November 2009 Grocery Challenge

nickynoo08

Afternoon everyone, done 3 mini shops so far totalling £33 spent. I've stocked up on everything but meat so far. Is it me or is meat in general getting even more expensive? I found a small pack of mince in my freezer so i'm gonna make a pan of chilli tomoro for tea (and hopefully thurs too if i can make it stretch!)
My god i found an old mrT recipt from about 3yrs ago (before i descovered mse and had my ds). I nearly fell over when i saw how much we'd spent £184.00!!! and that was just for the 2 of us for not even 2 weeks. Thats more than my monthly budget is now for 3 of us;)
Gonna have to do some baking tomoro too, everyone keeps talking about twinks hobnobs, yum. I had to stop making them coz it was costing us a fortune in ingredients and cooking them:rotfl:

Rebekah24

cw18 wrote: »

Nah! Just chuck it into the freezer.....

I prefer to split the loaf up into portions before freezing though - that way I just pull out the number of slices I need. If I freeze a loaf complete I sometimes find it hard to split the slices without defrosting the entire load first!!

Thanks hun!! its off into the freezer!

oh I just take out a slice at a time!!

Fantastic, cant get better than 19p a loaf, got two for less than the one original loaf, was 75p! :T

Going to continue being good..and try not to give in to an ASDA delivery, as I have £5 off... going to wait a few more weeks

Jedilibrarian

I'm a bit slow off the mark this month but could I be put down for £120 please Helen, thanks.

Did really really really badly last month, spend double my challenge amount so I need a good kick up the backside this month, I need to stick to my budget as I'm saving for a trip to London.

Fingers crossed anyway! Good luck everyone :A

Jevvers

nickynoo08 wrote: »

Is it me or is meat in general getting even more expensive?

Definitely, I noticed this yesterday in Sainsbry, packs of mince or stewing steak used to be two for a fiver for normal beef, £6 for organic. Now it's £6 for the ordinary and £7 for organic.

I got fish instead! (not that haddock bolognaise sounds so appetising...)

JayneC

Small Tesco shop today £7.91. Only went for bread and milk but there were FR eggs reduced to 49p a box so got 4 boxes and had healthy start vouchers for milk so got some apples and bananas to make up the value. Hadn't made anything for after tea today so got cake too . Was bogof so not too bad, tho do feel a little bit guilty cos usually try to make my own. Think will only need braed for rest of week.
Oh just remembered got t bags too from local shop 65p.

Will update sig now.

BTW HH62 there's a website where you can keep track of your spending www.spendingdiary.com that's really good. You can create catergories and create reports to see what you've spent on different catergories and within certain timeframes.Only trouble is you have to remember to update it everytime you spend!! HTH

Jayne x

elizabunny

Evening all NSD today, yesterday and Sunday, so 3 in a row!!! £5 spent over weekend on bits and bobs. Spent time yesterday & today peeling loads of HG apples for the freezer. I've decided to chop them into chunks ready for using in pies etc. Also did some cake baking, one for now and the others are in the freezer -which is on the blink and decidedly dodgy but I've decided to risk it for now until we can get a new one -just got to keep my eye on it. DH has started his homebrew beer for Xmas so we should save a good bit there -just hoping it turns out ok. I feel a bit more positive this month but it's only 3rd Nov.:D so we'll have to see......

Lady1973

Evening all
Just on to update spends. Popped to Mr M's today and spent £92.46,:eek: but think this is quite possibly 3 weeks worth of food. Cupboards and freezer well stocked ( and some over flow frozen items in friends freezer)
Meal plan listed for next 2 weeks to help keep me on track, and pack lunch items hidden away to avoid munchies temptations.:o

ellemm

JayneC wrote: »

there's a website where you can keep track of your spending www.spendingdiary.com that's really good. You can create catergories and create reports to see what you've spent on different catergories and within certain timeframes.Only trouble is you have to remember to update it everytime you spend!! HTH

Jayne x

Thanks JayneC have joined-will give it a try

thisismoneysaving

JayneC wrote: »

BTW HH62 there's a website where you can keep track of your spending www.spendingdiary.com that's really good. You can create catergories and create reports to see what you've spent on different catergories and within certain timeframes.Only trouble is you have to remember to update it everytime you spend!! HTH

Jayne x

Thank you - this looks v handy! :money:

rowsew

Hello all

Well, finally declared for October at £223.28 (for a budget of £200!), and to be honest, I worked really hard to do that. I'm not desperately pleased with it but for four of us (2 adults, 2 smalls 3 & 5) I don't think it's too bad. Thanks for all your supporting comments when I had a wobbler last week!

Anyway, after some thought and re-adjustments, I would like my new total for November to be £250 for the month please Helen, sorry to muck you about. I have decided that an overall total for the month would be easier to manage, and my OH gets paid on the last day of the month, so it made more sense to do my spreadsheet that way. As you can see, I've already spent quite a bit, but most of that was a Waitrose shop with free delivery and a lot of storecupboard items as we had run low. The rest is bits and bobs that have cropped up whilst making stuff at home.

I've been very busy in the kitchen the past couple of days - apart from bread which is always HM in our house - yesterday 6 pots of marmalade (tin stuff but who can get enough oranges to do it the other way, and for £1.69 I'm not complaining) - one's already gone to Mum & Dad. Today, bread, chilli jam from another MSE recipe - bit of a disaster at potting time because the jam or the jars were too hot and I bust my 3 best pretty ones! However, got 3 1/2 jars of that and it's delicious with a bit of cheddar! Also, a big pasta bake for the freezer, and a big macaroni cheese for tea, and all the old bits of breadcrusts made ready for the freezer.

Sorry for the long post, but felt like catching up! Hope everyone's doing well.