August 2010 Grocery Challenge

Winchelsea

DD3 and DGDs nos. 3 and 4 came over today from Cheltenham. We went in to town and met DD4, and all went to see the Princess Diana's dresses exhibition (beautiful, but only 10 of them). Then DD3 bought us all lunch, a nice treat.

Then we all went to see my DH in his new nursing home, and he seemed quite settled. Afterwards went for a cup of tea and a natter at DD4's.

Said goodbye to her and came back here at about 6pm, where I faced my challenge of the day - to cook a meal for 4 of us with not much in the house!

Made a spaghetti sauce with onion, celery, khol rabi, courgette, a tin of kidney beans and a few seasonings. Served it on pasta with grated cheese, and it was lovely. Knocked up a dessert - the 5-minute chocolate mug cake, with a packet of instant choc dessert. Not haute cuisine, but enjoyed by all.

In the bad old days I would have nipped to the C*-*p to get some more ingredients, but today all I spent was £5 on my daughter's parking (the least I could do as she bought lunch!)

Forgot to add - the meal also had stir-fried veg with it - home-sprouted mung beans, sliced green beans from DD3's allotment, and chives from my garden, lovely with a bit of soy sauce.

MadamMim2013

fingers crossed for a NSD.. off with my boys to visit my sister for dinner and a walk in the woods :cheesy:

Winged_one

On Thurs, I spent most of the day on the plot and harvested the onion bed. Red and yellow onions, garlic and shallots are now all lying in the garden to season before storing. I also brought home spuds for 2 dinners, 5 summer squashes, a HUGE courgette, a decent bag of peas, a small bag of broad beans, about 3 dinners worth of french beans, a large cabbage, a cauliflower, a bag of lettuces, a handful of radishes, a handful of turnips and 3 baby beetroots, and a small punnet of raspberries. I was shattered after 3 trips to bring it all out to the car (and the 6 hours I spent harvesting and weeding, and planting out leeks for winter).

I went to Superquinn on Thurs evening as DD needed chocs for one teacher she wouldn't see again after yesterday, and we did the bulk of the weekloy shop there as it was nice and quiet. I managed to get one pack of chicken goujons and a bag of apples free by using the offers, and I got a whoopsied lettuce as well. But then, yesterday morning, I thought I'd be wise to get a whole chick and boil it up while I was at home on my last day off. So I popped in again and got 4 chicken quarters (free range, whoppsied) for less than the cost of 1 whole chick, 2 fillet steaks (for DH birthday dinner tonight - dated today!), 2 packs of lovely chestnut mushrooms and a pack of baby plum tomatoes, all whoopsied!! And all things that we love!

So I boiled the chicks, and made soup with the veggies. I have a nice batch of stock for the freezer too. I made a chicken and mushroom in sauce dish for last night's dinnner. I made 2 pies with the sauce for my gran (topped with mash). I had made a large pot of mash too, and used some more for a corned beef hash (using last bit of a tin) for my lunch, cooked the mince from freezer with a couple of carrots, a summer squash and the middle of the brocolli stalk, and some frozen peas, into shep pie sauce, made 3 small shep pies for my gran (we are going over today) and a batch in the freezer for during the week, and used up the old apples in fridge, with some pastry I'd frozen a month ago and some of last year's blackberries to make an apple and black pie. And found room in the freezer for more stuff too.

This week, I think the menu will be something like:
Sat: Steak, garlic mushrooms, french beans and chips.
Sun: Bacon and cabbage.
Mon: Pork chops, mash and squash
Tues: Leftover bacon in mac and cheese
Wed: Roast chicken breasts, raost spuds, roasted veggies
Thurs: Chicken goujons and oven chips

Not too bad for a back to work week.

WelshWoofer

Its "big" shop day and I've written a list and will be off to Mr S soon.
I have a £10 off a £50 spend voucher and will use that and hopefully spend only £40 (ish).
Will report back later with the damage.:o

eveie189

Hi

It's been a long time since I last joined the challenge but I feeld we would probably benefit as I have just increased our debt repayments, so we are mega skint. Anyhoo, can someone please put me down for 210.00 for the rest of August please?

Thanks

Kitchenbunny

I've spent £29.21 so far in the first shop of the month. I'll add it to my signature now.

Looking at another NSD today as I'm determined not to go out. I don't really feel like it, we don't need anything and if I can do without then we will!

KB xx

Spiggle

Welcome smiler34, Tinker Tailor and welcome back eveie189.

TinkerTailor wrote: »

:wave: Hi everyone,

I'm new to MSE and would really like to join in the grocery challenge as I really need to cut down on our spending.

I normally shop online (Ocado) and just worked out I spent £580 on shopping in July. I shop weekly and so each shop is around £130.
...
I've already had one delivery in August - really cut back and only spent £70 although I'm not sure how long this will last!! Well done! :T
...
- stop the Ocado and try and find the cheapest place for the stuff I buy ... You could if you wanted to, use My Supermarket (go through Quidco to earn cashback) which will then give you the cost of your order in MrT, MrS, A**a and Oc**o and then you will see what the difference is, see what substitutions are made in each shop and decide which store to send the trolley to. TTx

Hoping for an NSD today. GD1 is here and we're having a sort out in her room. Living in a bungalow means we have to move things around like in those little square puzzles we had as kids, move everything around until you can make the picture right.

I started my DFW diary yesterday - plan is to be debt (inc mortgage) free by my 55th birthday in 2015. Its taken me a week to sort everything out but we are absolutely determined to achieve this. You on here have a great deal to do with this decision - the support you have given has really inspired us. Thank you all. :A

Right off to sort more stuff out.

Take care all and have a great day,
Spigs

smiler34

ChocClare wrote: »

I don't think that's excessive - it's what I always spend if I'm not "thinking" about budgeting. If you don't meal-plan, then you're going to end up spending that, I'd say. If you do meal-plan, it's amazing how much you can cut it down.

Are you giving the children "different" foods from you and your OH? When my kids were little, I seemed always to be cooking, as I did something for them about four-ish and then had to start again for me and the old man. In the end, everyone had the same as I rebelled! Got the kids more interested in different foods, too (though DH did have to put up with blander foods than he was used to for a while...).

Meal-planning doesn't have to be that expensive - you can all eat roast chicken (or versions of it for the littlie), and pad out with things like potatoes, yorkshire puddings, stuffing, sausages, veg, bread sauce and gravy. (Yes, I know it's August, but the weather here today is making me long for some comfort food!) Husband and kids had varying versions of each on their plate, so you had a kiddie version and a grown-up version. I also used to make HM chicken nuggets for them, HM pizza, spaghetti and HM meatballs, shepherd's pie, macaroni cheese etc. etc. The children both went through a phase where their favourite food was spaghetti with ketchup and cheese - I replaced this with plain HM tomato sauce and cheese ( you can hide lots of vegetables in HM tomato sauce) and it's cheap as chips.

Meat is very expensive at the moment I think, so you could maybe try replacing a meat meal with a veggie meal once a week? Start with familiar things (like macaroni cheese for example) and they won't be too terrified. My lot love Spanish omelette - fried onions and potatoes from the garden and eggs from the hens = free meal.

In terms of "big" purchases, supermarkets repeat their BOGOFS and special offers on a rota. If you go online (even if you don't buy online), you can start to get a feel for when these come round. I NEVER pay full price for washing powder or tea or loo rolls, for example (pretty basic needs in our house!) as I buy loads when they're on special offer, and then don't buy them again until the next time they're on offer (within reason of course - I couldn't go without loo roll - or tea for that matter :rotfl:) You can then start to work this into your budget. Also cheese. Paying full price for cheese is anathema to me - it lasts for months even if you don't freeze it.

Anyway, I've wittered on enough. Just to say, if you're used to spending £450-odd a month on food, £300 might be a bit of a low start for you? Might you be better to aim for £350 and then crow if you come in well below?

Whatever you decide, remember to put your figure LARGE and in RED so Mrs M can see it and she'll add you to the list.

Good luck - you'll do brilliantly with all the help on here!

Thanks for all the advice, I've always told kids from beginning that they eat what we eat or do without lol I know sounds a bit harsh but I can't do with fussy kids.

I went to market for some of my veg today and couldn't belive the difference in price from Mr T

I got 4 large potatoes, a red pepper, a bag of shallots and a garlic bulb (large) for £1.29. :eek:

I've had a look in my freezer and I have two bags of prawns, a bag of mixed seafood, some pork loin and 3 chicken breasts and I was gonna go out and do a big shop today. :eek: I have a store-cupboard full of tins, pasta, rice, cous cous. God knows why I feel I must shop every saturday, all I'm really gonna need this week is a bit of veg, milk and bread which is gonna seriously cut down on this weeks shop.

I also must only shop once a week and if I only need extra bread just take a couple of quid in with me!! Discipline lol

So def please put me down for £300 for this month please

Hope everyone is doing ok xx

p.s. anyone got any idea what to do with the mixed seafood, I think I bought it for a recipe but now can't find it

NickJW

Needed some food today and spent £14.32 in Mr S. Only planned on food today, but there was some nice reduced items so I'm even more stocked up now. Will update signature. I was going to try out Ic*land because it's the other side of the station. Went in all excited about getting some bargains, but nothing hit me. Walked out disappointed and went to my 'regular' Mr S.

Having a Beef Paprikash tonight - I know it's August but it's very overcast today ChocClare has got me thinking about having a stew

Think I need to reign in my spending a bit now, because it's only the first week of the challenge!!

smiler34 - there is a recipe on bbcgoodfood called 'Easiest Ever Paella' which uses frozen seafood mix. I've always planned to try it but haven't got around to it. Hopefully others will have some tried and tested recipes for you to use so you don't be a guinea pig with it

freakyogre

Just had a walk into town (first walk there and back since having my operation and my foot didn't drop off!) Found a cheapy pair of shoes to wear for the time being for when my boot comes off (Tuesday hopefully ) and picked up a prescription.

Got some grapes, raspberries and a couple of carrots from the greengrocers - £2.60. I then needed milk but the queue in Co-op was ridiculous, so gave up and went to Costcutter. They seem to have followed a lot of other places and do their milk by litre rather than pints, so my usual 2pt bottle was smaller and a lot more, so I went for a "4pt" bottle instead or whatever equivalent litreage that is! Also picked up a small reduced loaf of bread which should have been 43p, but noticed when I got home that I was charged full price. Grr! It's only another 40 odd pence but that's not the point. I'd go back if it wasn't for my foot, but it's really not worth the effort. Usually I would have realised at the time, but as I rarely buy bigger bottles of milk I wasn't sure of the price. Ah well, that's my little rant over with for today!

£5.06 spent in total.