August 2010 Grocery Challenge

greent

Casiopeia wrote: »

Hi, I need to reduce my spending, but I have no idea where to start. We've just had a big drop in income so money is mega tight, and I have to start saving from today. How do people feed a family of four, plus pets (dog & cat), for less than £500 an month?

Hi Casiopeia -

we do a family of 6 and 2 guinea pigs on £450 for pretty much all supermarket type shopping- but it's taken a while to get here. We used to do £750 on 5 of us.... I still ensure I buy free range chicken and eggs, steak mince (I find cheap cuts a waste), British pork etc. I buy some f&v from Aldi and grow some. I don't buy many Basics products (dont like Tesco value in teh main, but Sains Basics much better) - but do buy the tinned pineapple (hm pizza), tinned peaches (fruit flan), fresh juice, mozzarella and a couple of other bits. The only ready made stuff I buy are Aunt Bessies Tidgy Toads for DD (box of 4 about £1.45 - does 2 meals!!), and an occasional jar of Guiseppe pasta sauce for DS1 (good standby for when we're eating diff stuff and it's 35p/ jar and lasts 4 meals - I don't like it, but he does - if we're all eating I make my own) I still insist on Napolina tinned toms (but only buy them on offer!), PG Tips, Kelloggs cornflakes (but shops own (not value) Rice crispies), Heinz beans, Walkers crisps (lots:o:o) etc. I'm a bit useless at mealplanning at the mo - school hols and Dh working away (so the £450 will come down - but that's what we were spending). I only ever do it a week at a time, anyway. I do cook everything else from scratch and bake a LOT!

Oh - and we waste VERY little food. I know this for sure because we have food waste bins and I only ever use the weeny kitchen one for max 1/3rd full - which tends to be plate scrapings, the occasional mouldy slice of bread (always an issue in SUmmer for me), chicken carcasses (after making stock;)) and leftovers from the baby and toddler. When doing something like a roast I plate a small amount of food and then people can have more when they've finished - saves potatoes/ meat etc getting covered in gravy - if unused they can be used for something else!:p My fridge often has lots of little tupperware pots in of a spoon of this etc - I try and have one night a week where we concentrate on using leftovers up - even if it means we're eating different things the prep time isn't much because it's all based around leftovers.

Sorry for the length of reply!:p

meanmarie

Spent €5.99 today so keeping things down fairly well, nearly finished feeding visitors and have had some free fish for freezer.

Marie

jayII

Just returned from Aldi with my bits of fruit and veg, juice, and a big box of washing powder. Spent £12.94, and I'm pretty stocked up for the next week or more.

Off to update siggy. Then to make basil and plum tomato soup, and cheese scones, for supper, with and self saucing chocolate cake for pud if I have time. Yummm.

freakyogre

Winky,_The_House_Elf wrote: »

Oh I popped a bit of dark chocolate in which really made the flavour richer- will definately do that again.

How much do you add? I've been given a bar of Lindt dark chilli chocolate (which is gorgeous) and I was thinking of adding some to a chilli, but wasn't sure how much to put in. I don't generally like sweet and savoury food together, so don't want to overdo it.

unhappy_shopper

Yesterday was a NSD, but today I spent £8 on milk, F&V. Have updated my signature accordingly.

Hippeechiq

Hello & Welcome come_on_get_happy :wave:

kalojac wrote: »

Hippeechiq - thank you for the above recipe, will try that one out tonight I think.

You're welcome - hope you enjoy it as much as I did

LannyLee wrote: »

ASDA's own brand risotto rice is 98p per 500g & comes in both the varieties you mentioned, although they do give a more creamy risotto.

Have you tried some of the discount stores (Pound stretcher, Home & Bargain etc) as they usually have Ainsley Harriot risotto packets for about 40p & I've found they are not as 'soupy' as the traditional risotto rices I like to use, OH loves them though!

I might pass then LannyLee thanks. It's not so much that I mind creamy as not being able to handle one big gloop of stuck together rice.

I tried £idl Long Grain Rice last week and wasn't impressed. It was very mushy and water-logged if you know what I mean. Could really do with finding a cheap long grain rice (cheaper than A$da/Te$co/Sain$bury own brand) as we do seem to get through a heck of a lot, even though it's mainly only 2 out of the 4 of us who eat it.

greent wrote: »

Oh - and we waste VERY little food. I know this for sure because we have food waste bins and I only ever use the weeny kitchen one for max 1/3rd full - which tends to be plate scrapings, the occasional mouldy slice of bread (always an issue in SUmmer for me)

I keep my bread in the fridge during the summer months - keeps it fresh and stops the mould and for some reason, chilled bread makes the most wonderful toast too

Had a total spend of £13.97 in £idl, Te$co and Ice£and today, bringing my total spend so far to £147.29 out of £275. Cupboards are full and freezer is full to bursting so am planning no spends except on milk for the rest of the week now.

katholicos

Spent £8.82 in ASDA yesterday. I needed jars for my jam making so bought 10 x 24p jars of pickled beetroot....and i also bought some other groceries. The jars are a great size but i noticed none of the lids 'popped' at all when the jam was done, this morning they were still not popped. Anyone else have this problem? I did put a wax disk on top of each jar of jam before screwing the lids on so hopefully they will all be fine.

CupOfChai

freakyogre wrote: »

How much do you add? I've been given a bar of Lindt dark chilli chocolate (which is gorgeous) and I was thinking of adding some to a chilli, but wasn't sure how much to put in. I don't generally like sweet and savoury food together, so don't want to overdo it.

I'd grate in just a square or two to a quite big panful. You aren't meant to taste chocolate at all, it just imparts a sort of richness and depth of flavour to the chilli rather than being another flavour itself, so don't worry about it making the chilli sweet and chocolatey or anything like that. Unless of course you sling the entire bar in there! If you think about it, the sort of very dark chocolate like this that you are meant to use has a kind of savoury taste rather than being sweet anyway.

cw18

Another spend today - 2x50p milk from Mr M (which means 94p for 2, as still flagging the 6p off for buying 2x4pt milks), 2xpacks of Whoopsie Cod Kievs ([strike]£2[/strike] 99p/pack of 2, now in freezer), and 3 packs of Smoothies for Children ([strike]£2.86[/strike] 35p/pack of 8 - and these have a bbe of 13th Oct, being reduced due to the outer wrapper having got seriously wet so they had to wrap in clingfilm before reducing)

That's £4 from my GC budget (£3.97 'official bill', with 39p staff discount and 3p shrapnel going into my sealed jar)

Also a £2 reduction on my GC budget for the month (this money being moved into a 'stockpile' fund), as I used a tin of tuna I bought prior to 1/1/2009 and opened a large bag of pasta I bought in May 2009 for tonights tea !!!!

LannyLee

Hippeechiq wrote: »

I tried £idl Long Grain Rice last week and wasn't impressed. It was very mushy and water-logged if you know what I mean. Could really do with finding a cheap long grain rice (cheaper than A$da/Te$co/Sain$bury own brand) as we do seem to get through a heck of a lot, even though it's mainly only 2 out of the 4 of us who eat it.

I used to go halves with my SIL for big 20kg bags of rice from Chinese supermarkets, it was around £15 between the 2 of us & would last ages, do you have 1 near you, do you know?