July 2010 Grocery Challenge

lynne1307

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

katholicos

lynne1307 wrote: »

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

I think it depends on whether you shop weekly, fortnightly, monthly etc.

If menu planning is unfamiliar to you, why not try with a one week plan utilising what you have in the cupboards, fridge and freezer and buying any extras you need to make up meals with these ingredients?

katholicos

p.s. not buying groceries today. YAY!

Going to have a snoop in the freezer shortly, see if i can find something for our tea.

Doom_and_Gloom

I think we did a lot better with what we got for our money for our last shop.

We got:
1.270g of apples, 2.7kg of bananas,raspberries, strawberries, 750g of parsnips, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, bamboo shoots, 600g of courgettes, beans, cheakpeas, potatoes, tomatoes, beansprouts, wholewheat bread (my partner usualy makes bread, this has gone in the freezer for when my partner isn't able to), houmous, oat milk, juice, chocolate soya milk, sweet and sour sauce, cola, tortelloni, cheese, meats (ham and chicken), large sausage rolls, crisps (multipack for fiances work), toilet roll and rat treats.

The above came to £33.64 :T. That means we have spent £46.64 and have £68.36 left. The food we got should last at least a week so that gives us £4.27 (£2.13 each) a day from the 16th of July.

The chinnies have enough food, timothy hay, treats and dust for the rest of the month so I don't have to worry about them and we have enough rat food and treats for the rest of the month as well. Litter isn't a worry either as the 12.5kg bags we buy lasts us months. We might actually come in under budget after all .

The storecupboard question - we always have loads of dried/tinned/jar goods in. It means we don't have to buy them at every shop. We rarely buy pasta as what we buy lasts ages and the same with rice, noodles, oats, spices, lentils, tinned tomatoes etc. It also means that when we are low on money there is always a way of making a meal out of the cupboards and freezer.

My partner can easily do a home made chinese out of freezer and coupboard stuff. Chicken/beef from the freezer left to defrost, half a tin of beansprouts (not overly cheap but good for a just in case moment as cheaper and healthier than a takeaway ), sweetcorn from freezer, onions (always have some in either white or red), noodles and soya sauce - chicken/beef chow main.
For me my partner can make me vegetable stir fri - rest of the tin of bean sprouts, sweetcorn (frozen), onion, peas (frozen), peppers (frozen - they are cheaper like this and no waste), mushrooms (frozen - cheaper and no waste) rice noodles and shoyu sauce.

We like to keep a stocked cupboard and freezer as then we are less likely to go shopping and spend money we don't need to. The freezer is full of reduced things and bulk made meals so we try and do what we can to get by.

Want2Bdebtfree_3

lynne1307 wrote: »

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

:A Hi there we do ours week by week and do it quite successfully. Shop weekly and write the list at the same time as doing the plan, always looking to see what is in the fridge, freezer and cupboards. Have even got to the stage now where it is just once a week unless we split between Aldi and Mr T.. It does depend whether you shop monthly or weekly though...:T

Rowan9

Did our first main shop of the month in MrA. I've been going to sains lately and think I prefer it. Anyway, watch out for the tuna offer in MrA - it's 4 tins x2 for £4 but although the shelf sign in our one says 'any two' they have wrongly stacked tuna in spring water there, which isn't on the offer. I checked my receipt and changed it otherwise it's not a bargain:p. She said someone had stacked the shelf wrongly but I'm going to check again in a couple of days as I think it is a sneaky move to confuse people.
Should be ok for the next week apart from bread.
Have a menu plan but it will need adjusting now that I've bought some stuff not on the list.
Ok off to tally up my spends
Good luck this month everyone
W

WelshWoofer

I never get bargains but today was different!
Was given a bottle of wine but can't drink red so checked that Mr S stocked it and cheekily asked if I could swap it for a different one and the lovely lady said yes but then gave me the cash instead! Hurrah - £6.99!

Then picked up a reduced pizza and a pack of the bargain £1 for 9 Chunky Kitkats packs - total of £3, had a £2.50 Nectar voucher to use so just 50p to pay!!!:j:j

What a result!

Spiggle

Hey all,

I'm just checking in to say hi. I did our first proper shop of July on Tuesday and updated the sig on Wednesday. So have only had 2 spend days so far this month and we're pretty much on budget with our total standing at £63.73 so far.

We're being super mean at the moment and meals are 'cheapie' but very tasty. For instance, a lovely thick sort of spanish omelette with pots in it and the small veggies we so far have from the garden being courgettes and mange tout. Lovely!

Guccigoo fantastic news on the job, congratulations! :T

OK, I'm off keep up the brilliant work everyone.

Take care,
Spigs

Kitchenbunny

No Spend Day for me today! I didn't go out at lunchtime and tidied around my desk instead for a change, so I didn't buy anything that I either thought of stocking up on or felt we needed Brilliant Tea tonight (just me) is a packet of savoury rice I found in the cupboard. I'm not going to look at the date on the packet, as it smells fine and I'm hungry

I've prepped the lamb tikka kebab marinade for tomorrow night (got to love RTC lamb steak!) so we'll have that with some lettuce from Mum's garden and perhaps a bit of bread and butter. Have a good evening, everyone!

KB xx

CupOfChai

lynne1307 wrote: »

Hi,
this may be a bit of a daft question, but whats the best way of menu planning?
Week by week or do 4 weeks in one hit and rotate?

It's whatever suits you really, I would say it depends how often you do your 'big shop'. For instance, what works for me is to go weekly for my shop and therefore plan weekly. However some other people on here do a monthly big shop and plan monthly to fit in with that. If you've never done it before a month's plan all at once might seem a bit much, but then it also might depend on what kind of shop would fit into your life.