so I am hoping joining in will help keep me on track!). Have budgetted for £300, being £10 per day. Wasn't sure whether to pop to the shop daily in my lunch hour or whether to do a plan and shop for the week but after reading these wonderful forums decided to go for the menu plan and shop for the week and then just pick up things like bread, fresh fruit and veg through the week. So, yesterday, armed with my shopping list, went to Lidl for a change instead of Tesco and my shopping came to £52.98 which I was well impressed with. I hope I can make the remaining £17.02 last the rest of the week. I am going to pop back to these forums daily to keep me motivated and take note of some of the fab recipes I see. Good luck to all and thank you for letting me join in!
xx

ifonlyitwaseasier

morning all,

had a lovely day yesterday, went out to get bread, ketchup and lasagne sheets and my mum bought them for me!! i'm trying the downshift challenge (buy a brand lower) and i have to say MrS basics lasagne sheets are very nice!!

have spent a little this week, am just gathering my reciepts up. i'll pop in and add my total to this post once i've got OH's contribution

ioiwe x

EDIT: okay so we've not spent much this week, only [STRIKE]£[/STRIKE][STRIKE]42.42[/STRIKE] £22.42 (darn that husband being unable to work a calculator) i'll add it to my sig :O

Galaxy863

Morning all

I did my first shop of the month yesterday at Mr T's and seemed to spend a fortune with nothing to show for it :mad: it was just absolutely manic in there. There were no trolleys anywhere and when I saw someone emptying their trolley I asked if I could have it when they were done ( politely ) and got shouted and sworn at!

You would have thought they were giving their food away the way people were grabbing things off the shelves! Last time I go shopping on a Saturday!

So rant over and I spent £54.91 and I don't think that will even last the week :eek:

Not a good start!

biscotte

Good morning,

not a good start for us.:( DH went and picked a few bits up from our (ruinously expensive) local store and then lost receipt. I'll say 160sf, but that really didn't get much and I shall have to do a big shop tomorrow (will go to the big cheaper store in the next town).
Well, It's our first month so a bit of an experiment,

bigsmoke

morning everyone!

i'm going to try for £80 this month - i have tried the grocery challenge once before and failed miserably at even keeping track of what i was spending (so i'm certain that i overspent!).
i'm on a really tight budget for everything this month, as i've been ambitious with my credit card payment, so going to really try to write everything down and pop in here to see how the experts get on!

have a good one everyone

edited to say eeek! have just sat down and down my monthly budget and actually only have £71.78 for food and other every day expenses this month. so i'll make that my new challenge target, and inc other small expenses in it too

rosieben

Moniker wrote: »

... Oh, DH cut the new loaf I made from the wrong end and as a result when we got to the top end the whole thing crumbled and couldn't be sliced. Has anyone got any ideas about using breadrumbs apart from freezing them for topping on gratins and making stuffing etc? ...

you've had some good replies, but I think the very best use for breadcrumbs is in a treacle tart


and welcome to Primula and the other newbies joining in this time. If you can, its a good idea to put your monthly target in red so that MrsMC will be able to find it easily to add you to the list on the front page.

Go to your post, click the 'edit' button, highlight the bits you want in red and the click on the A (with a black line under it) at the top of the box, click on the colour you want and then save your changes. HTH but if I've confused you and you need more help please let me know

Rowan9

Hello
Been into Mr T this morning for my first shop of the month. Bought the value biological washing liquid which is good (but not a good as fabulous formul?? formil?? from Lidl which is REALLY good) and bought some Fairy for washing my DS's bedding etc when he comes home for Christmas. He has eczema and Fairy works well for him. It was really busy in there - a real mix of people looking carefully at prices and others just quickly putting into their trolley what they want. I was interested watching ( sad me eh?). I bought, well tried to buy, some stiry fly veg reduced to 5p but a Tesco lady came and said that the reduced produce hadn't been cleared away from last night and took it out of my trolley :eek:. Ah well, better than being poisoned :rolleyes:. One thing I'm really annoyed at was buying a multi pack of tuna marked half price, checking my recipt when I got home and finding I was charged over £5 for it. So my receipt and the tuna are set out for return. They can be sneaky sometimes at putting similar products under the sign so I bet it was the tuna in sunflower oil or something slightly different. Certainly not paying that as I usually get the Tesco value tuna but thought this would be nice and chunky for salads (in this weather???).
Bought 2 packs of Mr Kip mince pies. I know they are very sweet but they are half price and gave me a nice Christmassy tingle when I saw them. I have DD and DS birthdays + DH's 50th to get through before Christmas but they are all very special
Have what I need for the week for meals, either with today's buys or what is in freezer. DH is away today for over a week so only me.
Good luck with Nov challenge peeps - I certainly noticed a few price hikes
w