March 2009 Grocery Challenge

GC81

First spend of my march budget in Mr.S and pleased to say its only a small dent of £1.42 thanks to a voucher thats for 8pints milk, 12 yogurts (little childrens ones) and pack of milk choc biscuits.
Did look for stardrops but couldnt see any

Should now have NSD's until sunday when I hit Icelands and Wilkinsons!!

Not decided if I should take the cost of my meal on saturday out of my budget, its my mum's birthday so will only be one meal out this month. Would any of you?


Congratulations to Rachel :j

tessie_bear

hello.....i got a tray of eggs cheap off the farmers market so am planning egg meals a few times this week....not tomorrow though as it is oh birthday and he has requested steak and chips....i dont think he would be impressed with me substituting steak to eggs...might do that later in the week....also planning a quiche and omelettes for tea on different days

i had a bad moment today in iceland (the shop) i went in to look at the meat...often half price.....in front of me was a young mum dad and baby in a buggy loading ready meals and other rubbish in to their trolley....the boy turned to me and uttered the immortal line 'hello miss'....i used to teach him and the young lady food technology at the local comp....i do hope some of my students can cook...i fear for young families with no cookery skills as such...it must cost them a fortune....i wanted to chuck the rubbish out of their trolley and give them a talking to...but didnt for fear of arrest and men in white coats appearing

im now hoping to bump into x students at the local farmers market:rolleyes:

have a good day

tess

jha

Hi All,

It is my first month on the GC. I have hit a snag - i did a big shop for the month (washing powder, longlife milk etc) and two smaller ones however i have nearly finished my budjet which should have lasted untill the end of the month! :eek: I know i reduced it from £250 - £150 but i took out of the budjet pet food because this was costing me alot (before I found the vet uk website)

I used MrSom for the meat (as I didnt like meat from butcher) my local veg store and MrA value range.

If the products are cheaper (which they are) whats happened?? have i got the ammounts wrong somewhere? My OH does eat alot of f&v and I am wondering if this is bumping the price up? Also we used to eat processed food (fish fingers, veggie burgers, veggie sausages) but I am now using the slow cooker and fresh meat and / or veg but I thaught that would be cheaper

Any ideas?

Also can i ask if it is ok to put raw ingredients (meat or veg) into a slow cooker (just before i give myself food poisoning with my chicken curry today?)

jinky67

i spent the sum total of £1.17 today

xx_Jo_xx

Well I already spent a massive amount in my first week (payday is the 25th for me also, so the start of my month) and this is my first go at this challenge so not off to a great start. I did a trip to Aldi and Lidl, butchers and the farm shop and loaded my freezer with whoopsies from M&S and a load of batch cooking.

I did though also buy compost, seeds, windowsill greenhouse, fresh herbs for planting, which are included in those figures, so will hopefully see the long term benefits of having bought them now!

Regarding cooking chicken in the Slow Cooker - I just did this for the first time at the weekend. the only thing is, that the chicken doesnt change colour whilst in the cooker, and like someone said, wont crisp the skin.

So I browned my chicken in a pan for a few minutes on each side until it was a nice golden colour before putting it in. I didnt like the vegetables done in the slow cooker so ended up adding those to the stock for soup.

You should sit the chicken on crumpled foil to keep it off the base of the SC and try to sit it so it isnt touching the edges/sides of the pot. These parts will over cook and dry out.

There is no need to add liquid as the chicken will create enough of its own juices to keep the meat very moist whilst cooking. Alternatively you can put the chicken in the oven for the last 20-30 mins of cooking. The liquid in the bottom does indeed make for fab gravy/stock as someone else suggested.

My leftovers and stock went into a Leek, Potato and chicken soup and there is enough chicken and roasties left for dinner tonight too.

Im really really hoping my spend wont be so considerable every week and am off to check out one of the threads recommended and sort out a meal plan.......

Good luck to everyone else x

kezlou

fatcattaff wrote: »

PS...how do you get a star??? Walks off in ignorance, feeling like the kid that never gets picked for teams (again!).

No idea but you have one too! :T

Reverbe:- It's scary looking at how much i spend on grocies i always think no way not that much. But this challenge is really make me think about our finances.

Elly:- I do that with our neighbours give out "gifts" that we don't want.

OrkneyStar wrote: »

You could put some in a haddock mornay (haddock in cheese sauce) or make a spinach and ricotta canelloni ?
I am on an annual budget so just post on whatever months challenge it is! I am not counting each individual month totals, just a running annual one. I also managed to create a 54 week year the way I added a bit of last Dec on and the way it ends too, to avoid bank holiday shopping dates etc.

Thanks for that Orkney, that's helped my poor brain. I would to do an annual shop but i think i'll stick to a monthly one for now as i have a terrible memory Wow you really are orgnised, something i strive to be. Sorry about your back, my OH sufferes from a really bad one. His GP advised him to streches and swim to try and unsieze the muscles. HTH, get better soon x

jha wrote: »

Also can i ask if it is ok to put raw ingredients (meat or veg) into a slow cooker (just before i give myself food poisoning with my chicken curry today?)

Its fine to put raw meat in i do it all the time, and me and my family are still here!
try making your own veggie burgers sausages etc as they are a darn sight cheaper than from a supermarket.

rosieben

Congratulations rachelmk :j

Purple Skies – I agree with MrsMc, you’re not overspending on rubbish, you’re taking advantage of the car and doing some stocking up, and tbh you'd be silly not to; we shouldn't get so hung up on the numbers that we miss good opportunities like that. Can you work out how much the extras cost and divide it over the next few weeks/months or however long stocks will last?

fatcattaff – just keep posting on MSE and you’ll soon have a star all of your own I see you have it!

Orkney Star hope your back problem improves soon. I like the way you sorted out your year to avoid start/end on bank holidays, a useful idea which I'm going to steal thanks!

[FONT=&quot]GC81,[/FONT] personally I wouldn’t include the meal in my GC budget, some GC’ers have a separate budget for Celebration or Entertaining. I'd include local chippy take outs (I used to take a weekly chippy lunch to share with my godmother) but I don't count the rare Chinese meals I treat myself to.

Jha – yes I put raw meat in my SC, I rarely brown anything first.

Welcome to all the newbies joining us this month :hello: and good luck everyone!

oh, I forgot to say that I havent spent anything from March budget yet, but I spent so much in February that I'm trying to keep my purse shut tight :rotfl:

JillD_2

Havent been tracking my food spending at all this month yet, dont think its too bad but I really need to get all the recipts out and tot it upt.
Will edit this post with details later.
Today I went to Lidl's for a bit of an experiment.
Spent £10.45
Bit annoyed with myself cos we didnt actually need most of it. I mean we will use it but we could have done without it. The baby cried the whole way round and tried to climb out of the trolley all the time (no safety straps :mad:) so not a good experiment . Did bump into a friend though so that was good.
I now have to pop up to Boots as we need plasters, sudocrem and teething gel (for the crying baby), and some tonic stuff for me, I have had colds for 5 weeks now, very run down.
But I can pay for all this on Boots points , I have about £20 of them.

Spend so far:
Mon 23rd Asda £35.64 (mostly veg, coffee, yoghurt raisins)
Wed 25th Asda £1.98 (cafe snack whilst shopping for ink cartridge)
Thurs 26th Asda £2.63 (veg, noodles)
Fri 27th Asda £5.86 (mostly cereal and butter)
Sunday 1st M&S £13.75 £10 of which was mystery shop so £3.75 (milk)
Sunday 1st M&S £5.86 (cafe lunch whilst myst shop)
Monday 2nd Lidl £10.45 (shampoo, veg, apple juice
Monday 2nd Asda £8.72 off an Asda card
Monday 2nd Asda £3.52 (snack after school wholst getting stuff inc emergency teething gel and metatone from Boots)
Total so far: £69.69

jha

Thank you xx_Jo_xx, kezlou & rosieben. I suppose I should have kept the instructions for the slow cooker:cool:, i would have known it was ok to put raw meat in then. Here's hoping it will be a much cheaper shop next week:p

OrkneyStar

JillD wrote: »

Havent been tracking my food spending at all this month yet, dont think its too bad but I really need to get all the recipts out and tot it upt.
Will edit this post with details later.
Today I went to Lidl's for a bit of an experiment.
Spent £10.45
Bit annoyed with myself cos we didnt actually need most of it. I mean we will use it but we could have done without it. The baby cried the whole way round and tried to climb out of the trolley all the time (no safety straps :mad:) so not a good experiment . Did bump into a friend though so that was good.
I now have to pop up to Boots as we need plasters, sudocrem and teething gel (for the crying baby), and some tonic stuff for me, I have had colds for 5 weeks now, very run down.
But I can pay for all this on Boots points , I have about £20 of them.

I find this a real problem with Lidl trolleys as 20 month DS insists on trying to climb out all the time and eat the key thing that joins the trolleys together....one eye on bargains and one eye on him makes for stressful shopping. I prefer Tesco trolleys for the reason they have straps on!
Thanks for all the well wishes re my back....still sore but I can (nearly) stand up straight now! I have been gingerly doing the stretches/exercise physio gave me. When the bottom is really sore (and I stoop) it makes the top half sore the next few days too, so trying to avoid this dragging out too much!