October 2009 Grocery Challenge

Smithy22

Hi,
I know its already the 3rd so I'm a bit of late starter! Plese can I be put down for £120 this month.

I went to Mr T's this morning cause I had a voucher for £7 off if I spent over £50 so I figured it was well worth it! Really pleased with myself as I went round totting up everything in my trolley to come in at just over the fifty mark. Then after I'd paid realised i hadn't even got the voucher out of my bag let alone given it to the cashier hahaha. Went to customer services and they refunded me though:p

Good luck all

Smithy

Blairweech

Outdoor Lass - Thanks for that, have looked around the site and it looks excellent value (especially the sausages...how can they be so cheap???). A box from there would definantly feed me for over a month, whereas I was concerned the other meat boxes would not. Thanks for the tip about Sainsburys too, unfortunately I am about 30 miles from my nearest store but will check them out next time I am passing, as am a 'tea connosieur' too

FireFox - Thanks for your reply - I currently buy free range eggs (not sure if they are organic) from a stall by the side of the road near where I live, and choose the organic option if it is not that much more expensive. I guess my main problem is not knowing company backgrounds/ethics, so you could be buying the right thing in terms of morals without even knowing it rather than paying over the nose for the 'organic premium'. I only discovered the other day that for the supermarkets to label meat as 'British', it only has to have been processed in Britain, not reared :mad:. Good point about less meat, I shall start doing this (currently my vegetarian repetoire ends at soups and lentil dhal). Loving your new cat btw, I am sure he will bring you many hours of joy and laughter.

Nyk - Good news on the uh...extreme frugality of pasta. Can you not dry/freeze it?

Went to my local butcher this morning and bought chicken legs (@£4.79/kg :rolleyes:) and sausage meat (@5.80/kg). Then went to Mr M, where they have moved everything around, and spent £19.30. They do have some cracking offers on atm, I was surprised at how low my bill was as I had bought loo rolls, drinks, crisps etc as well as veg

Dinner tonight is chicken legs, stuffed with herbed cream cheese on a bed of Mediteranean veg served with gratin dauphinois. Sure there is a shorter name for it! This uses 2 of the chicken legs, the other 2 will be portioned into thigh/drumstick and used for Southern Fried Chicken another day....I guess I can make the topping for that now and freeze them like that, will save me time

Frugaldom

Blairweech wrote: »

Nyk - Good news on the uh...extreme frugality of pasta. Can you not dry/freeze it?

Going to try 'diluting' it to see if it converts into shortcrust pastry. I made a huge pot of tagliatelle at lunchtime but have enough dough left for a couple of quiche or pie cases if it works.

lambanana

Spent £41.78 in Mr Ms this morning, felt slightly panicked but I know I bought enough to get us through until pay day (16th) with the exception of needing to buy more bananas, apples and bread. I did pick up some bread flour so can make bread for myself but hubby does insist on the shop bought stuff for his sandwiches at work, fortunately they had 6 soft white rolls for 20p. I also got 8 tins of beans as the branston 4 packs were on offer for 78p which I thought was good, I always buy beans on offer and now we have 15 tins in the cupboard!! They're keeping the 7 tins of tomatoes and 6 tins of chickpeas company

I'm feeling quite positive that we'll manage this month, I know we were within budget the last two months but I've dropped the budget further this month so it may be a little trickier...I'm hoping to keep dropping it maybe to £100 for November and December but I'm not sure...I just want enough money to spend on the people I love for the big C word, particularly on my mum who hardly gets anything and deserves so much. At least we don't pay for food for that, it's always spent with the in-laws which isn't as bad as it might sound :rotfl:

Hope everyone else is doing well and sticking to their budget!

lambanana

Blairweech wrote: »

Dinner tonight is chicken legs, stuffed with herbed cream cheese on a bed of Mediteranean veg served with gratin dauphinois. Sure there is a shorter name for it!

Oh yum can I come to your house for tea?!!

tessasmum

I have done the first shopping for the month, and got stocked up on all the bits we were running out of. The cupboards look better than they did as they were getting a few gaps in the provisions! The freezers are fit to burst with all the fresh veg we have grown and been given, so I am hoping to get through the month on target. If I can do some planning in advance for half-term week at the end of the month, that will help.

huston_kw

Hi all, just popped to the coop for some veg stuff for tea

I got a bag of parsnips, 2 bags of carrots, 1 bag of sprouts, a swede, 2.5kg of potatoes and 2 fugdes (kids weekly treat), I spent 2.85, so that brings my spend to 10.15 so far. We are having left over steak casserole, potatoes & veg for tea my stomach thinks my throats been cut ... it will be ready in about 10 minutes.

Everyone seems to be doing really well, I hope joining in with this thread will keep my motivation up I continue my good behavior!

ChocClare

Blairweech wrote: »

Dinner tonight is chicken legs, stuffed with herbed cream cheese on a bed of Mediteranean veg served with gratin dauphinois. Sure there is a shorter name for it!

Mais oui, ma chère, ça s’appelle CUISSES DE POULET A LA SCRUMOLA :rotfl:
Can I come round too?

plzhelpmesave!

I just spent some dosh on an online tesco shop! Stocked up on cathedral city cheese (will freeze - hubby loves this!) rice (2 x 10kg bags for £5) and 5kg of olive oil for £7.80 (will now be using only olive oil for all cooking and normal vegetable oil for frying only). Used £10 off first shop and £10 goodwill voucher they sent through for cancelling my last order, rest of the stuff is all BOGOFs and half price offers - so have stocked up lots of "biggies" all for about £25 hopefully! willfnd out when delivery arrives on tuesday

Hubby has just come home with a months supply of apple juice (50p a carton in lidl) and more fruit & veg - no receipt in the box so will have to check with him!

TheBees

Evening everyone - not been on for a few evenings as the laptop has decided to pack up so I'm upstairs on the steam driven computer missing Saturday night TV!

I spent the last couple evenings writing a menu plan for the next 3 weeks and assume that the final week we'll be eating leftovers and portions that I've frozen. It took ages working out meals and fitting things around evening activities such as parents evenings and meetings but I got there eventually. I've got a MrS order being delivered on Monday evening which should include all the main ingredients needed for those 3 weeks of meals and I also went to my local butcher for 5lb mince (£6.99), some lovely sausages and bacon. :T

Tonight's tea was a half leg of lamb which I got half price in the co-op a couple weeks ago. I cooked it slowly all afternoon and the meat fell off the bone. There's enough leftover for a rissotto or curry later in the month. For pudding (which we don't bother with very often) we had apple crumble made with apples that I was given. YUM. Wouldn't normally have a roast on a Saturday but we hope to go walking on Dartmoor tomorrow so it's easier to throw a bolognese in the slow cooker while we're out.:rotfl:
Finally, in an effort to cut down on cash spending, I've withdrawn £50 cash and that has to last until next Friday before I can withdraw any more. I was horrified to find that last month we withdrew £240 in separate transactions from the cashpoint with nothing much to show for it.:eek:
Anyway good luck everyone.