June 2010 Grocery Challenge
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found a couple of bargains other people may like to know about - they had tins of kidney beans in lidl for 20p each (used them last night, just dandy in our chilli), and co-op have coconut milk at 59p a tin (bargain as now £2! in tesco).
chins up all, incl long tall sally, we are all living and learning as we go along..
Me, 10 yo dd, and the dog. all food and drinks, in and out, plus household shopping.
Lovelife and Highlandfling - well done on your bargains!
Mrs M - I have upped my budget to £425 so that I still keep a limit - can you change it please? If I don't do this I will just keep on spending because I know I have blown it!
ENDIS. Employed, no disposable income or savings!
£4 Farm foods
£2 Pound shop
£5 Aldi
£31 Mr S
Total of £42.
Not too bad I suppose.
I'm just about on target fot the month with 4 weeks of the 5 shopped for with about £57 left for the last week. I've tried to stick to £45 a week for all food, toiletries, cleaning stuff and dog food and pay for it all in cash rather than sticking on a debit card and not keeping track.
Thanks kirsty
I get this too. I live on my own so the fresh packs are no good for me unless I want it 3 nights in a row! This is really nice and has so many different vegetables in it, it's lovely. The price has come down from when I used to buy it too which is even better
Aww thanks sis
I'm blaming the girls at work for the crisps as I went to Sainsburys with them and only needed milk, but they dragged me up the crisp aisle and...well, we all know that's not a good idea with me
popped in to sainsburys and theey have x5 kitkats for £1 which my ds likes to eat after his swimming lesson....might go back and geta coupleof packs
i wish my coop still did the halfprice free range chickens...i got loads but they seem to have stopped selling them....cant think why
tata tess
Saturday seems to be turning into a bit of a splurge day after the NSDs I manage after my mid-week delivery. Spent @£20 today and was hoping for an NSD tomorrow but have been caught out again by the dreaded cookery lesson:mad::mad:
So tomorrow will be a spend day (mushrooms!! and doubtless some other junk!!) and hopefully Mon and Tues will be NSDs if I manage to plan it right.
Not had chance to catch up on the thread yet (internet only just reconnected) so (((hugs))) if you need them x
Some people find it a breeze to meal plan and batch cook, but not everyone hun :grouphug: So try not to be so hard on yourself.
I can't quite get myself properly organised to batch cook, I find things don't turn out as well when I try and batch cook as they do when I bake/cook the odd thing on it's own. I don't know if that's because I've got a lot on my plate at the moment and so don't concentrate properly - or whether I just wasn't cut out to batch cook/bake....either way, I've stopped giving myself a hard time over it. We can't all be domestic goddesses
I also struggled with the meal planning....trying not to repeat meals, or the vegetables with the meals, or have the same meat two nights in a row, or pasta or veggie meals two nights in a row - it's such a mission. I've stuck with it though, and tomorrow will finish the last meal of a 4 week plan. I sat down Thursday, and planned the next 4 weeks too.
The 1st 4 week plan took me almost a whole day :rotfl: Thursday, it took me - on and off - about 3 hours. But the sense of satisifaction when you can see 4 weeks of planned meals in front of you, none of which are repeated, is pretty bl00dy wonderful quite frankly
When I first started planning a week at a time, on separate pieces of paper I wrote Sausages/Pork, Beef, Veggie/Cheapie Meal, Chicken & Curries (we don't eat lamb) and on those pieces of paper, I wrote the names of each Sausage/Pork recipe I cook, each Beef recipe I cook, each veggie recipe I cook, and so on.
Then on a another piece of paper, I wrote Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday.
So, for example, if I decided we'd have say Sausages on Monday & Thursday, Chicken on Tuesday & Saturday, a Veggie/Cheapie meal on Wednesday & Sunday and some kind of curry on a Friday - then I spread out the pieces of paper with the recipe titles on, on the table and chose a recipe off the Sausages/Pork sheet for Monday & Thursday, a recipe off the Chicken sheet for Tuesday & Saturday and so on. Then all you have to do is decide what vegetables you're having, and whether you're having pasta/rice or potatoes with your meal.
Once you start to write it all down, it's easy to see that you had say, boiled potatoes, carrots and peas for last nights tea, and so you don't repeat those veg the following day, and then all of a sudden, it all starts to come together.
It is a bit daunting initially, but it's training yourself to think in a certain way. Just try and do 1 week to start with, and see how you go eh?
Sorry for the long post, and it being a bit off topic - but planning meals has made such a difference to me, I hope the above may be of use to someone else, who like me, used to struggle with it.
Ooops - forgot a spend of £5.81 today - June spend so far £223.09
Oct10 £266.72 /£275 Nov10 £276.71/£275 Dec10 £311.33 / £275 Jan11 £242.25/ £250 Feb11 £243.14/ £250 Mar11 £221.99/ £230 Apr11 £237.39 /£240 May11 £237.71/£240 Jun11 £244.03/ £240 July11 £244.89/ £240
Xmas 2011 Fund £220
stocked up for the week today - came out of MrM's £14 lighter but with three full bags and 2.5kg spuds and 1kg onions!! might need to get some fruit for next week but my month ends on 30/06 yippee!!!!
wk1 £0/£100 NSD's 0/7
wk2
wk3
wk4
Total £0/400