January 2009 Grocery Challenge

gailey_2

Oh my god im so proud of myself

from huge lasgane I made other night got 4large potions seperatly frozen tubs in freezer.

sunday we had roast chicken

boiled up carcass and got 2 tubs of chicken soup in freezer
used rest up in curry last nite and got 1 small portion of leftover curry in freezer.
On sunday whilst making roast made huge pot of chilli con carne from scratch and got 5 tubs in freezer!

Today i have baked another whole chicken to make

chicken and leek pie-2nites dinner with mash may freeze if any leftovers.
chicken faitta mix and freeze as alreday got wraps in freezer
will boil carcas and make stock

I also want to batch cook and freeze
mash
pasta sauce
shepards pie
crumble
fishcakes
muffins
pizzas


all today and tommorow

idea is cook like mad again this week
use all fresh ingrediants

then not cook next week live off freezer for next month with home made ready meals and only have to top up with basics milk,egg and bread hoping to last beyond pay day as plan is 30 homemade meals frozen!

Also got

2 frozen shop pizzas
birds eye chicken burgers*4
sainsburys frozen beef burgers
frozen scampi
frozen breaded fish
sausage rolls
chicken pies frozen*4
chips
sausages

and in store cupboard got

lots of tinned soups
tinend spagegtti and beans
1 fray bentos pie
2 supernoodles
1 tin meatballs in tomato sauce be ok on dried spagegtti
lots of dried pasta
tinned toamtoes2 jars of curry sauce
1 tin of chilli

so we should be ok fingers crossed.

when we run out of shop biscuits
will start making twinks hob nobs and gingerbread men.

one puzzle
got half brie to use?

any bire recipie?

can I freeze?

Can I freeze yogurts too?

any recipie I can make with yogurts?

Also i got cheapy red berry cereal. any meal ideas what I can make from that?

queen_of_string

Nickynoo

I would suggest

Pet food
Kitchen Roll
Loo roll
Cleaning stuff and cloths
Laundry stuff
Toiletries
Ladies' things
bin bags
pulses/rice/pasta
flour
dried fruit
herbs and spices and condiments

here is a link to a stockpiling site, its a bit extreme but might help

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

I should say this is a religious site whose doctrines i do not subscribe to, but an interesting article nonetheless.

HTH

angelatgraceland

scotsaver wrote: »

Well I've failed already and still 6 days to go - I'm already over Budget, had to give DD1 money for School Dinner and popped to Iceland this morning for Milk and they had Lean Mince whoopsied to half price so I couldn't resist.:o

I will do my best to keep the overspend down to a minimum and then I will take the overspend off February's target as I've checked the Freezers and there is so much stuff in there, so should spend less in February.:cool:

Dinner tonight is Pasta Bake, not planned a pudding as we have some HM Xmas Cake that really needs to get eaten up.:D

Hope you are all doing better than I am this month.;)

Failure??? That dreadful word doesnt belong to you!!! You are only a little bit over by your sig-we all get ups and downs-just keep going and imagine what it would be if you werent on the challenge!
NSD for me but I need to rummage in freezer for milk and bread as we have none. Oh-they are so deprived!

queen_of_string

just spotted your post Gailey, and I have to say flippin heck, you go girl, :j seems like youve really got the hang of this MS lark, have to say I am most envious of your industry and organisation.

elizabunny

scotsaver wrote: »

Well I've failed already and still 6 days to go - I'm already over Budget, had to give DD1 money for School Dinner and popped to Iceland this morning for Milk and they had Lean Mince whoopsied to half price so I couldn't resist.:o

I will do my best to keep the overspend down to a minimum and then I will take the overspend off February's target as I've checked the Freezers and there is so much stuff in there, so should spend less in February.:cool:

Dinner tonight is Pasta Bake, not planned a pudding as we have some HM Xmas Cake that really needs to get eaten up.:D

Hope you are all doing better than I am this month.;)

You're not a failure scotsaver -and neither will I be, if I go over this month, which looks highly likely. Just think what we might have spent:eek:. The very fact that we are all doing this challenge shows an incredible amount of forward thinking, determination, and willpower.

I will post again later as trying for another NSD but don't think I will make it as cupboards beginning to look bleak. HM Tuna fish cakes for dinner tonight and HM chippies (never made the fishcakes before and am using tinned tuna, so will see how it goes down.)

Savvy_sewing

Large shopping ordered on line from Mr A. Coming tomorrow. £156 worth. Mind you the swaps suggested on the website saved me a further £21 by switching brands/sizes etc. Hopefully it will mostly last us till the end of the month except for bread and milk, maybe somevegetables.

gailey_2

Thanks queen of string am shattered all this cooking.
Im not normally this well organised and busy
Its 2009 and im totally serious about keeping to budget as we need to be .
We tried so many things in order to cut back

quit tesco 6months ago and swopped for

morrisions/aldis and lidls but prefer sainsburys and nearest

we tried buying more frozen prepacked
tried independnt butchers and greengrocers/farm shop

The result has been better but not within budget so radical change was needed.

As a family we like our fresh fruit and veg

howver we have brought more tinned veg and frozen now as very useful backup.

we buy meat fresh and freeze and defrost as required.

we buying less convieninace food that oh loves like ready meals as not godo value for money but big thumbs up to

breaded fish
breaded chicken
plain fish fillets
chips/wedges as they are okmas occasional nite off the cooking.

fish is cheaper than meat

Oh likes his meat but latly only been using half of what i used to use and padding it out with veg and lentils and even hiding veg he dont like.

What we used to do is what we call live like kigs for 1st week or 2 and then bomb and and not have many standbys.
we even thew away some fresh veg if we overbrought
used to run out of meat very quickly
biscuits/cakes vanished in days!

so then we thourght maybe big monthly shop bad for us we try weekly

however hubby working loads kept running out or not going regular and having tod o expensive top ups at corner shop and completly bombing out of food before went again.
So last week got so fed up even with tired oh and grumpy toddler did lidls and sainsburys as next to each other thur evening oh payday.
The plan was to cook like mad.

will be super lazy next week.

I hope it works its my first month of trying.

We lucky we have huge chest freezer, I currently work from home and enjoy cooking lots of books its just making the time

keld

Just updating my signature.

I'm still keeping the spending diary going, it does make interesting reading:o.

Did my big weekly shop yesterday at MrS and spent £70.88, more than half of which is on fruit, veg, meat and fish.

I've now added totally unnecessary lunches (bought as against home made) to my grocery challenge spend (£44.94 so far:eek: ), this is definitely something that has to change. DH likes to get out of the office at lunchtime, which seems to result in too many bought lunches. However once he can see what we spend over a whole month, maybe he'll be a bit keener to take rather than buy lunch.

I'm still hoping to come in on budget, as I'll only do one more biggish shop before February. Then for February I'll have to shave off something, plus it's only a four week month.

mommyof4

Hi
Just nipped in to say, my DH has had to shop/cook/feed kids since Monday, hence I don't know how much grocery money he has spent. I have been struck down with norovirus and feel really ill. Probably over budget!!! Got pages on here to catch up with but it'll have to wait.

bye for now

NewlyFrugalMumof3

Steel wrote: »

It's just me and hubby, and I tend to test out ideas with food and then tell him a few weeks later, because he's one of these people who would insist they taste the difference if he knew in advance. He was quite happy with the diluted milk etc as he couldn't taste the difference. Also, he's adamant he hates swede and won't eat it. I've yet to tell him he's been eating it in mash, pasties and stews for years. I sense that could be a trust-breaker :rotfl:

My sister's husband claimed once he could only have branded coffee because he had very sensitive taste buds and he couldn't tolerate the taste of anything else. So she switched his special Nescafe for Lidl's own - just decanted it into the jar and hid the lidl packaging. That was almost a year ago and he still hasn't twigged.

Sneak it in gradually is what I say.....

Thanks Steel. I will have to be more "undercover" like with my swops and cheats. It's true about my OH too. He wouldn't touch swede if I dished it up separately with his meal, but boy does he wolf down my/my mum's homemade pasties (swede included)!! Hmmm. Am wondering what other items I can 'decant'. Thanks for your tips.