January 2009 Grocery Challenge

brokenwings

CurlyTop wrote: »

Mardatha

Have to agree with D&DD. I do a Mr T shop once every 4-6 weeks. I do an Iceland shop once every month and a Home and Bargain once per month for my toiletries and household stuff. Milk, I tend to get from Mr A as it is 98p for 2 pints and get 2 at a time because it is £1.50 for 4 pints! Go figure. I spotted my DH telling a man who was doing his shopping and about to pick up the 4pt to put it back and get 2x2pts instead ! Lol. Funny how this mse is spreading.

Meal plan, check it against what's in your cupboards and stick to your list and try not to be tempted. By doing my shops once a month, it means I have lots of days that are NSD and it saves me time from standing in queues (something I can do without as I work full-time), in my lunch half hour. Will be giving me time to surf here of a night when I get home in future. Lol.

I'm hoping to utilise the menus on here as some of them look really scrummy and will use up stuff I already have in. Good luck.

curlytop
is that a typo?
cause to me 98p for 2 pints means 2x2pints = £1.96
or am i being really dopey?

mardatha

isn't if funny how you think you're doing ok until you post it up on here for all these really observant eyes to pick apart....and then once yuv done it you feel MORTIFIED ! lol !

mouseymousey99

No don't feel like that!! One of the best things about this is you keep learning things!:T

Cat_Addict

No Mardatha! That's the whole point of being here! (a) Your intention is brilliant, and (b) you're hoping to learn from people who've been doing it longer. Nothing wrong with picking peoples brains, I do it all the time as mine is deficient!

gillst_2

Would be grateful to hear your views on a small difference of opinion I am having with my DH. We currently have a fully stocked freezer and store cupboards. However I tend to replace what we use to keep the stock up. However, DH reckons I should be using what we have and reduce the stock I have built up. I do rotate stocks and very rarely throw anything away that is out of date. Any thoughts??

Flylady_Flower

crazybird wrote: »

Hi everyone hope you are all well. I've just been making some brownies and I opened a tin of condensed milk by mistake. I realised and then opened what I should've in the first place - evaporated milk.

I've now got an open tin of condensed milk any ideas what I can do with this...all replies much appreciated. x

You have to do bounty bites now.... numnumnumnumnumnumnum.... It's a must with condensed milk... (recipe in the index...)

I have been a naughty girl tonight... (hangs head in shame)... popped into our local metro to get some cheese for lunches tomorrow as hubby & DS had it all on toast last night, and also brought a strawberry pudding thing out of the fridge, a big bar of galaxy and a cream egg... so have spent another £5.13... I will update soon...

Moniker

Hi everyone - a belated happy new year to one and all!

I have spent just over a third of my budget already but I am not panicking yet! I did a really big bulk shop in Sainsbury's on Friday night on the way home from visiting rellies in Shropshire. I had my OH with me to lift the bags so I took advantage and stocked up on a month's worth of dried goods and meat and fish for the freezer. I was disappointed though that there weren't many whoopsies about even though it was after 8 pm, and they were out of some fresh veg. Never mind, it was a good deal and I spent my nectar points so that took £30 off the bill!

I popped into town yesterday afternoon and bought one broccoli head in Somerfield and it cost 91p when I got to the till! and I thought buying it loose was cheaper...I also took a bottle of wine back to Sainsbury's when I found that they had charged me £5.19 and I thought it was advertised at £3.69. As I went round the store again after I got my money back I noticed that the same wine was on offer at 3 for £10 which works out about £3.30 a bottle, so I was glad I took the trouble to take the over-priced one back.

New Year's resolutions - stick to one bottle of wine or less per week and eat less meat to help keep the bills down! Hmm...let's see how long that lasts!

I noticed that Sainsbury's 1% fat milk which they introduced several months ago is still only £1 for 2 litres. It is much more bearable than the fully skimmed milk and at that price I don't feel obliged to water it down.

Back to work tomorrow - so not much time for blogging. Hope everyone is keeping well and avoiding the lurgy. Just think - by the end of the month it will start to get lighter in the evenings again!

Moniker

Toonie

gillst-I would say it depends on what you can afford. If you can afford to replace as you go, then its a good idea as there may come a time when you can't and a well stocked larder will help you out.

If however there are things which you don't use often which you find in your cupboards in good quantities, then perhaps find a way of using them. Or, if there is something else (non food) that you need, you can reduce your stocks and save the money from the normal food spend.

kunekune

I have now put away all the food that came yesterday. There's a lot of it - 4 bottles passata, 8 tins tomatoes, 8 tins baked beans, etc etc. I reckon we've got more than a month here, taking into account the vast amounts of stuff we already had (oops). I roasted the leg of lamb today - and now have meat for tomorrow in the fridge and three lots of meat in the freezer.

I can't see any need to buy any food for a while. NSD today.

Sylvan

searching_me wrote: »

had to throw away 6 packets of gone off flou and 2 carrier bags of stuff that used to look like something else...

:eek: What happened to your flour?

I had a terrible dream about weevils last night, but oddly they were in the grass seed in my pocket rather than in my flour:rotfl:

I sorted out my store cupboards today (since DH put up 4 wall units and a shelf for me over his Christmas break) and found a packet of Tesco Value Self-Raising with a 2005 date on it. That means the stuff in the big bottle must be older (unless I got mixed up and used them out of order). Oh well!

First spend of the year just now - DS5 just came in and took £2 for lunch money (to supplement the sandwiches he's taking!) Never mind - I saved a bit this last week because he spent 6 days working on his GF's uncle's farm and being fed there

DH cut the 2 half-price beef joints I bought from Mr A at the end of last month into 3 portions each and we froze 4 whole for roast beef and 1 cubed for curry. The last one was sliced and grilled for dinner this evening, followed by toast (DS5 made bread) slathered with some of the lemon curd we made this afternoon with the 39p Aldi lemons.

Unfortunately DS4 was with me when I bought the beef and he persuaded me to spend £15 on a gammon joint. I've no idea what to do with it, or how much meat per person to allow. I thought perhaps I could pot-roast it in cider on Wednesday, when we have 2 extra teenagers. Does anyone know how long to do it for?