May 2010 Grocery Challenge

greent

ASC wrote: »

Oh, and *FelineFantastic*, I get paid mid month too which put me off joining this thread for ages. The funny thing was, I listed my receipts and the calendar month spend was very similar to the mid month – mid month spend so here I am!

We get paid mid month - but I do the challenge month end-end. SPends *should* even out - if you do a big shop after pay day it will make no difference overall as to whether that's the beginning of your challenge or mid challenge. It's just a mind-set/ head-space thing really

greent x
must go and find weekend's receipts.........:eek:

cw18

I work the challenge in calendar months as it's the easiest to get my head around, but my actual "pay days" are all over the place.....

CTC/WTC every Monday (lose these at end August)
WPA/CB every Tuesday (lose these at end August)
My salary every 4th Friday (so 13 times a year)
Company Widows Pension on next-to-last working day of a month (except Dec, when it's about a week earlier)
Company Dependants Pension as above (actually payable to DS, but goes into my bank account to cover his expenses until September - after which it'll go direct to him as he'll be at Uni)

From September I'll only have two sources of income, with one being close to end of month (so fitting the dates for this challenge as close as possible) and the other every 4 weeks. Whilst my 4-weekly salary is actually the higher of the two, I don't see how I can run this challenge in line with my pay cheques as there are only 12 threads in a year and I get paid 13 times

I'm actually hoping to run all my budgets on the basis I only receive 12 pay-cheques a year, which will then give me a 'spare' one to save into a rainy day fund for emergencies

ASC

boultdj wrote: »

Another $14.09 gone, OH fav food's bought for his birthday,what a mixture for me to make a meal from.

Go on then, I'm really curious. What are the ingredients?


A x

Billie-jo

Brought some more of the scampi that is half price and also got some ham with 100% extra free and another 50p pineapple today along with yet more tomatoes. Will be glad when home grown ones are ready - we don’t actually grow them ourselves (I can kill the un-killable) :eek: but do get lots given to us from friends. Spends came to £8.63

For tea tonight we had spicy parsnip soup with some cheese and onion bread, followed by some stuffed mushrooms and salad. Never made this soup before it was nice but found it a bit sweet really so will have to tweak it a bit somehow. Tomorrow we are out for tea so a NSD and hopefully Wednesday will also be NSD. Cheese and Potato pie on Wednesday - one of my favourites - then will have to do menu and shopping list for week 4 so all things considering GC looking really good this month. As only one more week to go and yet not quite half way through budget yet. :T

4kids4cats

Well, I've just added up my latest batch of receipts (both mine and OH) and with nearly 2 weeks still to go (paid on 28th this month), we have spent almost three-quarterd of the budget, so going to have to really watch our spending for the rest of the month. On the up side, because I've bought the '3 for £10' meat deals a couple of time this month, I now have enough Sunday lunches for the next 3 weeks. OH is in serious bargain-hunting mode, so we have had some great reduced fruit this week, for the packed lunches.
Have updated signature.

meanmarie

Have now spent €167.10 of my €160 budget....not sure what kind of conniption hit me when I was in Lidl. At very least will need dog food tomorrow, was thinking of something else earlier, no doubt that will be only some of the things I need before 29th.

Marie

Herbaholic

Morning all

Thanks Rosieben, Spiggle & Feline for the lovely welcome back. I had a NSD yesterday and took a sneaky day away from doing what I was suposed to be doing, to do some cleaning and baking instead. a week or so ago I made the Nigella banana muffins that someone had linked to on one of the other threads on here but my DH wasn't keen. He said they had a funny taste and the birds wound up eating them.

Not to be deterred, I had some spotty bananas to use up yesterday and didn't want to throw them out, so I made them again, but this time omitted the cinnamon and nutmeg and threw in a bag of choc chips that I had in the cupboard and he says they're nice and took 2 to work this morning for his snacks. Result, so in future if DH says yuk, before I give up I'll fiddle with the recipe and try it again. I made the muffins a bit healthier by using SR wholemeal flour, and using 50g less than the recipe says and putting in 50g of oatmeal. A bit less sugar as well as the banana adds its own sweetness. Got another NSD planned for today but I do need some more baking marg and vanilla extract, but I want to try and use what I have in and wait until Thu or Fri to go get supplies.

Daft question... I bought 2 of the 59p Aldi pineapples which are now lovely and ripe, there's too much for both of us to eat all in one go, or two goes for that matter. Can I freeze the pineapple once I cut it up for putting in puds and things like sweet n sour? If I can, do I have to do anything to it like dip in lemon juice etc?

Have a good day everyone, Herby x

greent

Herbaholic wrote: »

Morning all



Not to be deterred, I had some spotty bananas to use up yesterday and didn't want to throw them out, so I made them again, but this time omitted the cinnamon and nutmeg and threw in a bag of choc chips that I had in the cupboard and he says they're nice and took 2 to work this morning for his snacks. Result, so in future if DH says yuk, before I give up I'll fiddle with the recipe and try it again. I made the muffins a bit healthier by using SR wholemeal flour, and using 50g less than the recipe says and putting in 50g of oatmeal. A bit less sugar as well as the banana adds its own sweetness. Got another NSD planned for today but I do need some more baking marg and vanilla extract, but I want to try and use what I have in and wait until Thu or Fri to go get supplies.

Daft question... I bought 2 of the 59p Aldi pineapples which are now lovely and ripe, there's too much for both of us to eat all in one go, or two goes for that matter. Can I freeze the pineapple once I cut it up for putting in puds and things like sweet n sour? If I can, do I have to do anything to it like dip in lemon juice etc?

Have a good day everyone, Herby x

I often tweak Delia & Nigella recipes with regards to sugar - I find them way too sweet In my opinion, a recipe is a starting point from where you can then bounce from.....

Pineapple - I freeze fresh pineapple for sweet and sour and pizzas. Not sure what sort of puds you're looking at doing with it. Pineapple upside down cake would be ok, I guess, but not sure about it by itself - unless you don't mind it a bit 'soggy' (I don't ) And I don't dip it in anything - just freeze it in a tub

greent x

greent

Hmm - have now added on the weekend's receipts, and I have now spent £321.67 from the budget - 71.5% of the budget gone, against 54.8% of the month...... BUT we have a very full freezer of meat items, so we should be able to do it. I need to meal plan from this Thurs onwards and this Friday is DS3's 1st birthday and my mother's 60th birthday. Some of the spends related to that will be from entertainment budget (eg meal out) rather than groceries.

Meal planning should get me there, I think. I'm obviously going to need milk, bread, f&V (enough for this week of all of them) and I need crisps, ham, juice, wraps, plain flour and tinned spaghetti (disgusting stuff, imo, but DD eats it once a week) That siounds plenty of money for that, but we all know how it goes!

I made a double sized batch of twinks yesterday. Haven't made them for well over a year. used less sugar (I find them too sweet) and added some OOD plain choc drops to a dozen of them. I also overcooked a batch as my 4 yo decided to turn off the overn timer. They weren't burnt, but I like my twinks soft and chewy, and these were crunchy (ginger biscuit crunchy) - so I blitzed them in the food processor and they've gone in the freezer to be used as a cheesecake base (poss with ginger added for some 'zing')

I still have some OOD food items to use - bread flour (fine for our Friday night pizzas), sultanas (gradually going in charlotte puddings or couscous lunches), couscous (will eat over the summer - yum), choc drops (will use in biscuits/ cakes) I think that's it.... oh, and I have a 'posh' bread mix to use up that I'll do when we have a barbie, I think - it makes good tear/share bread. I'm much better nowadays than I used to be, but the occasional item slips through.

skilly

morning all,spent£9.00 yesterday at corner shop on bread,milk,bacon and crisps. felt is would better to go there and shop because if i went to mr a's i would have spent a lot more on thing's that i did not need.