November 2009 Grocery Challenge

angela30

scotsaver wrote: »

Hi everyone - thanks rosieben & helen for getting us up and running again.:A

So much for starting the month off slowly, DD1 has friends over tomorrow for Dinner and sleepover and DD2 has friends over for Halloween Dinner and sleepover Saturday (DD1 will be at her friends for Halloween) so I have had to buy enough food etc for all these extra mouths and also a Pumpkin and sweets for Trick or treaters who may knock the Door. So all in all a spend of over £48!!

Some serious recipe/meal planning will need to take place to try and make up for this unplanned spend.:o

Dinner tonight is a HM Minced pie with carrots and mash, pudding is Delia's Lemon Surprise pudding as Aldi's have a bag of 5 lemons for 49p. Using some more of them tomorrow to make Lemon butterfly cakes.;)

Angela30 - like Helenjelly I too would love some tips on how you manage on your Budget, could you maybe tell us what sort of things you do for Dinners? What do you include in your GC total - I include toiletries, cleaning stuff etc.;)

Anyway, enough waffling - welcome to all the Newbies and good luck to everyone else.:D

hello sorry for not replaying to you sooner but ive just started med treatment and have been abit out of it lol..
there are a few sites that i have been on the past few mths which have been a great help to me..
the happy housewife,moneysaving mum is another one..and the love food hate waste website is also very good. and not forgetting MSE is also very good. lol
every tuesday night i write out the menu plan for 6 days breakfast. lunches and dinners.
i dont write out for 7 days only 6...that way we can use up any leftovers on the 7th day.
im the only one who will do the shopping now and stick to what is on my list, i used to send my hubby but found that he would spend loads of money on things we didnt really need or treats for the girls..i dont mind getting treats but only if we have money to spare that month.
i try to give 5 fruit and veg not counting potatoes.
i have found that if i write out 6 meats for the weekly meun than write out the side dishes to go with them its makes life so much easyer,
i bake as much as i can ahead and freeze what isnt needed
when fruit start to go bad i will wizz it up into a smootie,
the girls will usaully have a smootie with their breakfast in the morning.
oct was the 1st month that we manged to spend only what we had in our budget. im hoping that we can do the same this month.
its funny really when i think about it. we are eating so much better than we used too and we are not spending as much..
with cleanning that doent come out of my food budget.
but i use lavender air fresherner.. 6 drops of lavender oil and 300mls of water in a spray bottle.
i get a lavender anti bacterial.. one cap full with 300mls of water in a spray bottle.
bleach and water for every where else. lol. or lemons..
vinger for the windows when needed..
washing powder what ever is on sale with a cap of white vinger and a few drops of rose oil,, keeps the cloths nice and soft..
i dont use polish as it is bad for my girls
i hope this was some used to you.. maybe have a look on some of the above websites
if u have any more qusetens get back in touch,,
hope everyone is having a great month,,

XSpender

Spent £2.39 on 15 eggs in Mr S last night only to get home and find that there was about 2 slices of bread left and not much milk:mad: so I will need to make another visit today when I wanted to try and leave it as long as possible. Worked out on line that I should spend less than £8 in Mr S on groceries and I am going to check out ALdi for the fresh fruit we need on Saturday as I haven't been in there for months. Will be a little over budget but not much fingers crossed

My lovely meal plan went to pot last night on the first night as the chicken I had put in the fridge to defrost on Sunday night was still frozen! DH will be having that tonight and all week:D and I will be having veggie alternatives from the freezer.

mark55man

Just going to pop into Mr A's on my way to a meeting. Hopefully pick up some nice fruit and spuds

Spent £30 at Mr L's yesterday. Not really GC/MSE correct, but really love their red&green thai curry ready meals for £1.99. + more freeway diet cola, F&V, baked beans (run out of their 29p so got 4 Branston for £2), crisps,

elizabunny

Morning all!

Sorry so many of you are poorly or have poorly families, hope everyone is feeling much better soon.

I have managed to keep out of the shops for 2 days:j so 2 NSDs in a row, but about to wreck that today because I need apple cider vinegar, bread flour, yeast and fabric softner. I say 'need' I could probably manage without the Fabric Softener and the ACV but not the flour and yeast.

I am planning to make chicken and leek pies today using leeks from the garden, but I am very low on other veg. so need to be a bit inventive. Think I may make some butterfly muffins too, had one that someone else made yesterday and it was gorgeous, pity I didn't get the recipe, so I'll have to make up my own and see how they turn out.

Also I still need to pick, peel and chop more apples for the freezer - it has been a never ending job this year. Last year I stored all the apples in the garage but ended up losing some of them, so I thought if I prepared them all this year and froze them, nothing would be wasted.

Have a nice day everyone!

BigMummaF

Although I parted with almost thirty squiddley yesterday, around £10 was for crimbo goodies & prezzies. Me muvva adores poinsettia & it made more sense for her to take possession of the plant as soon as possible, to get full value & pleasure. I'm absolutely rubbish with anything other than weeds so it would have ended up as a stick-in-a-pot by next month if I'd tried to keep it
Weather's obviously reading my menu ideas as it's more like a spring day so far Luncheon meat & mash for dinner today--haven't had it for ages; when the offspring were little I used to cut funny faces into some & use the potato to sandwich the slices together & make funky 'hair' :rotfl:Got a hankering for a jam roly poly too..:think:..sounds like a plan!

pennies_from_Heaven

Just popped on to update my sig this week, I've had quite a large spend as we bought 12 bottles of red wine for £30 (minumum order was 12 bottles!) But this was a good deal in our opinion as it equates to £2.50 a bottle, and should take us through the Xmas season hopefully!
This weeks trip to Mr M £53.15 - hubby went and did reasonably well, as he only got what was on the list!

angela30

hello thought i would write out our weeks meun and anwear afew more questerns.
im sorry that im spelling is so bad today.

monday-
breakfast - strewberry smootie. porridge with nuts seeds and dried fruit.
school lunche - carrot and chesse sands, apple, fariy cake, and juice.
dinner -sausage hotpot, jam pudding and castard. milk shake.
tues-
breakfast milk shake porrige with honey and nuts.
school lunche carrot and raisin sands, choc chip cookies, pear, and juice
dinner chessy bean and pasta bake.carrot cake, milk shake
wed-
pancakes and honey berry smootie
school L- pasta salad. fariy cake apple, juice, carrot chopped
dinner- eggs oven chips and beans. apple and ginger muesil and castard strewberry smootie
thurs-
breakfast porrige with honey and nuts milk shake
lunch pasta salad. fresh fruit salad, chopped carrots juice
dinner beef cassrole with dumplings chocolate profiteroles milk shake
friday-
late for school toast on the run. and jam
lunch hangs head in shame money for school meal.
dinner chiness style beef and rice. chiness style rice pudding
saturday-
breakfast pancakes and fresh fruit. smootie
lunch omelette`s
dinner beef wellington roastie carrots peas and greens, bananas and ice cream
sunday.
breakfast toast.jam berry smootie,
lunch roaste chicken roaste paototes carrots peas cabbage swed. fresh fruit trifle and cream
evening chesse on toast, oat chip cookies real hot chocolate drink and cream
if we get hungery druing the night,, their is usaully loads of fruit nuts dryed fruit about.
homemade cookies and cakes are in the frezzer.
since xmas last year i have slowed down in the amount of sweets chocolate and biscats that i have been buying untill i have almost stoped altogetter,, my kids have just about stoped asking for sweets and the likes.
they rather have the cakes and cookies i think the main reason is that they have either made them or helped to make those things.. so they enjoy them more.
and my eldist (14) is learning more about food now and is starting to be a very good cook..
she usaully makes the breakfasts in the morning. and cooks on a wed-night. not always chips lol
my middle one helps to make the lunches in the evening for the next day and helps to cook sat-day
and my youngist helps to make the cookies and friay cakes on a sunday.
druing the summer we all want black berry picking so have a few boxes in the frezzer
i only try to spend between 28 and 35 pounds per week for our food shopping..
im always looking for deals half price offers 2 for 3.. sale by dated and i use coupons when ever i can..
ive also got 3 cats so i have a budget for them too which i use coupons for them to for cat food.. and i am aways looking on the internet for free simples and coupons for them.
and some of my friends who dont have any cats also do the same for me which is nice of them. my cats budget does not come out of my food budget
food budget is £140 per month
cats budget is £20 per month (last month it was £14) thats for go cat food, liter and treats
cleanning and washing budget £15 per month. house cleaning.. bathings aids. washing ect.
i use alot of coupons when i can find them, buy 1 get one free so than i wont need as much next month.
my friends have started to laugh at me now.. in a good way lol as ive got a bugdget for almost everything. even down to how much elec we use.. £6.00 per week. and the heating isnt on yet either as it doesnt need to be on yet.. after this week i think it will.lol.
but in the end im the one having the last laugh.. we are eating better than we ever did before.
and i have abit of money at the end of the month which we never did before either.
i really hope i can stick to all this budgeting i didnt know how much hard work it was to do it.
anyway this has turned out to be a really long post so i will leave it there.
hope everyone is have a great nov.

highland_fling_2

hi everyone,
just lost another post. Don't understand why that keeps happening to me.
Anyway scotch broth for lunch today and left overs will be put in flask to take to work for lunch tomorrow.
Dinner tonight is fry/grill up. Bacon, egg, square sausage, potato scones etc. So not too much hassle.
Today was another nsd for me but noticed milk is very low and don't have extra in freezer. So will have to go to shop tomorrow and buy milk, bread and will also use last of eggs tonight so will have to buy them as well. Other than that I think I will be o.k.
Actually managed to call in to Mr.T. for sugar one night and that is all I came out with.:j In the not tooooo distant past I would never have managed that and would have been tempted. Not saying that I always can resist temptation (no fun in that:rotfl:) but I am trying to be a good girl.

sheba

Hello all,
I really need to update about this months spend: damge limitation v's freefall spending!! but feel strange (don't feel ill but have literally no energy??) so will save that for another time I just wanted to say to highland fling, that I think you are losing your posts as session times out? In that case you need to log in and tick the box where it says remember me on this computer- if its a works or public based comp logging out afterwards should be enough to stop anyone hacking your account- or just type your message up in word and cut/paste here or highlight message and control c/ copy it before posting- if it disappears you can control v/paste it back into the box when your back in a timed session

HTH

Good Luck all

BigMummaF

This looks interesting..an International Buy Nothing Day. Do they have spies on here