April 2010 Grocery Challenge

winterfrost

I am still being so bad this month! (My signature has not been updated in a while... don't want to add it up!) This is mainly due to work being really busy, so I've been eating in the canteen rather than bothering to bring in lunch myself (also with more work to do I'm hungrier, and eating a 'proper meal' in the canteen seems to fill me up more).

franby64

Morning all

Spent another £17.30 over the past couple of days - now 71% through the budget.
I got some rolls and fruit for the kiddies, grapes and strawberries which it pains me to hand over the money for - but last night we ran out of bread :eek: That's the sort of thing that gets you sacked around here. On the other hand we survived! (mainly by eating cereal!) - I think I'm sometimes too quick to replace things as soon as they run out. Bread is a bit vital though - I should keep some in the freezer but it does take up space.

So 15 days left giving me £8.47 a day. Should be easier when the kids go back to school - nearly there...

burntfingers_2

THE4WHINGERS wrote: »

my teenager is constantly in the cupboards looking for food /moaning we have no food ect he is very sporty but also doing gcse and college exams i would love to hear any ideas anyone has on healthy filling snacks that are quick and cheap as he tries to only eat sweet or really salty stuff.:(main prob is wont hardly touch fruit only likes apples and keeps snapping his brace on em!!!so fussy its beyond a joke would love to hear any tips:)

My son was the same when he had his braces wouldn't eat apples, but I bought melon, kiwi fruits and bananas which he would eat quite freely. Maybe your son could eat these or even grapes as they are fairly easy to eat without snapping his braces.

He also has cooked pasta, a tin of tuna fish (value) , sometimes he adds (bettabuy) mayonaise and (value) sweetcorn. It doesn't cost too much and he usually makes a huge bowl full and eats that when he has either been to the gym or he is hungry. (He is very into his gym too so never eats any junk food ie pizza, kebabs, takeaways etc)

Hope this helps.

BF

Purpleclutterbuck

As I slope in 16 days late with my figure of £275 for April - sheepishly slopes out the other side- better get down to some hard a88 budgeting
apologies for delay -please accept me back into the fold with open arms please?? go on - pretty please?

KITTY_2-2

Two small spends today of 2.38 and 2.19 for fruit tea at Lidl and yoghurts at Co-op. Only just gone over £100 for the month - very impressed with myself but as there are still 2 weeks of my month left I must not let things slip.

pammyj74

pammyj74 wrote: »

Glad its not just me that isnt on budget this month. I havent gone over yet but spent another £14 today when I only went in for bread
Supermarkets are very clever arent they??
Morrisons had a few stuff on good offers so I got a few bits of fruit, ham, cakes , bread rolls on offer, and my downfall was they had dairylea dunkers fpr a £1 and I couldnt let that offer pass me by as I love them and snack on them in the evening and I bought 4 packs (walks away to sit in the corner!)

I am at £78ish of £120 target and not even half way yet. I could cry

the £14 i spend at mr M was actually £11 as they mischarged me on the buy one get two free and charged me for the lot, so went back and got my £3 back. went to little mr T and got some milk.

Hoping for a NSD today so total so far is £75.65

wssla00

Going to spend about a fiver today on popcorn and snacks for the cinema this evening.

I still have my mycitydeal voucher to use so thought it would be a nice evening out

I still need to take a look at the meal plan for this week.... have so much frozen meat so will need to take some of it out to defrost and use this week coming- I also have a good deal of frozen meals made in the freezer too

I think next week (the start of the next month's challenge for me) I will need to get some oven chips and a few other frozen bits and bobs. Hopefully I can try and reduce my spending next month to about £150-£200 for the month- here's hoping!

Have a good day all

Winged_one

I am not doing too badly. I got DD to have a tea of fried eggs (I gave her 1 and she asked for a second! Not complaining about that as she ate both) and the leftover boiled potato from the other day sliced and fried (my mom used to call these homefries, and they were a staple way of using up leftovers in a weekend fryup). And DH and I shared the (large-ish) single portion of chilli that he'd planned on for Wed night. As despite his grumping, his meetings went on so late he only got home at 11.30 pm, so he grabbed a bag of chips on his way. I'd eaten a carton of HM pumpkin soup which had languished for a while in the freezer on Wed (was actuallly quite tasty) and we managed to do OK with the chilli last night. although I only had a very small spoonfull of sauce.

I put the lamb chops into the freezer after all - we'll use those easily another time, and I have the oven set to be hot when we get in tonight. The spuds are peeled and in water, so I will throw the chicken breast portions in, par boil spuds for 10 mins and add those, and think about some veg (might be too hot for roasted parsnips, but maybe roasted med veg, or just roasted tomatoes) for tonight's dinner. Nice and not too much work for a Friday (will save the takeaway runmblings). But I must remember to get some wine on the way home - we drank a whole bottle of Mr. L's Chablis last night, which I thought would last tonight as well. Stressful week.

I don't think I need to do a large shop this week. I need fruit and veg, cooked meat, and will need eggs too, and the usual bread and milk, but I have plenty of meat for a change and the staples cupboards are fine. So I might get away with local F&V shop and the small supermarket locally too. Which will also only take less than a quarter the time!!!

Meal plan, roughly, is:
Fri - roasted chicken portions, spuds and veg of some sort
Sat: Mushroom risotto or BBQ (Weather Dependent)
Sun: Roast or BBQ (WD)
Mon: I think I have a lasagne in freezer
Tues: Beef meatballs (whoopsied), HM tomato sauce and pasta
Wed: Pork Stirfry with noodles
Thurs: Chicken curry (using leftovers of HM sauce from last curry feast in freezer)
Fri: Gorgonzola Pasta

cookiemum

Morning all,

Updated sig with a extra £33.28 split between Asda and Mr M. Had a lot of visitors this week due to the kids hols so had a few extra mouths to feed.

Will probably need on online shop next week but fingers crossed I hope to be in budget. I've come to the conclusion that I was including a lot of non food items in my shopping total ,ie. trips out, magazines etc. and including them in my food spend. Oh no, does this mean I will need to reduce my target next month?!!!

Enjoy the sunshine

Winged_one

Just edited my sig, as I saw a gorgeous looking roasted garlic loaf of bread today that I COULDN'T resist - but it will be yummy with roast chicken dinner. And I am going to spend hardly anything else this weekend either (apart from a ahricut tomorrow, from a completely seperate budget!).