October 2009 Grocery Challenge

Blairweech

Spent £17.66 on groceries today in Mr T and Lidl, and 80p on eggs yesterday, so that brings my current total for the month too...

£72.96 :mad: Don't think I'm going to make the budget somehow!

Dinner today is toad in the hole with mash, veg and onion gravy. Made HM KFC for OH last night and he actually liked it. This is an absolute breakthrough, as I am at a loss as to what to cook him most of the time

Got some squash, carrots and red peppers in the oven ready for soup for the week.

Lidl have 4 pints of milk @ 99p atm, plus red peppers for 25p. Leeks are half price and broccolli is £1.50/kg. Plus they have their Christmas stock in now so I just had to buy some gingerbread

cw18

Planned NSD for today didn't happen! Had to go for a walk to stretch my back (have problems with it) just after 2pm, so wandered around the Whoopsies

Got some cleaning stuff from C00p (ours closes at the end of the month, and their eco stuff was all half price) but that's from a different budget.

GC spends were all from Mr M. I netted......
2 packs of large Naan Bread (2 to a pack, each 9p instead of 99p)
a loaf of longlife bread (15p instead of 75p)
and - as a treat for DS - a pack of 6 Scotch Pancakes (15p instead of 67p).

So 48p spent on goods worth £3.40

666paw

another small spend this weekend,
tray of eggs (organic free range) £5.00
bread & milk (co-op) £1.45
19 out of 23 NSDs

Hoping to make it as only a week to go.

P.

JillD_2

hello :wave:
I should have signed up for this this month, I have beenliving in cloud cuckoo land for months and have had a sort of mini light bulb moment today.

Can I just waffle for a bit please ..
We had terrible probs remortgaging earlier this year due to husband having had identity theft :mad:
This meant we had 3 months of paying £600 more than we needed to, we couldn't afford it, I had given up work and our tax credits were stopped. Anyway I've faffed about since May and money has come and gone between various accounts, I've been kidding myself that all the creative acounting would magically make some more appear, of course it hasnt and now I have to face the reality that we need to cut back and from a glance I think the easiest place to cut back is grocery shopping.

I've been a lot better this month already in that I have done 1 big shop per week and not revisited Asda mid week. But I have just now gone through my receipts to se what we could have saved. Here's the outcome:
(my month starts 24th of previous month ie October started 24th Sept as thats when DH gets paid):

25 Sept 09 - spent £113, could have saved £23, new price £90
3 Oct 09 - spent £100, could have saved £20, new price £80
10 Oct 09 - spent £81, could have saved £14, new price £67
Total spend to date: £294, £237

My savings were all by not buying biscuits and crisps, not buying packets of pasta and sauce, changing from Kenco coffee to Asda own, changing from Kingsmill bread to Asda own, no soft fruits as they are so dear now, changing from Diet Coke to Asda diet coke, no prawns, no parmesan cheese, no fancy dried fruit numbers for the children, raisins will do!

We (DD2 and I) also have a bad habit of eating lunch out, nowhere fancy, just Asda cafe or Leisure Centre for a coffee but its probably costing about £20 a week which is just silly. SO planning to cut that right down as well. I just need to break the habit and then it will be fine.

We are a family of 5- me, DH (hollow legs, always hungry), DS (6) - ditto, DD1 (4) and DD2 (2). Both girls survive on thin air. I am supposed to be doing Slimming World so should be eating less rubbish anyway.

I need to do a storecupboard challenge for the rest of the month. 12 nights.

I have
16 sausages - 2 family meals - sausage and mash, sausage caserole
30 fishfingers and 12 waffles - 4 kids meals. We can have stir fry those nights
1 pk quorn mince - 2 family meals - spag bol, shepherds pie
5 jacket potatoes - 1 family meal with beans, cheese, sweetcorn and maybe burger for DH
2 tins sausage and beans - 2 kids meals with mash or toast, we can have chickpe and lentil curry.
10 quorn fillets - massive roast dinner next weekend so we feel like we are treating ourselves!
I also have some cocunut milk and red thai curry paste so could do a curry with leftover veg some night.

Thats more than 12 dinners - crikey that was easy!!

Lunches - kids have packed lnches at school. DD2 has breadsticks and cheese/fruit, beans on toast, egg on toast, I have pasta salad or couscous etc. Think we have enough of all this. Should have enough cereal as I bought new boxes last week. Ditto toiletries and cleaning stuff. Nothing about to run out.

In the middle will need to buy milk (£7.50), bread (£3), poss some fruit (£4) and apple juice (£2), poss more potatoes (£2), more stir fry veg (£2). I make that about £20.

OOh I feel much better now!

TheBees

:jWell done JillD - just getting it down in writing makes things a lot clearer doesn't it.

Tonight's fish pie was a huge success! :j And there was enough left over to freeze for another day.

Hve a good week.

Bitsy_Beans

I don't post on here that often (not sure why really hmmmmm) anyway updated my sig. I only had a budget of £30 in reality this week as that's all the cash I had - got the bits and pieces I needed for this week and had £5 in rewards taken off the bill so only spent £25 in the end
Went to Costco again the weekend to use up some vouchers for minced beef and although my mum spent a small fortune I only spent £30 - I think that's pretty well restrained for me as I could go made in there
My Costco meat budget is separate to my weekly grocery budget in case anyone is wondering

Nomoneymummy_2

Hi to all, hope everyone had a good wkend??

Managed to get through the weekend of work WITHOUT buying anything for the first time ever!!!!! <thanks to the ogc for making me realise how much I was wasting!!> :eek:

Did the big shop on sat as I mentioned and in total with shopping at 4 places (Mr T's, Butchers and 2 farms) I came in at £70 which was good...

I managed a NSD for the first time in ages yesterday, though the oh went and bought wine and treated me to a bar of choccy... I took the money of this months budget though may keep a seperate booze fund next month as there is quite a lot of partys etc going on and my hm booze wont be ready till xmas!

Was soooo pleased with my butchers chicken, they've not had chicken in for a while so I've been going to Mr T's for one and got twice as much from this one as normal!!! So my original week meal plan will be having a swap about and I may get 4 meals out of it instead of the 3!!!!

Will try for as many NSD's as possible this week as really shouldn't need anything bar milk.... fingers crossed!!

patentgirl

Morning all should be a NSD day today but spent £9.72 yesterday popped into iceland got some bargains 4 fresh chicken breasts reduced to £1.50 so I got 3 packs and 1 pack of lamb mintedchops for same, did chicken last night for family with stuffing laid over top off breasts and they all commented how nice the chicken was and only £3 in total for 8 adults also somerfield has whole swedes for 50p and bag of parsnips for 50p got £93.06 till next friday left

have agood day everyone

ellemm

Morning everyone, sun shining here in Scotland although a bit chilly.

Planned a NSD yesterday as said before but had to send OH out for cakes as kids over for coffee :rolleyes: - but won't go near shops today or in fact until the weekend.

Managed to make some small pockets of space in freezer taking out HM lamb & feta burgers for tonight's tea and ricotta and mozarella for a pasta bake I will make tonight with the pork mince bought at the weekend. Also used up 2 chicken fillets, again from freezer last night and the remains of a packet of frozen chips - which OH insists on buying. Got some !!!!-a leekie soup made last week which will come out tonight for his lunch tomorrow.

So I am hopeful can stay well withing my reduced budget for this month.

Hope everyone has a good day :rotfl:

Eltee12

....due to taking so long, got logged off by system when made cuppa and did talking with boss

Anyway - am just over £200 from £450 October budget.

Was busy at weekend, made delicious smelling Christmas Pud and yum soup from nearly-going-off veg.

Did quite a bit of spending at the weekend, but all essential/bulky/forward planning stuff including £12 meat medley from butcher, which has been/will be used as follows:

Sausages - Used half a pack in cooked brekkers/lunch yesterday. Remainder to be used in Sausage Pasta Bake

Minced beef - BIG pot of bolognaise sauce used in Lasagne for dinner tonight and freezing (4/6 portions) and sketti bogs (already eaten by DS)

Stewing steak - in fridge awaiting casserole/stew n dumplings creation tonight

Stewing lamb - in freezer awaiting similar fate to stewing steak next week

Pork chops - in freezer for next week

Was meant to be NSD today but forgot to bring lunch today so off to shops for sarnie/crisps/lunch combo £2.99:eek:.