April 2010 Grocery Challenge

Bluefire

£2.96 on tomatoes, a cucumber, breakfast cereal that we didn't need (an OH purchase!) and emergency lemonade for non-drinking visitors last night. Currently trying to convince OH that strawberries are a treat rather than an essential weekly purchase!

slowandsteady_2

Evening all,

hugs to all who need them and who are facing challenges at present x

Updating spends from yesterday which were a bit short of £10 and then another £3 today.

Yesterday i bought eggs and fruit from the market and then two 1kg bags of lentils from Mr T last night-last time i bought some the 500g bags were 88p and the 1kg bags were nearly £3, so i emailed customer service as i thought this was ridiculous, i never got an explanation but i did get an email survey asking me was i satisfied with their response lol, needless to say i didnt respond! Maybe they actually did take notice of my email and reduced the 1kg bag accordingly as it was £1.60 yesterday:j so i got two! Then today a mobile soft drink/potato/sweet seller was knocking on doors for trade and i parted with £3 for 5 litres of sugar free pop, locally produced, and all traditional in glass bottles i have to return, oh nostalgia, plus the flavours were great too. Their potato prices seem good too but i have bought 10kg the other day so maybe in a few weeks.

So £13 spend. I have to admit though £3 of that was on Thorntons Easter eggs, a small one for my niece for £1 instead of £2.49 and iced with her name free-she will love that, and a posh one for me-organic fair trade one down from £6.50 to £2. They must be getting rid of easter stuff, and i got a free little chocolate praline egg thing too, yummy.

I am hoping my spending will reduced even further in the long term though as dh has finally starting setting to work on sorting the garden out and he plans to turn the soil etc and give it a proper tidy-we havent done much with it in the year we have lived here as its taken as long to make the house itself half decent. So im hoping i might get chance to plant a few bits and grow some produce, i also need to collect some large pots off my sister that i should be able to grow a few bits in so hopefully that will help.

Until next time!

Billie-jo

Spent more than originally intended today howevever did make 3 fish pies and froze them and the fish was on offer. Each pie will feed the three of us. Also have brought a chicken and we have only had chicken sandwiches off it so easily enough for another two meals and then the ubiquitous (sp?) soup:rotfl:
Also got a large sack of potatoes so shall not want any of those for a few weeks. Found some apple in the freezer had forgotten about so will be making an apple sponge pudding tomorrow.

Total spent so far is a little more than would like but do have the food in for menu plan up to Wednesday and possibly even a day or so longer - we will see. Am hoping that next weeks shop will help to bring things back under control a bit.
Have updated signature accordingly.

O/H has asked today if I have watered the washing up liquid down as its gone weak......me NO dont be silly :whistle: I didnt..... but I did add some VERY cheap shower gel to it. Suppose I should be grateful he does the dishes really. He hasnt noticed the water in the milk yet though.

guccigoo

well i spent £10 in i**lands today, thing is i didnt even need the bits so feeling a bit cheesed off with myself:mad: off to update sig.

meanmarie

Have spent €133.07 of my budget this month....have plenty of food in for humans but need to buy for cats and maybe dog before end of month....if I can manage to scrape by think that I will buy a big bag of food for each next month, definitely cheaper...not sure where I went wrong, think that I was so tight last month that I needed so many things.....€26.93 is not much but will do my best!!

Marie

S_Wales_Saver

Evening all

Some more mini spends. Looking really bad for this time into the month, but still think I've got most of what I need, for main meals and breakfasts. Will certainly need more bread for lunches, and of course milk, we drink LOADS!!

This week will be a bit of a stretch, as DGS aged 8 is coming to stay for the week. Bought yoghurts and round red cheeses, so hope that will keep him happy lol. That is if twin DGDs aged 20 months don't get there first lol. They both looove cheeese.

I am so pleased with the rubber chicken this week. Had a roast on Monday, with a reprise for OH on tuesday as I was out. That took care of one breast, so I froze the other for a future dinner. The legs did a chook and salad meal last night with lots of bits used to make a chicken and leek pasta bake now residing in the freezer. OH and I just had a big bowl of soup from the carcass, and sent one up to DD2 as well. Enough left for me for some lunches next week yummy. All that off a £5.00 chook!!! By my reckoning that's around 16 meals :T:T. I love this site :rotfl::rotfl:

ragz_2

£13 spend in tesco, but was buying some treats as we won £22 on the GN this pm (we win every year lol, but today I discovered my GD and GGD were bookies which may explain it!)

So mostly stuff I wouldn't have bought otherwise but will include anway as did buy bread and milk.

Slowandsteady I have found that Tesco do that a lot, I always check the price per kg as the bigger packs are often more expensive but people just assume they are better value (eg £1.99 for 500g dried apricots, £4.99 for 1kg!)
Madness...

franby64

Morning

I've reached the £200 mark so I'm nearly 50% through the budget after a third of the month but I've put a lot of Easter and birthday stuff in this month so hopefully I can reign things in a bit from today.
Off to cook my Quorn mince which I should get 4 meals from and do a reccy of the cupboards and freezer.

Hope everybody is having a good weekend.
Hope you are feeling better russetred.

WelshWoofer

Morning all - off to Mr S as soon as it opens armed with a list and £9 of vouchers to use (most of which were kindly donated by Mr S himself!).
I'm hoping for a spend under £40 but I always hope for that and never quite seem to get there! Will report back with the damage later.

BigMummaF

How I wished I had taken the decision earlier to home-ed, particularly with my youngest What is it they say about hindsight? Ah well, nothing can change the past, so onwards etc etc.

I called into our closest farm shop on Friday; the savoy for 78p is larger than the ones in MrS, the garlic was 7p more, potatoes 33p a kilo & the local rhubarb was £1:99/kg IIRC. With five parsnips & three onions, the bill was £3:32 but the problem is it is a bit out of the way to use more than once a week; by the time you've added on the petrol to get there :eek: & the food itself doesn't last that long, you can't really 'stock up'. It saddens me that I have to consider price over locally produced, but when you are on a really tight budget, what else can you do?