July 2009 Grocery Challenge

rockie4

Just done my mid month total and it's £96.57 so we're looking good so far:j

Loads of veggies coming from the allotment which seeing as I'm a vegetarian should be a huge saving on the food bill :money:
I've bought a few 'luxury' items this month, a whole salmon for less than £8 which OH has filleted and frozen so that should keep him happy for a few mealsand I've got a few nice flavoured oils and things to add a bit of Ooomph to dishes;)

I'm hoping to keep out of the supermarkets for the rest of the month - I'll send OH for anything we need with just enough money so he's not tempted;) we spent too much on holiday due to the very hot weather.....you can't keep food in a tent when it's very hot so we ate out most nights

Freezer is groaning and we're pretty well stocked on the basics so fingers crossed.......

tessie_bear

hi....we have just had roast chicken and there is enough left over to make a chicken pasta bake and a chicken and mushroom pie....not bad from a £2 reduced free range chicken....and it tastes nice...very moist

we have decided ds could do with more vit c in his diet so i have decided to buy very light ribena from now on not cheap and cheerful squash so ill be on the look out for offers....saving money is all well and good but sometimes u need to buy summat that costs a bit more imho...cant put a price on health

hope everyone is well
tess

elf06

tessie bear - do you have a farmfoods in your area? I find they do great deals on Ribena .......

Hollysan

Just popping in quickly to update sig. We are supposed to be going out for the day but the weather in Norfolk is awful this morning. Grey and drizzly. Poor OH has had a very hard week at work and was looking forward to some sun. Hope it's better once the holidays start.

We are doing quite well on the challenge despite the fact that I have been so busy i haven't had much time for meal planning and we even resorted to the fish and chip shop on Wednesday. (Very nice though!)

Also the Aga is off for the summer so I am using a Baby Belling type oven, which means I am restricted with what I can cook. It's fine when the weather is hot, but makes baking and pizza a bit of a challenge.

Good luck everone for the week to come.

Hollysan

Toonie

I got some more good deals at the Turkish supermarket again.

600g red grapes £1.49
1500g (10) mini cucumbers £1.86
3 large nectarines £0.60
5 large white pitta £0.29

Today we are going to be having HM pork meatballs in pitta with salad and couscous.

At the moment we are working on a six week month to take us through to the middle of August, so I think we probably won't get a large shop done in August as we will only have two weeks to buy for and we can use up some stores and put the money aside for two weddings we are going to in September. As we have at least 45 portions of protein in the freezer it should be fairly easy to do with little trips to get milk, bread and veggies.

sistercas

had 4 NSD's this week :j didnt go shopping as is the norm yesterday because DH and DD2 are off to Paris on Tuesday, so there will only be me and DD1, I think we will manage with what we have in , apart from fruit and bread. the money I save on shopping will take me and DD1 to see harry Potter and have a meal out too :T
some the veg i planted is ready for picking , carrots, potatoes , courgettes, and beetroot :j so will having those this week

kezlou

Well spent a fortune this month on food and stuff already, so OH has agreed to only to eat what we have in (famous last words:rolleyes:).
So today were having a mixture of byrani and chappatti's then salad and sandwiches, defrosted to mince yesterday and it doesn't look healthy so going to cook for a long while before eating it.

Just popped on to update signature.

scotsaver

tessie_bear wrote: »

we have decided ds could do with more vit c in his diet so i have decided to buy very light ribena from now on not cheap and cheerful squash so ill be on the look out for offers....saving money is all well and good but sometimes u need to buy summat that costs a bit more imho...cant put a price on health

hope everyone is well
tess

Hi tess - Itotally agree with you on this one, my girls are 13 and 11 and I am becoming more and more aware of what they eat, mostly due to watching the Jamie Oliver and HFW programmes - we only eat Free Range Chickens & eggs and try to eat all of our meat from the Butchers - if I have to buy from the Supermarket it has to be British, especially Bacon. I cook everything I can from scratch so I know what goes into the meals we eat - they've not had a day off School from Illness for years so I hope this is due to the good diet we eat.:cool:

Helen - congrats on the Wedding, hope all went well.

Off into the Kitchen now to make some bits for this week's Lunchboxes, only this week to go now and then 7 weeks of School Hols (think of the food that will be consumed :eek:). Also going to check my Freezer/Cupboard Inventory so that I can decide what to set GC Budget at for next month as the School Hols will have well and truly kicked in by then and I know they will be eating like a plague of locusts.:eek:

Have a good day everyone.;)

oceanspirit

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all of your brilliant posts - I've picked up lots of ideas.

I have had a recent, sudden drop in income and now need to shave a lot off my whole budget to keep within my means.

My current budget is £100 a month for groceries, toiletries and cleaning but would like to drop that to £80 for August and less in September if possible, so please may I join the challenge at the beginning of August?

Having done a giftcard swap with my mother (gave her £50 JL in exchange for £50 Mr T) and used it for my grocery shop this week with the remainder for next week (leave the debit card at home so I can't cheat!), I thought what I would do for August is to buy a £75 Mr T giftcard and have £5 in cash for top ups at the local shop and see if that helps to keep me to budget. If I manage to keep my spending under £75, then I can buy a smaller card for next month iyswim.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

tessie_bear

hi...thank u for farmfoods idea for ribena...i like nosing round that shop:cool: so ill look out for ribena next time i am in buying broken biscuits in a blue box that are the overspill from the foxes production line and fab....or i think they are foxes and believe me i have done some research into different boxes contents:D

scot saver...it makes u think these food programmes...did u see the hfw one where he ran a battery farm production shed....i havent purchased a 'cheap' chicken since....i like making my own food as well as u know what has gone into it and there is no manky stuff eg additives...thats excellent about kidlies not being ill...i actually think my sons health has improved since i gave up work to become a sahm...i have so much more time to cook and choose food....not as much money to buy it but hey u cant have everything

went to tesco at 3.45 and got a few bargains...bananas at 15p a bunch....they are fab under the grill cooked until black...peeled carefully as they are hot and served with icecream....also ripe nectarines 12p each...a grapefruit 7p for dh as i think they are nasty sour things..they also had bags of spinach that i thought i might do a ricotta canneloni thingy with

take care
tessa
ps loving the idea of seeing harry potter film and a meal out on the savings from the gc...might do that myself