January 2010 Grocery Challenge

Maisie_M

Helen - glad to hear hubbie is home and fingers crossed for positie resulst with his up and coming tests.

dry and sunny here today but very cold so took advantage of the roads being a bit clearer and went to stock up on milk and bread in advance of the 'big freeze' being prdeicted for scotland over the next few days.

I got some woopsied sirloin steaks reduced from £8 to £4 for 4 steaks, and 12 cumberland sausages for £2. Had one of the steaks for tea and it was soooo yummy. Baged up the other three seperately and also bagged the sausages in batches of 2. Total spend was £17.52 I will not be going shopping for the next 2 days and have my menus planned for the rest of the week with stuff in the stores.

Finally got round to cooking some red cabbage that I had bought for xmas but I had forgotten the red wine vinegar so didn't make it and that's in the slow cooker now, When its cooled down it will get bagged up and popped in the freezer. I also cooked a turnip I had in the fridge and that is now bagged in the freezer in single portions. Woo hoo to not wasting food:j

Total spend so far this month: £54.89/£150 - have spent a third already but mainly on bargins too good to miss. Have finished inventory of the freezer in the garage so I am going to plan my menus for the rest of the month to avoid going over my budget.

sorry lots of waffle tonight from me:o

CherryPie

Sick of this bloomin snow!! :mad:

Luv'n'hugs to all that need it!

Picked up some whoopsies when I went in for milk today. Got 12 mini sausage rolls for 22p, 12 mini savoury eggs for 16p and some 5p baguettes. These will do for lunches this week, along with the HM spicy lentil soup i've made.

Mr T also has an offer on the big tins of Branston Beans. 4 for 89p! :j (normally 50p each I think) I could live off toast n beans so this is a great offer for me.

Thanks for all the posts, it gives me the boot up the backside I need to come in under budget for the first time ever!

CP x

becky170

Sainsburys have just delivered my first shop of the year! I'm really glad he made it even though it's snowy as my cupboards are bare after being away for christmas and new year. It does mean I've nearly spent half this months budget but I now have lots of fruit and veg. I'm trying to eat more home made healthy stuff now after the christmas excesses of junk food!

AllBuyMyself

Nessa56 wrote: »

I usually do them in the slow cooker, put all sorts of veg and potatoes in the bottom (whatever you like really) put thighs on top, cover the veg over with stock or gravy again your preference and then just leave. about an hour before you are going to serve give it a bit of a stir and season to taste.

Delicious and the meat just falls off the bone mmmmm

Hope that helps

v
x

Thanks Nessa 55. I don't have a slow cooker but have read a lot of good things about them on this forum, and seen some lovely recipes, so may have to think about getting hold of one!

WendysWorld

Spent £13 pounds in Sainsbury's today. Most of it on long-life milk and bread for the freezer just in case I get snowed in - I think I'm going into survival mode with all this snow!
Wouldn't mind only I live in a London suburb.....not the Scottish highlands....

skaps

AllBuyMyself wrote: »

Thank you! Looks very tasty.

Its lovely and very easy. The longer you marinate the meat the better it tastes. Enjoy

huston_kw

budgeteer wrote: »

[QUOTE=huston_kw;http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3198/spicy-roasted-parsnip-soup ]

That looks like a nice recipe - and very MSE of you to pre-roast the veg while you had the oven on. Reading these postings really inspires me to change my habits little by little - and makes me realise that there is so much more we can do to save the pennies:T

rly

The soup was loverly there was enough for us 4 (me oh, dd5 &ds3) for tea with left overs which will be dinner for all tomorrow, I think the school will be closed again tomorrow - hope so as our snow man that we made New years day is a giant triangle so we need to make another one or an igloo.

CherryPie wrote: »

Sick of this bloomin snow!! :mad:



CP x

NO the snow is great you get to act like kids again and make :snow_laug .

I love the snow it looks so pretty but I'm a SAHM so don't need to travel (walk to school).

This is how winters should be, snowy and white!!!!

We spent the morning making bird feeds with the bairns, we keep the drained fat from mince meat. Melt it on a very low heat, in a bowl add some seed, nuts, oats, mixed fruit and bread add the fat and plain flour - role it in a ball around some string and leave to set and then you can hang from trees. I spent time this afternoon watching the birds feed from it - the little robin that visits each year never moved from the feed most of the afternoon - we made six - so that should keep them going for a while.

maman

wildthing01 wrote: »

i'm just about to start weekly meal-planning, at my husband's suggestion, but i'm a bit concerned about it - what if it gets to thursday and i don't fancy spag bol? or if i'm just too knackered/busy to cook?????????

i also batch cook, and freeze portions of pasta/rice dishes for lunches, my toddler's meals etc

wildthing, I write down 7 meals a week before doing my shopping list but you don't have to eat them in that order if you don't feel like it. Having some HM 'ready meals' like bolognese or chilli in the freezer is good for when you don't feel like cooking.

supersol

One tip that always seems to come up when discussing how to save on shopping is the one about making a list.

I have a different way of doing things. I see what is on offer that I usually use, buy that and use it as a base for preparing meals. For example, I bought a large basket of mushrooms for 50p, reduced, at Morrisons. From this, we had mushroom soup, mushroom omelette and a casserole with mushrooms in the slow cooker. They all tasted different, so we didn't get bored, and the mushrooms lasted remarkable well, so it was all spread out during the week.

Money_saving_Diva_2

Ok, well, for the first time in yonks we managed 3 NSDs in a row!! We have also cooked a delicious stewing steak casserole in the slow cooker, which despite not having a lid works fine with an oval platter on the top! We threw in all the veg we had plus my HG frozen peppers and about 4 tomatoes that were just on the turn in the fridge. Loads for another meal for the two of us and hopefully maybe even a pasty or two.

So we had to go replenish a few items and spent £9.40, but we had run out of Worcestershire sauce and as I put that in just about everything we cook, it had to be bought. We also needed celery which keeps forever now we wrap it in foil and keep it in the fridge, and we grate and add it to allsorts to bulk them out.

Yesterday we had to go to the bank so spent 95p on parking, but still doing Ok.

Total so far for the month £71.25

Personal weekly challenge - £17.30

I hope everyone is doing well.

Diva.x