January 2009 Grocery Challenge

sistercas

i have made my first batch of yoghurt :j its lovely too. i cant believe how eqsy it is to make. I had some for breakfast with some frozen summer berries ( defrosted !) it was delish
thanks to whoever posted the recipe yesterday
Aiming for a no spend day I have spent half my food allowance for this month already:eek:

Steel_2

TheBees wrote: »

Hi all -Had to pop to the small co-op for cat food as our darling cat has decided to go on hunger strike! :eek: He's gone off whiskas so I bought Felix and he's wolfing it down!

Next time your cat does that, try Kitekat. Mine love whiskas and felix, but won't touch Mr T's own, so to cut down on the cost we tried them with Kitekat and they love it. It's much cheaper per tin and 12 pack.

Steel_2

Rachel021967 wrote: »

I spent 55p on a chocolate bar for my daughter and £36.11 at Tesco.
I bought:

seedless grapes, value mushrooms 750g, Four leaf salad, 2 pork chops, Value chicken, Finest lemon curd yoghurt (this keeps my husband happy), 4 toffee and 4 mandarin Mullerlight yoghurts (currently at 27p each), 3 hovis white, clementines pack, Bananas 2.1kg, Value peppers, 2.5kg White potatoes, 8 tins of Branston beans, 2 Value 1kg Basmati rice, 10 value bacon noodles, 2 chicken flavour noodles, 2 Tesco macaroni 500g, Shredded Wheat Fruitful 500g £1.48 which I have been overcharged by 48p.

Is there anyway I can cut my costs further.

Budget is £170 and I have spent £58.10. Thats £18 overbudget. I need to do better next week.

Out of your list the three that jump out are the Hovis bread, Branston beans and Shredded Wheat cereal. Is there any way you could come down a brand on any of those? The four leaf salad jumped out as well, but if you're anything like me, I occasionally buy it prepackaged when I want salad stuff rather than the separate ingredients to make my own because I can't eat it all of that and it would be wasted.

Although now I've got chickens I suppose nothing is wasted technically.

Kiwisaver_2

Well here goes, it's not looking good, another shop today and spent $90.24 (planned $75 per week) :eek:

The kicker being, I spent the minimum possible on the weekly shop ($34) and the rest was further bits towards the dinner party. Still I'm doing the best I can and I will die trying to keep this within budget this month. I have realised it was a good idea to plan the menu for the party early on and shop for the best bargains possible. Got three bottles of wine today for $30 - usually would be $16.99 each. Got my feta and ricotta cheese on good offers. If I had left the list till the last minute, I sure would be looking at spending a lot, lot more. Not much else I can get now, until closer to the time.

As for stockpiling, the first thing I did when looking to reduce our monthly budget about six months back, was to downgrade to cheaper washing powder, fabric conditioner and loo rolls. I bought tons when they were on a very good offer and have not had to buy any since. Certainly been a godsend in keeping my monthly costs down. When it starts looking as if anything is getting low, I will have no qualms about doing the same again. I still have five 1kg boxes of washing powder, so it won't be any time soon.

jtb2412

Morning all

Popped into Sbury this morning to pick up some cake cases (need to make some cakes for pack ups and I've run out :rolleyes: ) and managed to get 4 jars of luxury mincemeat for 37p a jar (original price was £1.89) :j . Use by date is Aug 2010 so that will go up ready for my mince pie batch cooking later in the year .

I didn't want to do a shop until next week, but I'm going to have to go tonight and get a few odds and ends (pack up stuff for next week and a few other oddments) but I still don't need to do what I call a 'food shop' as we're still getting through the stuff in the freezer from before Xmas as well as the bargain joints of meat I got too. I've got plenty of veg and a sack of spuds too so I'm going to make sure I write a list and stick to it (despite all the good offers on at the moment that I clocked on my way round the store :rolleyes: !)

Spend this morning was £1.97 and 21p on a banana from greengrocers for my mid-morning snack. Off to update sig ........ have a good day everyone .... will be back later to catch up and confess what i've spent tonight

MRSMCAWBER

Kiwisaver.... was it you doing the Greek evening?

If so -let me know if you get stuck for recipes -I got a lovely book when I went to Kefalonia -so I might be able to help
all I can say is "stiffado" or "kleftico" (sp?) droolllllll

angelatgraceland

LittleAnna wrote: »

I want to play,am just keeping a record of spends for Jan so I can plan for Feb as I have no idea how much I spend-thats the point right,Do we include things like newspapers,vet costs etc or just food ,washing powder etc
Ta Anna

Well its good to keep a spending diary of ALL of your spends just so you know where your money goes.Then decide what you want to inglude as grocery. Last year I only counted food but this year Im including toiletries bits and bobs of household,petrol,booze and entertainment so the amount is a lot bigger than last year.
When I wrote it in my diary I would put a big G by the spend that counted each week but I would sort it all out into the categories and total them up at the end of the week so after the year I could say that, for instance, on average we spent £16 per week on petrol. This is useful-although it wasnt coming out of grocery at the time I still had the figures.
I think most people include toiletries, and small household stuff-but you can do it as you wish.

findingmyfeet

hi everyone,
done my first shop of january this week and done really well (figure on sig), got some offers in MrM (branston beans 4 packs 75p- so stocked up) and shape yoghurts too. Went to the local butchers whose sausage we love and saw he was doing our usual sausage in a thinner version. Bought that gave hubby his usual 4 sausages he ate it was happy and never noticed they were mush skinnier than before. So now i will buy them in future and now we will get twice as many meals out of them!! ( hopefully he will remain blissfully unaware).
Done my meal plan for the next week or so and have everything in and actually bought the exact contents of my shopping list this week so really pleased with myself. Off to do some baking for lunch boxes now- see you all soon

fedupandskint

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

all I can say is "stiffado" or "kleftico" (sp?) droolllllll

Could you post these recipes if it isn't too much work, I loved these went I went to Kefalonia and I'd love to try and make them myself (if it is still OS of course!)

Lol:T :A :T :A :T :A

kookgekje

It's only the 8th and I am nearly halfway through the budget:eek: . Still, the freezer has loads of meat/chicken/fish in it, so its just the fruit and veg that I need to add. I bought a pork belly roast at Mr T and saw a nice recipe for it with a spicy sauce, but if anyone has any better suggestions, I'd rather do a tried and tested one.

I am having a NSD today because DH had to go out with some clients last night and I made myself an quick chickpea curry with veg that was lurking in the fridge. So the goulash that was planned for yesterday, is for tonight. It's an experiment from the new Mr A magazine. The stewing bit is done and all I have to do is add some paprika, peppers, tomatoes and sour cream. Nomnom. Can't wait. I'll let you know how it turns out.