January 2010 Grocery Challenge

SunnyGirl

Happuch Welcome to the Grocery Challenge :wave: You'll find lots of friendly people on here and we all love sharing our little tips & ideas. You will have plenty to contribute too, I'm sure, as you've been doing the budget thing for 2 years already :T

Have a read of the first 5 posts at the beginning of this thread on page 1. There is loads of useful info & a MASSIVE list of recipes that Rosieben hunts down & puts all in one easy to get at place for us all :A

Good luck & I look forward to 'seeing' you some more.

highland_fling_2

Hi everyone,

Helen-hope your husband recovers soon.

well will have to venture out today, although the roads are still scary.
Once I reach the main roads it should be o.k. but the first three miles will be very slow and careful driving.

I agree with the person who reminded us to look in on elderly neighbours. I keep my mother well provided for but her next door neighbour has no one to call in on her. She is terrified of falling on the walk to the shop (to be honest I don't think in the present conditions she would make it out of the door) so I have been delivering fresh milk, bread etc to her as well. She is so grateful and her daughter who lives in Ireland has her mind set at ease.

Hope everyone is warm and cosy.

rosieben

Welcome Happuch, zend and any other newbies I may have missed :hello: Helen will be along to add you to the front page list when she can.

helen, sending positive thoughts and hope your oh is much better soon.

its definitely a NSD here today, just a few 4x4s creeping past but lots of people walking so obviously the c00p has run out of everything and people are trying the little shop on the main road in the other direction!

keep safe and warm everyone

poppy-glos

morning all,
have been out and walked dog and dd, now hallway being mopped up of fallen snow (now water) and catching up on here.

I was just thinking about booking a tesco delivery for tomorrow, should they not be able to deliver (like after christmas) some friends of mine were given £15 credits off their next shop, so a possible win both ways...

not planning to walk to shops today, but wondering if a trapse over at 90 minutes before closing might be an idea - then the decision of how many whoopsies i'd be able to safely carry home... plus freezers still pretty full.. so actually best to stay where i am

take care everyone

Coxy11

Morning everyone,

Small spend of £1.23 on carrots and brocolli from the local greengrocers. He is closing in 2 weeks due to lack of support. I'm guilty of not using him regularly as I get most things from MrT's .

Walked the children to school (along with neighbours children), so just waiting for the phone call to come and collect them early :rolleyes:.

Going to make a big vat of carrot and red lentil soup now. Nommy.

Off to update sig.

Stay safe and warm everyone.

Coxy
xx

TheBees

Morning everyone - here in East Devon we've got snow and so we're all off school and college. DH is upstairs catching up on paperwork and I'm putting off tackling the ironing pile! :rotfl:

I have a Sainsbury delivery due this evening but doubt if it'll get here. Had to buy toilet rolls from the local shop as we were sharing the last one between 3 toilets. Apart from that we should be fine for a couple of days if the delivery doesn't make it here and I can walk into town if we get desperate.

Anyway keep warm everyone and good luck with the challenge.

Butterfly_Brain

• Meal planning is a brilliant way of cutting down because you just buy what you need for the whole week's menu.
• Make a list and stick to it - try not to be lured into buying special offers unless you know that it is something that you will use.

BitterAndTwisted

A lot of people pay too much for their grocery shopping because they buy too many pre-prepared meals when they could quite easily make them from scratch. I mean, who needs to buy macaroni cheese or even cauliflower cheese if they know how to make white sauce?

Keep an eye on exactly how much you are paying for what so you can remember whether any particular deal at a supermarket is worth having. Some people just stuff their trolleys and wouldn't know the exact price of two litres of milk if you asked them.

Find out when your local supermarket marks down bread and meat, buy at those times and plan your weekly menus around those purchases.

If you don't know how to cook from scratch buy a simple cookbook and have a try: it's very satisfying, things generally taste better and things like soup are so easy to make.

Try not to be a brand-queen: there's not an awful lot of difference between national brands and supermarket own-ones, in fact they're usually made by the same manufacturers.

Pay particular attention to the bottom-shelf at the supermarket: the higher-priced items are always at eye-level

[Deleted User]

How about online shopping? I know that you have to pay a delivery charge but I always spend less when i shop online as you can't browse the shelves for other things.

coffeeholic_2

Hi everyone, I hope you are all safe and warm and well.

First shop of the week today at Sainsburys, hoping that is us all stocked up for a while at least, there were lots of people panic buying, with trolleys piled high, presumably having no idea when they'd be able to get out to shop again. Roads here are awful, just as well I had MIL to give me a lift as we have no car. Total of £34.86 spent, nowhere near as much as I expected to pay for the amount I got, so all good. :T

Helen I hope your DH is feeling much better soon.

Love and hugs to all xxx

:A