January 2009 Grocery Challenge

CRANKY40

SuziQ wrote: »

Just be aware that this milk may not be suitable for children under 3,or even under 5 due to the fact you are reducing the calcium content. When milk is skimmed the fat is removed,but in effect the calcium increases slightly. If you water milk down you are diluting ALL of it including the calcium content. I used to work closely with a dietician in an out patients when I was Health Visiting and she was always very clear about this.

That's why I don't do it. Most of the milk in my house goes into the 4 year old. I'm more than happy for him to have it as it is.

Changingme

Thanks for tip on milk am going to give this ago,went shopping again yesterday afternoon and brought airer I seem to have so much washing this week £8.81 out of wilkinsons on special bigger than the one have at moment,also picked up sugar and toilet rolls in Home Bargins.

I will only get milk and bread in week.
I will only get milk and bread in week.

If I keep repeating this I might just get there.

nickynoo08

Morning everyone, spent £2.74 on my lunch and milk yesterday. I was so dissapointed with myself coz i always take my own lunch and then when i got home i realised i'd bought the wrong milk too:mad:.
I've just realised i've got less than £20 to last me the month now eeekkk. Once i've bought my milk for the rest of the month (i have a little un) i'll have about a £11 left for anything else i'll need. I know i've got loads in the freezer but i always panic when i've got a tiny budget thinking how am i going to manage. I'm determined to come in on budget this month, i'll just have to get creative, only i'm not too creative:o
What would you buy with your last tenner?

JayJay14

nickynoo08 wrote: »

What would you buy with your last tenner?

A chinese:rotfl:

(Our local takeaway does this meal for two - sweet and sour chicken, chicken and mushroom, 2 x egg fried rice, huge bag of prawn crackers and 2 x fortune cookies, £9.50. We've never been able to eat it all yet but it's our monthly treat if we have enough left over on the GC)

gillst_2

hannamint wrote: »

I have a problem at the minute, my partner and I end up wasting so much money on take-aways because at the end of my working day i'm just too tired to make an effort (sometimes as late as 9pm). I love cooking and experimenting, i'm only 19 so it doesn't always turn out how i planned it! but we just can't seem to stop wasting our money on a quick food fix. We're both going to end up fat and unhealthy. I just wondered if anyone has any ideas?

Could you perhaps do pasta and sauce, with grated cheese on top, and a side salad, or a pasta bake. Both nice and easy and quick and do not cost a lot, even if you have to resort to the ready made pasta sauces.

We had toad in the hole, mash, carrots and peas last night, which was lovely, especially as DH cooked:j , followed by a HM rice pudding (which I made!). Today we will have roast chicken and I will boil the carcus and make some soups for packed lunches. Will need to do some bread in the BM to go with this. Have just found out that DS1 will be eating tonight at his girlfriends. My DD is coming round to dinner so the chicken only needs feed 3 of us, so will have plenty left. The soup may actually become a stew for dinner tomorrow.
Probably a silly question, but being a newbie I was wondering how and when you get your stars.

Cat_Addict

Hannamint, I really would try to develop the slow cooker habit. It just takes a bit of organising then becomes second nature. Meals cooked in there tend to be cheap by nature, you can bulk out with dried country soup mixes, lentils, oats and barley. Bung it all in on low before you go to work and its lovely not having to think "what shall we have tonight?" And modern slow cookers are very safe. If you were terribly worried you could buy one with a timer setting on it or buy a timer switch to ensure you never leave it on for longer than you intended.

Then also as someone else suggested, pasta meals are fab, cheap, quick, easy and gorgeous. My OH is still raving about the one I did two nights ago. Cooked some penne, sweated an onion and some mushrooms in butter and olive oil, chopped up the left over gammon from Christmas which had been in the freezer, dropped that in the saucepan with a tin of condensed chicken soup, added some milk, poured over the penne, topped with grated cheese and baked for 25 mins. It fed five of us and cost very very little.

mookybargirl

I've not joined the challenge for quite a few months now, but after a shocking December, I've never had so little cash. I have £13.45 to get us to the end of the month :eek:. I've raided the cupboards and listed everything and made meals from what I have in (as my freezer is full). I actually managed to get enough meals out, as long as we eat 2 Sunday's at the MIL - guess where we're off to today :rotfl: I only need milk potatoes & veg, a bit of chorizo and a garlic bread. I really hope we can make it!

Cat_Addict

That really is a storecupboard challenge. And if you can do it and live on what you have, it bodes well for how much you can save in the coming months - good luck!

SavvyStudent_2

Hello everyone, I'm a bit disappointed today - the OH went out to MrA last night for a *little* top up shop for todays pizza-party (yeast, cheese etc) and ended up spending £60! Which puts us £22 or so over budget and it isn't even the middle of the month! At least he bought useful stuff - stocked up on a load of cupboard essentials, the 3 meats for £10 offer, veg etc - the cupboards and fridge are literally stuffed to bursting and some things won't fit in. I've frozen all the meat etc so heres hoping with a bit of eeking out I'll only have to get bread and milk for the rest of the month! Still tho - its disheartening!

Hannahmint - when I was 19 and a student for the first time I felt like I couldn't cook either! Turns out if you slowly build up your range of meals you'll get to the stage where you can have a crack at almost anything and it seems to work! My learning to cook was fuelled by hunger / necessity (no money for takeaways!) / and moving to England on my own...! 6 years on and now the OH is raving about everything I bring to the table which must be a good sign. I would suggest learning to roast a chicken - it's really hard to mess up and gives loads of tasty useful meat for relatively cheap for curries, pies, pasta etc and you can make soup from the carcass. xx

tessie_bear

jay jay love that idea of a chinese for coming in on budget....im going to nick that motivating idea......with my last tenner if i have meat in freezer i would go to sainsburys and buy some value veg (prob a fivers worth) and keep the other fiver just in case.....i would also (probably before id crashed the fiver) do a meal plan and write a shopping list for all the days until payday.....i would not take kids with me to supermarket as they 'need'too many things....i always find eggs good in an emergency for quiche(pastry less in reaally tight months) egg and chips omelette frittata poached/scrambled/fried on toast mashed up in a sandwich........sainsburys do a huge bag of chicken leg portions thats cheap but not happy chickens im afraid ......good luck with that tenner tess ps let us know how u get on pps sorry if this comes up twice as first go disappeared and i started again