July 2010 Grocery Challenge

savvyshe

Thank's CW18 for your comments :)just re-read my post and how silly am I,:o got £10.99 left not 99p (maths not my best) so not sure what to do now?. Think I can do it with £10.99 so will try, but am definitely going to have a separate budget for wine and beer from now on. Will be buying beer and wine from France next month when we go away so I suppose it's a good time to alter budgets and re-jig things Thanks once again and will make sure I have woken up properly before I post again.:rotfl:

Winged_one

Rain was forecast for Saturday, so the plans for gardening were being put on hold. So OH offered to go to Belfast for the day - clothes shopping ( we both needed a few things), revisit some of his college haunts, a bit of a jolly, and a trip to Mr S on the way home. So we did. (And I forgot my nectar card! Duh!).

We got what we needed in the sales, I persuaded him to go to Lakeland (where I spent another £120!!! But ALL on stuff I already wanted and got a lot cheaper, except for a couple of things OH added in to the trolley which we had on our "long term list" of things to buy when we find good ones at good prices).

And then I popped into Mr S at Lisburn - where I spent €273 (when I convert it back, as I do the GC in Euros). But for that, I got a load of storecupboard things I had been lacking or about to run out of. Like 3 kg of pasta shapes, and 2 packs of basics spaghetti. And 4kg of easicook rice. I held myself back somewhat on tomatoes (as OH was looking askance at me!) and only bought 8 tins. But I did get my 4 packs each of tuna in oil and in brine, as well as 2 tins of crab. I didn't get many suaces as we had a lot already (but I couldn't resist the Mr S vongole pasta sauce, as we can't get it here), and I am good on baking goods (although I DID pick up a large bottle of the madagascar vanilla extract I normally get, and ginger extract, in LL - must add those back in). OH found his beloved oreos, and we got a couple of treats for our hols in 2 weeks time (we are self-catering again). I didn't get a lot of alcohol this trip - one box of wine for hols, a bottle of basics voddie (for raspberry vodka etc) and 2 basics gins (mainly for sloe gin later in the autumn) - I am quite happy to use the ultra cheap versions for those types of drinks. And I found a lovely looking boned and rolled lamb breast joint for a mid-week dinner (for £2.50!).

So we now have enough to keep us going for the next few months, so the annual amount should be good from here - between that shop and the plot now producing.

The plan for this week is:
Mon - chicken jalfrezi (HM from freezer)
Tues - Lamb with HG new potatoes and HG broad beans
Wed - Gammon steaks, HG new potatoes, HG cabbage
Thurs - Macaroni cheese (with some HG veggies included)
Fri - Probably takeaway or gorgonzola pasta
Sat - BBQ or risotto
Sun - Roast


The plan for this week also includes at least 2 sessions of jam-making (blackcurrant, and gooseberry), and possibly a third.

JayJay14

Morning all.

Finally having a week off work, sees like and age since I had any time off. Of course the weather seems to have changed!!

Food purhasing has settled down, at the begining of the month I seemed to be going through my budget at a rate of knots.

cw18 - I did your trick yesterday of going through the freezers and calculating how many meals worth of meat were in there - nearly 90. I'm in shock. Just need to work it all into a meal plan now. At least I now have a list of what is in there so I can plan properly.

Had a big baking session on Saturday morning which will see us through for another few days.

Here's a good one - A$da has Yeo Valley yogurts (pack of 4) on offer for £1, they are lovely flavours, even their greek yog and honey one. In the pack when you open it there is a coupon for 40p, so real cost 15p each - not bad, I'm buyng lots as even my non yogurt eating OH likes them. (and I get my DD1's 10% discount as she works there:j)

scotsaver

Morning everyone - hope you all had a great weekend.;)

The weather here has been fantastic but maybe a bit too hot, having to water the Allotment every day and try to look after the Garden and Greenhouse and pick all the Fruit that is ready, a full-time job in itself.:cool:

Homemade Jam - I've made the odd jar in the past with fruit from the Garden and the Jam has been eaten almost straight away but now I have an Allotment I've been making loads of Jars of Jam which we will use and I have given some away but I will still have loads left - how long does Home-made Jam keep? So far I've made Raspberry, Tayberry and Blackcurrant Jam and I've also made various puddings, Blackcurrant Crumble, Raspberry Pavlova and there is still more Fruit to pick.

We've had our first rainfall this morning for ages but later on I plan to pick some more Blackcurrants and make some Blackcurrant Ice-cream from my Delia Smith book. Just trying to think of different ways to use up the Fruit other than making Jam. Will also try freezing some of it so that we still have some in the Winter Months.

I've updated my total, need to go shopping again this week but still confident I will be on target. Have a good day everyone.:D

Billie-jo

Long_tall_sally wrote: »

Funnily enough I have some mushrooms in the fridge that are looking a little past their best plus some cooked chicken in the freezer so your soup sounds ideal. Recipe please!

Don’t really have a recipe as such but here’s what I did -

Finely chop 2 small onions and slowly cooked them in drop of oil or butter. Added finely chopped mushrooms and sweat these for at least 30 mins on VERY low, this releases a lot of the juices. Then just add the chicken cut small, some stock and season to taste. If as sometimes it does, it tastes a little bit watery you can always add some stock cube or what ever you use in place of them. You can also add milk and cream if you want it to be a creamy soup and if I had some I would have added some sweet corn. Crusty bread and you have a cheap and tasty meal.

I also do one very similar but instead of mushrooms I chop 1-2 potatoes and some celery, add some stock ( I don’t add the chicken bits to this one) then when cooked I blitz it and add some milk or cream and plenty of black pepper.

To be honest I make soup out of all sorts of things and generally use similar method, to make them even more filling you can add rice, small soup pasta, noodles, pearl barley, any pulses ( don’t use these myself as really don’t like them)

rentawitch

Went to butchers on Saturday and bought lots of lovely meat.

have just enough money left to buy cat food.

Hope I can last the month out.
Money in pot yesterday and another non-spending day. No. 4

~moneysavingnovice~

I already know I'm going to fail the challenge this month

I probably shouldn't include 'sundries' in my budget, as when I take cash out for bits and bobs (like going to the Post Office) it makes it look like I've gone overboard on the weekly shop. Separate budgets next month I think!

Got my weekly shop down to £69 last week (me + food monsters OH and dog), which is the lowest I can remember it being

Looking forward to moving in a few weeks as will be close to an A*di, so going to see if I can get food bill down compared to Mr S.

yummymummy05

yippee a nsd for me! am having new windows done all week so shan't be going outmuch so nsd's should clockiup this week!!

Am making sausage pasta salad for dinner - yum!

Rowan9

hello all
Popped into Lid&l this morning and they have some good deals - those pointed cabbages (sweetheart?) 29p - they're quite light but still a good price. Also got a firm packed iceberg for 59p, 1kg carrots for 59p and the red peppers were down to 35p each - should have got more but just bought one. I've started making veg soup again although the weather here seems nicer today. Anyway, I get through loads of cabbage and carrots so I'm pleased. They also had Jersey Royals for 50p a pack - my bag was going to be too heavy with my books as well so I'll pick some up later in the week.
Hoping to pare down the shopping in the second half of the month. We're fairly well stocked up but going on a health kick does add ££ while taking of lbs . But, shopping around for cheaper fruit and veg is the way to go - I know I'm lucky to have the time to do it just now.
Off to read through the thread for inspiration.;)
W

katholicos

savvyshe wrote: »

Forgot to add Katholicos well done! on the store cupboard, you have inspired me, where did you get the dehdrating equipment {sorry if that's the wrong name} if you don't mind me asking, what a clever idea!:T

Hi savvyshe,

I had birthday and Christmas money saved up from my parents giftmoney to me so technically they bought it for me LOL! It is an exclibur dehydrator that i bought online (can;t remember where, sorry) but it was quite expensive. Before that i used a cheaper dehydrator that i bought for less than £30 and it was from somewhere else online that i can;t remember the name of DOH! Sorry for being a numpty.

aha...i just did a google search and discovered some info...the expensive one my folks bought me was this one. The previous one i owned was this one. Hope this helps!