July 2010 Grocery Challenge

Gintotmelinda

Hi everyone! Been lurking rather than posting........but can anyone help with this question? Can you reheat couscous the next evening? I did too much last night (again!) but I've got a "thing" about reheating rice and stuff. Any thoughts greatly appreciated as it's for tonights dinner.

As a newbie I have been studying to get bargains and I had 3 lovely courgettes for 50p, a 30p whoopsied lettuce and I have the two packs of loo paper from the Co-op for £6something. I am getting there....I worked out if I spend £375 each month that's an eeek total in a year!

Kitchenbunny

Lovely NSD today - thankfully. The main shop will be later this week, but since we went to the supermarket yesterday there's nothing else from the Grocery Budget - and we can make do until we do need it! We've got spaghetti bolognese tonight - jazzed up to make it super healthy. I'll not be using any oil when browning the mince, adding a shedload of onions, mushrooms and peppers, and a blitzed block of frozen spinach to give some more health to it. A smaller than normal portion of spaghetti and lots less cheese than usual (I'll not be having any - that's purely for DH. For some reason any time I have cheese I start coughing, so I'm giving it a wide berth for a while).

Have a lovely evening, everyone and keep up the good work. Make do and a-mend If you don't have it, see what you can do with it

KB xx

CupOfChai

Hello everyone, clocked up £20.88 on my shop today and I'm adding in 53p I spent on an Aero Bubbles whim on Saturday. Why oh why did I not resist them! So that's £21.41 and I realised right when I walked in the door that I forgot noodles (d'oh!), so there's another trip in a couple of days. Must be very disciplined and ONLY buy them! Straight to noodle shelf, straight to till, look straight ahead at all times and no dawdling! At least I walk to the shop so it won't cost any extra in travel, well except a few calories that could probably do with being used up anyway after that choccy.

But apart from that and barring any disasters *knocks wood* I now won't need to go again until Saturday, when I'll get next week's things.

meanmarie

Had my first spend of July to-day....€5 for six pork chops...had 2 to-day for dinner (one each!) and froze the rest in 2 separate bags so 3 dinners for a fiver....will have our own potatoes and veg so not bad, still lots of 'old' stock in freezer to be used up...taking out some spag bol sauce for OH to have to-morrow as I shall be on an OS meet in Glasgow.

Good luck to everyone

Marie

Lindy_-_Loo

Sainsburys online shop delivered today, bought a few offers so some bits have gone away for our holiday at the end of the month. total £52.82

Sent OH (its his day off) to netto after the school run for cheese as its on offer for 69p - he spent £7.88!

Really need to spend less - am trying but its not happening!

shelley_crow

i'm on 51.90/170 this month. It's so difficult at the moment, really want to pare it down further but I'm working full time and in charge of the kitchen. x

becky170

I've had a couple of little shops so far this month and have spent a total of £24.54. So far, so good

skilly

evening all,a small spend today £11.48 ,trying to keep away from supermarkets as much as i can this month and only buying what i need :-)

poppy-glos

all good news here. working on spending up to a 31st of my budget (£7.32 each day) so i don't massively overspend at the beginning of the month then have none left and blow it loads at the end.

working on 6/31st's, tomorrow (if i need to) i could spend £32 and still be on track. no need to though, have packed lunch stuff in and have done a mealplan for the week from the freezer. will go whoopsie hunting in tesco tomorrow perhaps, and also buy some carrots for veg and also to make more carrot cake. Having guests over to stay the weekend so may try to save all week then buy what we fancy come the weekend.

good luck all

poppy x

Hippeechiq

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I was struck by how much cheaper Asda seemed to be than Tesco. Does anyone else find that?

Absolutley! But Tescos do have offers that are worth watching out for via My$upermarket.com - it depends if you have the time to check and split your shopping between different shops though really.

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I have a quick question about the GC. How many of you keep big stocks of "staples" like pasta, rice, pulses, cereals, flour etc? I seem to make the same sort of meals as you all but I don't keep such things "on stock" as it were and it made me wonder if that is why my spends are always higher? If you do keep stocks where do you store them? I had big plans to convert my under the stairs cupboard into a pantry - I cleaned it all out but then realised that I would have nowhere to put any of my household stuff like ironing board and iron, hoover etc. Hope you don't mind me asking.

honeybun16 wrote: »

OH has turned the cupboard under the stairs into a storage area for me, it's great, we have found in the last few weeks alone we have saved quite abit as not popping to the shops for staples, as we have them in stock and therefore not picking up lots of other bits as well.

My OH converted my understairs cupboard for me too - at the part where it slants the most IYKWIM. Two shelves, but they go along way back. I also have a freezer, hoover and my ironing board in there, but it's amazing how much rice, pasta, flour and tinned goods two shelves will hold.

recovering spendaholic if you buy a large bag of pasta one shop, large bag of rice the next, plain flour one week, SR the next etc., you start to build up a rotating stock. That way it's not such a large amount out of your budget in one go because you don't run out of them all at the same time - or at least that's how I do it

Had my first big fortnightly shop of the month today from A$da....came to a bit more than normal as it was almost a week overdue, but that should even out later in the month (says she hopefully) plus a couple of things from Te$cs & Lidl - total spend of £86.43, bringing my total so far to £102.75 out of £275....seems an awful lot when it's only July 5th :eek: Hopefully should only need milk and some veg for the rest of the week

3 NSDs so far though - thank goodness...hate to think how much it would be otherwise.