October 2009 Grocery Challenge

Blairweech

Hi all,

Have gone over Current spend is £102.42 and it is not like I even have full cupboards/freezer. Went shopping with OH on Saturday, yet more alcohol which tipped us over (and he bought some mcvities digestives which were £1.22 :eek: !!!!! for a small packet!) However, he *did* eat all his dinner - sausage and bean casserole - which I really did not think he would go for at all

Have some lamb neck pieces in the slowcooker at the moment, with red wine, onions and bay leaves, hoping to make a stew eventually, as long as it does not turn out too fatty

louboutingirl

Evening all :j

Had to go to MrT's this afternoon and spent £12.28, but that also included a nice bit of beef that will do 2 meals for the 2 of us. Also hoping that DH doesn't notice the value Fruit-n-Fibre which I cunningly put the inner bag of into the the 'normal' own brand box! I also tend to spend loads on yoghurts - £3.00 of todays spend on them! Can anyone suggest any good cheap brands, has to be fat free tho cos of my Slimming World diet?

Means i've got £16.86 until next Friday, i've got plenty of stuff in for meals so hopefully will only need to top up on fruit, milk etc...

I'm thinking that when it comes to expensive things like washing powder etc... to put say 10p in a little pot each time I do a wash so that when I have to buy some it doesn't take a massive chunk of the weeks budget. Does anyone else do this and does it make a difference?


Louboutingirl

xx

mark55man

coq au Leekie was very nice :-)

enough left for a meal sometime downstream, so going to put it into the freezer rather than watch it evaporate

posting quite a lot at the moment just to get good and motivated, will slow down over the week :rotfl:

topsyturphy

I seem to be doing quite well this month for spending, only buying essentials each week like yoghurts and fruint. Been using up whats in my freezer and making soup to take to work for lunch with hm bread rolls.

Today I have made some weetibix cake, twinks hob nobs to add to lunches too.

JillD_2

We went to Legoand today and didnt go til after lunch, then came home for tea. Normally we would have had tea there or at least gone to McDonalds on the way home. We spent about £7 when we were there in 3 hot drinks and DH wanted some chips!! DH went and got some wine yesterday (not with my blessing!!) but took it out of his own money so am not counting that (although I did drink some of it :rolleyes:).
It was MIL's birthday yesterday and I managed to cobble together enough bits of veg and stuffing etc to do a really nice veggie roast (quorn fillets) dinner, and baked a cake for pudding. Was really pleased because again normally I would have gone to Asda and spent £20 or so on stuff for a meal.

I will need some bread before the weekend but I think I'll dig the BM out and get that going again.

Would be really good if I could eke it all out a bit further and do another small ish shop next week as a good start to my new month (starts in the 24th). Am very pleased with myself so far :T

Storecupboard challenge update:
12th Oct kids jacket potatoes, us prawn stir fry
13th Oct pasta bologniase and garlic bread
14th Oct kids/DH HM pizza, me frozen leftover lentil stew and cous cous
15th Oct veg sausages, mash, gravy and veg
16th Oct shepherds pie and baked beans
17th - 10 quorn fillets - Grandma's birthday roast dinner - stuffing, spuds, veg etc and HM cake
Sun 18th 8 fishfingers, 3 waffles, peas; curry ready meal / frozen lentil curry thing

Still have left:
Mon 19th Jacket potatoes, beans, cheese, burger for DH, sweetcorn; pasta with peppers, courgettes, onion and quark for me and friend
Tues 20th Meatballs and pasta
Weds 21st Fishfingers and 3 waffles and peas; stir fry and rice
Thurs 22nd Pizza again
Fri 23rd 8 Sausage casserole and potatoes
Sat 24th Fish fingers and waffles and peas; omelette and chips

Still left:
1 of (7 fishfingers and 3 waffles)
tin sausage and beans - lunch item
1 portions chickpea and lentil curry.
stuff for Thai red curry
Couple packs couscous - lunch item
Couple packs Pasta and Sauce - lunch item
Tins of tomatoes and chickpeas and green pepper - will make moroccan stew
15 eggs - omelettes/quiche
Pack of falafel
Aubergbine - make moussaka
Pasta - pasta bake

BigMummaF

Just updated my spends _pale_..had a feeling it was going to be a bit :silenced: but not that much :eek: My sister & I gave me muvva a surprise b'day party so it's not as bad as it looks..well...I'll keep telling myself that & may even get to believe it myself sometime soon
Mind you, included in there are a few more bits for :xmassmile so in theory....the December total shouldn't be much more than any other month.

mumto2monkeys_2

I'm still learning this fine art of the budget!

I've overspent by £45, and I'm really disappointed, BUT I have bought a load of stuff that was on offer and so am very well stocked. For example, have 4 large packs of nappies which will cover next month, toilet roll for all of next month, kitchen roll for a couple of months... There's a few things like that.

What would you do? Set another £250 budget for November, or lower it according to overspend.

I'm budgeting for debt reasons, so am eager to pay off as much as I can. I would feel a touch more flexible if I didn't owe so much.

Thanks

Winged_one

This weekend was a bigger spend than I expected, as H&B had a BOGO 1/2 price offer, so I stocked up on lots of dried fruit for baking and muesli. And I went across to M&S after the "main" supermarket shop, to get some small cheeses (for lunchboxes), pizzas for DD's teas (4 pack, 3 now in freezer) and guacamole for fajitas - which we're having tonight. But, while it was a big spend in supermarket, I got a good few offers to put away, (like the firelogs - buy 4 and get €1.83 off - which is almost the cost of one) and used up another lot ofvouchers (€21.50 off). SO not too unhappy with the end result (asI did have some slack in the budget for such purposes). Oh, and I did have to buy meat - ended up buying 8 chicken breasts (had decided to get 2, but the bag of 8 was 1/3 off and I had none in freezer), and 700g lamb pieces (which will make a rogan josh to feed us for 2 nights) - so that was almost €24 on its own (and if you add the couple of pieces of liver I got for my Sunday lunch, it just tipped over). But the chicken should last me about 4 weeks or more.

Overall spend:
H&B €18.70
M&S €19.75
Mr. S €89.04 (Not the UK Mr S, the Irish one)
Total spend: €127.49
Left for 2 more weeks: €190.58

And I have a voucher now for a free bottle of milk and sliced pan next weekend, and won't have to do a proper shop next weekend either (although I will spend some money at the farmer's market when we're away).

ellemm

louboutingirl wrote: »

Evening all :j

I also tend to spend loads on yoghurts - £3.00 of todays spend on them! Can anyone suggest any good cheap brands, has to be fat free tho cos of my Slimming World diet?

Louboutingirl

xx

How about trying to make your own? There are recipes on here somewhere which I followed and now make my own every week with semi skimmed UHT milk and some natural yogurt as a starter. After straining it's just like thick Greek yoghurt which I love and I add a drizzle of honey to it or some fruit.

NSD on Saturday but succumbed to a visit to Home Bargains yesterday and spent exactly £10, on some Stardrops, loo rolls and washing up liquid plus some other bits OH put in the basket !

Frugaldom

Hi guys, my October spending is only £37.22 so far but that takes my overall annual budget to £1,121.40, which is NOT good when I'd only budgeted £1200 for the full year. With two and a half months to go, that's only about £13 per week for household of 3! Hmm...

Edited in: We're living out the freezer and store cupboard as much as possible but I just can't stop myself from stocking up on bargains when I see them. Maybe I'll try a new set of tack from next week. If I send someone else to buy the milk then I won't be tempted to buy anything else. My mother already thinks my stores make it look like there's a war or a famine coming!