May 2010 Grocery Challenge

FelineFantastic

Morning All!

Have updated signature- did some Co-op shopping last night (they have Flora on offer and Utterly Butterly, also nice tortilla wraps and something else... minds gone blank!) and Tesco this morning for the elusive spray oil I keep forgetting to buy!! (its my age my nephew keeps telling me!!)

Am going to find something to bake now on the recipes page because you are all inspiring me- something I don't want to eat of course! :eek:

ASC- I am going to start to align my budget to beginning/ end of month- I did it before but can't remember how/when I made the switch!! I found it easier! Thanks for the support tho- I think this is indeed one of the most supportive boards ever!

The Bees- I am inspired to try the cheese sauce freezing because it will give me more quick meal options and with a milk delivery regularly I sometimes have milk to use up.

Spiggle- not just me with the toiletries stash then!! :rotfl:Just as I was making headway with the hundredweight of body lotions I got more for my birthday!! Mind you at least I know it will get used!:D

Have a fab day everyone... off to do some work before recipe perusal later!

OrangeFairy

I have £33 left of this months budget! Not doing too shabbily at all!!! i have bottled water, hand wash, milk and some veg to get and that should be it!!! Fingers crossed! My goal is £220 but my 'secret' goal is £200. I reckon we will end up being just slightly over

Really pleased with this month. We have at least 8 meals ready in the freezer for June too. Seeing as we only have 4 days eating properly at home a week that isn't bad!

positivelypurple

I've been keeping a close eye on our spending this month to see if I could get away with a four week budget. It's not looking good I still have two 'shops' before the end of the month. I'll have to be very creative next week to try and use up everything in the freezer. It desparately needs defrosting anyway so perhaps shortness of money is a good reason to get it done.

SAHARA

Hello, long time lurker here, really trying to cut down the grocery spend, I'm normally ok for the first couple of weeks of the month, but about now actually, it seems to go out of the window!
Got a budget of £160, until 5th June, and upto now, have spent £107.83. Got a freezer full of bread, which we seem to fly through, and meat etc. Despirately need to run that down as we go on holiday on 6th June and I would like to unplug the freezer and defrost it before we go. Hoping that i don't need to set foot in a shop for at least the rest of this week, but we'll see how it goes. Relying on the support of my fellow OS'ers to keep me on the straight and narrow

purplevamp

littlekel wrote: »

...i have bottled water...

Hi littlekel ~ we used to buy bottled water (6 x 2ltr) every week at least sometimes double that. We then stopped buying it and bought a filter jug. We've saved a fortune doing this, not to mention less plastic to recycle. We kept a couple of bottles to fill with filtered water and honestly we can't tell any difference and we live in an area with very hard water that sometimes tastes like TCP straight from the tap :eek::rotfl:. (although they say you have to change the filters after so many litres we keep them going until we can taste that they need changing iykwim?!) :A

Also ~ NSD for me :j

gien

Afternoon everyone,
I'm doing well thus far - spent another 27.80 yesterday and will need to get fruit etc. today. but I'm still well within budget, which surprised me a little bit!
I've had sick children at home os not gone out quite so much as usual, and therefore less temptation I suppose.
We're away this weekend, so that will be a little more expensive I think as DH usually does a little bit of shopping and he likes the extras!

Long_tall_sally

I've blown my budget. I don't know how much by at the moment cos I can't be bothered to go downstairs & get all the receipts but I do know that it is well & truly blown! Will report back later.

poppy-glos

mr t shop this morning, £17 to top me up, hopefully til next monday.

made a scrummy rice salad for lunch (and for part of tea), here's the recipe;

summer rice salad

boil up 3/4 of a large mug of basmati rice, drain and cool. Mix with 3 chopped spring onions, and the drained contents of a small can of mandarin orange segments. (dd likes the juice in a wine glass!) Add some ground black pepper, and a couple of dollops of mayo (nice without mayo if dieting, or with french dressing if no mayo!). Mix. serve scattered with some salted peanuts (used to mix them in but don't like how the taste/texture of the peanuts changes sitting in the 'wet' salad.

Good luck all

poppy x

Spiggle

Hi all,

OK, this is the recipe I used for the malt loaf on Saturday (and yes we have sweet teeth! ).

6 oz Raisins & sultanas (chopped 2 oz dry and soaked remainder in black tea)
10 oz SR flour
large half teaspoon Bicarb
3 oz demerara sugar
180 ml milk
1 large egg (forked/whisked a bit)
2 tbsp Malt extract
2 tbs Black Treacle
1/2-1 tbsp Golden Syrup (not quite full spoon 'cos I was feeling guilty about the calories!)

Mixed the dry ingedients together in a bowl. Put milk in a saucepan to warm (not boiling just enough to melt the next things) then added malt, treacle and golden syrup. Stirred together until the gloopy things had dissolved into the milk. Added the soaked fruit to the dry ingredients in the bowl and mixed around then added the egg and mixed around a bit more. Finally added the milk and gloop mix slowly while stirring and kept mixing until satisfied all was really well distributed. Chucked it into a 2lb loaf tin and put it in my top oven at 170c for about 45 - 50 mins.

As I said before this was far more moist then the basic recipe (on front page) from my Mum's Good housekeeping book. But still not as dark as soreen, grrrr. I'm thinking next one I may drop the milk and use the tea instead as the carrier for the melt, etc. If that fails then it'll have to be gravy browning!

Welcome SAHARA :hello:and good luck with your challenge.

FelineFantastic how are you running your using up of toiletries stash? I'm still counting my dates because I haven't bought anything since February that hadn't already run out (e.g GD is particular about her toothpaste and so I use it as well instead of buying zillions of varieties some of which my OH is in the process of finishing off). And I haven't bought a single shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, bath gel, face wash, etc since Feb. As friends and family have said I could sink a battleship with the amount I have! It is going down though and I get one heck of a kick every time I finish something off. :T

Friend has just arrived so off to have a cuppa with her.

Take care all,
Spigs

PS nsd today too

freakyogre

59p on a bag of apples at Aldi yesterday. Will need milk before the end of the week, but hopefully not much else.