February 2009 Grocery Challenge

huxley

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a good day. I'm in need of advice and thought this would be the place to get it:D I have been given a bag of dried chickpeas, I normally use tinned, what I want to know is because they are dried you have to go through all the preparation , can I prepare them in bulk and freeze what I dont use so they are ready to just throw in when needed?

rumncoke

Hi, can you put me down for £265 for Feb please. Manged to come in £10 under for Jan, so hopefully can stay in budget this month. Cheers

kindlesgirl

Hi all, haven't posted final Jan total yet as I'm off to shop tomorrow - will start Feb on the1st! Please put me down for £280 again this month - hoping that my overspend this month - bound to be as I have a bit to get tomorrow! will be absorbed into this amount! I forgot DDs birthday fell in a 5 week month - hence the overspends! Will try harder in Feb!

Catwoman_Kent

Managed to stay at £150 for January but have to restock the freezers so will need to remain at £150 for February.

I have 8 cats and its their food which is costing teh most. Trying Asda tomorrow as their own brand looks to be cheaper than Tesco.

OrkneyStar

Just been a trip to town, passing the local charity shops (got a brand new top in there and some jeans ), and also to Tesco where I spent £26 approx. Stuck to my list , apart from some blueberries for DS (although was going to get him grapes but these were better looking) and some dried beans (had got canned yesterday in Coop but dried ones are much cheaper in the long run, canned are a handy stand by if no time to soak!), so quite pleased really. Made some HM bread earlier for next day or so and also got a whoopsed Hovis loaf for 62p in the Coop. Can't say I was overly impressed by the offers OR prices in Tesco, I think our weekly shooping was low mainly cos I stuck to the list and have meal planned! Will likely get some sort of meat (perhaps pork and/or some nice sausages) from local butcher towards the middle of next week.
Ok, hope all are well.
:wave:

ifonlyitwaseasier

huxley wrote: »

Hi everyone, hope you are all having a good day. I'm in need of advice and thought this would be the place to get it:D I have been given a bag of dried chickpeas, I normally use tinned, what I want to know is because they are dried you have to go through all the preparation , can I prepare them in bulk and freeze what I dont use so they are ready to just throw in when needed?

you can definitely freeze them, i soak and cook a 500gr bag at a time (last time i did 1kg and nearly ran out of saucpan space!!!) and they freeze easy, and very easy to make quick houmous then too!

01001011

I am not sure what to do with this challenge (in particular how and how often do I report my spending). I already have a £20 per week budget so let me set a monthly budget of £70.

starflower_2

Hi, I'm new to all this, I would like to join the grocery challenge this month, can you please put me down for £275 for the month of Feb, this is for myself, dh, & 3 kids (8,5,3). I am hoping to spend under £65 per week at the Supermarket, so £260 for the month with at least £15 left over for fresh milk, bread etc. inbetween shops.
(freezer is quite small so can't buy too much inadvance!)
DH thinks we can reduce it to under £250 total, but we'll see how the first month goes!!! We've already drastically reduced from our average monthly spend from 2008 which i worked out as £425/month:eek:. I reckon at least £100 of it ended up in the bin due to impulse buying, overbuying and bad planning (or none!). Shameful.:(

northern_star

£186 for Feb challenge for us please.

rosieben

01001011 wrote: »

I am not sure what to do with this challenge (in particular how and how often do I report my spending). I already have a £20 per week budget so let me set a monthly budget of £70.

You'll find some guidlines for posting etc, in the second post here. Most people post when they've spent out of their budget, some post weekly, its up to you really. Posting spends here is a good way of keeping on track and reading other posts is a good way of getting some inspiration!

Welcome to all the newbies joining us this month :j