February grocery challenge

tiff

There are many sites like that, here are a few

http://www.cookingbynumbers.com/frames.html
http://www.ivillage.co.uk/food/tools/recipefinder
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/

pandas66

Many, many thanks

halloweenqueen_2

I'm joining too!!
I got a chest freezer for the garage just before xmas and went shopping xmas eve- filled it - things like £12.90 worth of packets of ham for 65p, morrisons were getting rid of their stuff for pennies - so I filled my boots and my freezer as well as the freezer in the house, now I'm starting my economy drive as I have a few jobs I need to do around the house and will be able to afford if we eat out of the freezer - not literally unless i forget to defrost our dinner! I spent £25 this week for two adults 2 children and various pets!
I intend to reduce that to £10 a week plus the freezer stuff and the time I save going shopping I will have to get on with the jobs! All I need is fresh fruit, veg and milk. Will keep all my receipts for february and see how i go!

Sarahsaver

pandas66 wrote:

excellent thread. Its inspired me to delve into the back of the freezer, a long forgotten zone in our house! If anyone could help me with a query I'd be forever gratfull, there's a website (name escapes me) that if you type in what ingredients you have it will give you a receipe for a meal!

https://www.recipemonster.com i think this is right;)

Trow

This is something I have been thinking about for a while - the problem is in our house the roles are reversed, so hubby does a lot of cooking - but he doesn't really 'do' cooking if that makes sense so we use far too much junk/frozen stuff. Have just finished a really hectic time at work though, so I am thinking I might have a bit more time to be organised - freeze soups, tomato sauces etc - just wish I had a big chest freezer... then I would be able to do bulk cooking every time I did any cooking.

Anyway, I probably spend about £70 per week for 2 adults, 2 kids - so I will maybe not be quite as stringent as tiff - I was thinking £45 per week or £180 for the month, and pare it down from there. BTW tiff - did you realise what a great month you chose to start this cos it works with ppl that buy weekly and monthly, being a 4-week month...

So good luck to one and all - especially to the ones that are paring down already pared down budgets - I am most impressed.

tiff

Good luck Trow, hadnt thought about the weekly/monthly thing.

I too wish I had more storage space. When you read American frugal forums they talk about stockpiling anything that is on sale, and things seem to go on sale quite often over there and at rock bottom prices. Sounds like Halloweenqueen did exactly that at Christmas when the bargains were around.

How is everyone else doing, has anyone been shopping yet?

swizzlebabe

Going to join the challange, 2 kids and 2 adults. I`m going to try shopping online at tesco and save vouchers for breakdown cover-thanks to this board I may be able to afford it.
Putting quite a few value produts in my basket, again inspired by you money savers. Just a bit worried about E numbers etc not being able to read a lables.
Also going to use local shop for milk etc, so i wont be tempted.
But got stuff in my freezer and cupboard to eat this week.

VickyA_2

We're going to try and do this too. I've just sent my boyfriend off to Tesco (he should have been back by now!) with a very short shopping list because we've already managed to stockpile quite a bit of food. We also get veg cheaply from his work, so we live on alot of stir fries. I always bulk cook when doing a soup, bolognese, chilli etc. I'll have to try to do that with casseroles, but the freezer space is quite minimal. I buy my meat from the local butchers/farmer's market because of the quality and price, but I'm not discerning on other products. We buy value tomatoes (tinned and fresh), value rice (it's only outgrades!) and everything else has either got a Tesco brand on it, or Wilkos (for cleaning). Maybe we should try the value baked beans next.................

loafer_2

tiff - Treat yourself to something nice with some more coupons : http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=24435
and don't forget this one :
http://www.nelsonshomoeopathy.co.uk/pdf/teethacomp.pdf (I use 2 of these one with the logo and baby cut off, at Tesco's without a problem)

Where were your £1.50 and £1 ones from ?

tiff

Hi Loafer, the coupons I used were those Sainsburys ones that were around over Christmas, they were out of date on the 15th Jan but the girl still took them no problem. I have loads more, just wish I'd used them but lately they've been saying they dont take Sainsburys coupons so I just chanced it with a few.

Thanks for the links above, I havent used printed ones yet. Asda have a sign on the customer service desk saying they dont take internet coupons, so Tesco are my only hope, like I said they have got strict lately so we shall see.