December 2008 Grocery Challenge

gailey_2

Right up date on todays spend round about £100

went to local high street

manor farm first as they do proper cooked meat sausages and pies
hubby loved it and got himself some homemade sausages,bacon,pie and sliced roast ham total =£8.50

next stop health shop got red lentils,nutssun dried tomatoes and raisens £3.50.

butchers but weirdly hubby not keen said wanted 2 go farm shops so just spent £1.36 on 10 free range eggs not bad.

cheapy shop £2.20 on black bagstoiliet cleaner and air freshner

grocers £15 on huge box of fresh fruit and veg

Somerfeild just shopped deals and basics £23
large co-op opposite £53 but includes 2 cases beer and 18 toiliet rolls plus offers and basics.

Dident have time to do iceland or aldis and hubbys wants farm shop for meat.
spent £47 b4 today and 100 today so 147/250 budget

Now dillmema i have is should we go fram shop spend 30 on meat and then go spend 70 in asd aon cheap basics and frozen? is asda as cheap as aldis or iceland as want to avoid going too many places as they all far apart but hubby hates asdas.
Guess we will have to pass on annual m&s foodhall shop.

We need meat
chep basics like pasta/passata and maybe some more dairy plus few treats cheap wine and chocs as it is xmas is Asda best for that?

savingfortravel

Hi Everyone!!
We are doing well this month-all spending so far is covered by birthday money..which allows us to save more.
Were going to run out of money today but OB's brother sent me £10 in the post for my birthday so that may cover us until Boxing Day. We are one of the lucky ones to be invited to other people's houses for Christmas/Boxing Day.


We are going to try the live on £4 challenge next year.....
Glad to read that I'll be in great company.
SFT

Sylvan

Gosh, that's something I had forgotten. They've opened a M&S in the town hubby works in <drool>. I can have bread sauce:j(I know that's really extravagant but I'm the only one who eats it so I can't justify spending my limited energy making it from scratch). And there's no way he'll come out of M&S with just bread sauce is there?
Oh waily waily, I'm not going to make it!

I sent him to Mr T again today because he forgot the Olive spread yesterday (and I had looked on mysupermarket and found some offers). He spent £20 - and he's going to have to go back tomorrow because (wait for it...)



he forgot the Olive spread!:rolleyes:

(and I've told him to get as many of those £1.87 half-legs of lamb as he can find:o)

DS4 has taken £2 for chippy and DS5 £1 for sausage rolls tomorrow. They'll probably take another £10 between them by the end of term. Nope, definitely not going to make it.:(

redmel: I tended to let mine have as much fruit as they wanted (except when they were tiny - had to hide the fruit bowl on top of the 6' high fridge to keep DS5 out of the grapes!) but, like cw18 I keep vast amounts of tinned fruit in the house because it does seem to work out cheaper.
DS4 eats around 20 bananas a week and DS5 would eat a whole cucumber every day if he could (but half the time DH won't buy them because they're so expensive). Apart from that we have 2 drawers full of fruit in the fridge and only take out take out 3 or 4 of each kind at a time to ripen. That way, if they have a week when they don't eat much it doesn't get wasted. Apart from the essentials (apples, pears, oranges and bananas) we tend to buy whatever fruit happens to be cheapest (and stock up on the glace cherries and olives when they're on offer). If you have an Aldi near you I can recommend the 39p bags of satsumas. The 5 I had today were delicious.:D

Thanks rosieben. Ours never used to last long either but now we seem to have more fruit trees than children...

mummy2mygirls

i got the 39p satsumas aswell and wish i had picked up more then one bag now!!
My dd eats so much fruit aswell, dd2 isnt as keen but will eat bananas all day!! I do go for the cheaest options but let them have as much as they want really... I get value stuff and its just as tasty as the others, or i go to the market when i can aswell... i find its cheaper then other snacks they might have instead! and nice and healthy...
They also have raisins as they are not to expensive, and tinned fruit is ok but my dd will eat a whole tin of peaches if i let her!! gready one

cw18

Our Aldi only had clementines on the offer when I was last in, and I don't like those

Will have to go and check again, as satsumas are one fresh fruit I can eat and eat and eat..... until the citric acid starts to give me stomach cramps anyway :rolleyes2

Sylvan

:doh:Sorry Cheryl, they were clementines.

Free_in_Three

Apologies Sylvan, I missed your post yesterday.:o

I have done a list and costed it out on Mysupermarket.com. Mr S seems to have some excellent offers on Linda Mcartney veggie mince and cauldron sausages so I will be filling up on them to go in my new 2nd freezer in the garage as well as lots of tins, loo roll, bread flour, lentils etc. and some meat for OH.

I have done a list for £55/week giving me a fiver a week for offers and those sneaky things that always jump into my trolley:D . I will use your idea of adding it up with a calculator as I go along, that way if I am under I can always chuck in some more tins of tomatoes as I go through loads of them!

I had a couple of friends over for a meal last night as one of them had her moggy put down yesterday and needed cheering up. Apart from the 2 bits of lamb I bought the three courses were all made from scratch and from stuff I already had in my cupboards. They were very impressed with the food(even asked for the soup recipe) and I saved a fortune as before doing this challenge I would have bought fresh soup, Mr T finest bread and a ready made pudding and i made it all:D

Best get some work done now!!

Free in Three

scotsaver

Just updated my spends in Lidl's, had to get Potatoes, Bananas, yoghurts etc but didn't want to have to drive to Aldi as I thought that would be a "false economy". Anyway, they have 2kg bags of Rooster potatoes Half Price at only 79p if anyone interested. Also picked up leaflet for next week and from Monday they will have in 4kg-4.2kg FROZEN TURKEYS for £7.49 each, thought that may be of use to someone, I'm hanging on until later in December as I want to get a Free Range fresh Turkey. Hope everyone has a good day.:D

scotsaver

Just posted this on the "Special Occassions" board as someone has started a "Xmas Dinner for £20" thread so thought I'd copy & paste it over here too, after reading through the Lidl leafleat I picked up they say they can do Xmas Dinner for 5 people for £21.76 using the following products that they will have available from Monday 15th December:-

Smoked Salmon 200g £1.69
Self Basting Frozen Turkey 4kg £7.49
Sausages in Bacon 680g £2.99
Potatoes 2.5kg £0.69
Brussel Sprouts 1kg £0.49
Parsnips 500g £0.39
Sage & Onion Stuffing 170g £0.45
Bisto Best Gravy 350g £1.29
Cava Brut 75cl £3.29
Gateau 1400g £2.99

Total £21.76

This works out at £4.36 a head - hope this is of use to someone.:D

lola34

Mmm glad I joined the thread- so much for my guess of spending £50 per week up to £86.43 already and theres still afew little bits to add, went shopping last week with the OH and bought a few bits for Xmas- nibbles but OH has eaten them- knew it was a bad idea!!!!!:rolleyes:
also need to get baking stuff for a coffee afternoon at school and I said I would do some baking:o
Never mind- it'll be beans on toast throughout Jan -ha ha