February 2009 Grocery Challenge

bluetimone97

Have spent a fortune this month as addicted to buying whoopsied meat, my poor freezer is groaning.
Can you please put me down for £250 for March as a guess to what I think I spend a month on 2 adults, 3 ds' 16,15 and 11.

meanmarie

€4 on eggs today...still going ok and only 4 days to go

rach

Please put me down for £140 for March Mrs M (this is only until 25th March as we go on hols then and I'm not counting what we spend then!!). Although it's less than last month (which I blew) we have quite a lot in and I'm determined to do it!

PennyGrabber

Just finished my dinner - egg (going out of date today) mayonnaise (smartprice) and tomato (seen way better days) roll (whoopsied nice ones, 5 for 15p, used 1 so 3p). All in all, very MS, and rather tasty, plus I've made another one ready for lunch tomorrow, and there's still some egg mayo left after that?!?!
Good old storecupboard surprise meals! I thought I was going to be having HM pizza!
I must admit, I do quite enjoy making something from what I have left, although I have a question - do ham and rice go together in any tasty way?! I have a pack of ready cooked rice, and some ham ends, and want to create something edible for thursday, which is the only day this coming month not yet planned for. Hmm. Ideas gratefully received!!
Have a great evening all,
PG x

cw18

I'd probably throw some peas and sweetcorn into the rice with the ham if DS was getting some. If just for me then probably diced peppers instead of the sweetcorn. And I'd rather have it warm (more like a rissotto) than cold - but cold would work for a packed lunch

zarazara

Can you put me down for £300 for March?

elizabunny

PennyGrabber I would go for the Risotto option too, maybe with some mushrooms or cheese grated on top.

HELP PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE MRS McC. CAN I DECLARE FEBRUARY AT £263.98. I CAN'T LOOK AT MY TOTAL ANY LONGER AND I HAVE SPENT EVEN MORE WHICH I WILL KNOCK OFF THE MARCH CHALLENGE:eek: :eek: :eek:

Just happened upon MrM today and Oh No! there were 'Whoopsies' 2s of Chocolate puds should have been £1.49, were 9p. Bacon down to 49p. Haddock in breadcrumbs right down to 75p and Cuppa Soup half price, Utterly Butterly down to 59p, Cans of Pepsi etc. 6 for £1. More for the stock cupboard. Plus I was a good girl and bought a saving stamp for Xmas. I need 35 NSD in a row to recover I think.

starflower_2

I am declaring 279.51 for February. £4.51 over budget :rolleyes:, but still quite chuffed as it was my first gc!!! And I did get some BOGOF bargains today in Semi-Chem so will probably not need to buy any toiletries in March, plus got bread, milk butter and cheese to do until end of the week (friday is payday ), and 2 packs of 3 chicken breasts whoopsed to £1.25 each, in the freezer now to start me off for March!!! Also have loads of stuff left i got BOGOF this month such as teabags, fabric softner, tinned custard, orange squash, so won;t need to buy as much for March.
Currently doing next months mealplan and stocktake of kitchen to work out March's budget.

angelnikki

Hi! I've just had my last delivery for the month. My total for Feb is £330.18 / £350 :T

Which means that I've successfully managed to switch to free range / organic poultry and pork this month without increasing my budget :A :j

As I was considering getting a monthly meat box delivered, I've added up our meat costs for Jan and Feb:

Jan: spent £27.82 - £6.62 (stock c/f)
total £21.20 (if this was all FR is would have cost £4.89 extra)
15 meat meals (45 portions), the rest were: 7 fish, 3 veggie, 3 takeaways = 28 meals

Feb: spent £24.49 + £6.62 (stock b/f) - £12.69 (stock c/f)
total £18.42 (this was only £4.10 extra for FR/organic chicken/pork)
12 meat meals (36 portions), the rest were: 9 fish, 6 veggie, 1 takeaway = 28 meals

I have decided against getting a monthly meat box because:
-most are organic, which would mean switching to organic beef + lamb aswell as chicken + pork; so £ would increase a lot
-the cheapest that I've found are around £40 which would be double what I'm currently spending on meat
-the cheaper boxes don't contain enough to cover 15 meals
-they dont contain the sort of meat we usually buy so I would need to buy extra
So I dont think they would suit us :rolleyes:

But overall I'm really happy with the changes that we have made over the last couple of months; reducing the quantity of meaty meals that we have, to enable us to increase the quality, while sticking to the same budget :T

Nikki x

PennyGrabber

Nikki, it's definitely worth a look, so well done for trying. I'm not in a position yet to look at that, but may try in the future. At the moment, life just costs too much, and need to spend as little on everything as possible!
I've gone very OS today - as the children aren't here, I haven't bothered putting the heating on, I've just moved around or sat with a blanket over me! I'm warm enough, and it hasn't cost me any money!

I HAVE A CLEANish OVEN!!!!!
Finally got off my a**e and got round to cleaning it. Didn't take too long, although some bits were a bit resistant and need another go. I will have to temporarily leave minging ovens anonymous!
PG x