August 2010 Grocery Challenge

dazzle21

LannyLee wrote: »

If it's the ham, cooked in cola recipe, it is divine!

Remember to save the cooking liquer as she has an amzing black bean soup recipe that can be made from it & that is also very yummy!

It is! Thanks for the tip about saving the liquid, i'm off to google that receipe now!!

Want2Bdebtfree_3

LannyLee wrote: »

I thought Tesco didn't take any vouchers for products you haven't bought?

Hi there sometimes they wil ltake coupons it depends how many you have and how nice the person on the till is feeling... I have been told yes and been told no!

Vouchers are different - they take Sainsbury's ones definitely and advertise it outside : )

sofababe

£6.72 in A*da. Cat food, Daz (£5 voucher), quiche and whoopsed salad.

Need to do a proper shop for end of the month, shouldn't be more than £30 so hoping to come in under (estimated) budget :j

WelshWoofer

Just in case some of you don't look too much at the other boards - The Sun newspaper has a £5 off a £40 spend (Tescos) in it tomorrow, not sure when it expires but it will be a week I expect.

wssla00

61.02 spend on a delivery from Tesco, but that will be me until the ninth! No more needs to be spent at all! I have about a pound if I need milk but other than that it's all done!

Gonna have to be very restrained.......

KITTY_2-2

Had to get fruit, salad, veg, yoghurts and milk today. I was hoping to hold out until tomorrow but decided just to get it done.

Another £13.44 to add to signature

suzybloo

No purchases today so quite pleased. Will buy the Sun tomorrow and get the voucher, many thanks for mentioning it. Should make my budget, so quite pleased with this being the first month doing the challenge

uropachild

Okay, so far i've spent £22.63 on stuff for a double (or treble?) cook slow cooker meal tomorrow. We're having beef in guinness. I also bought some bacon for sarnies with it being Friday lunch, but i figured we could have the left over bacon with pasta the next day with some of the onion and mushrooms left over from the beef stew.

I did spend £1.96 on sweets and biscuits. They were an impulse buy!! I'm pants.

The spreadsheet has started to take shape for the breakdown of spending. I hope i can keep up with it cause it should be interesting at the end of the month. I'm basically just listing the date, items description, class, store bought in and cost. I've made my own list of classes - food, luxury, cleaning, household, DIY, decor & pets. I can't be naffed to drill right down to the individual items on the list, i just group together. Like, today i had £1.96 on sweets and biscuits, which come under luxury, so they just had the one entry. I bought some lunchbox things or freezing food, so they had their own entry under household and then the rest made up one entry for food since it was all shopping for meals.

angelatgraceland

Thats a similar way I categorise-it's not too fussy and highlights the important areas. I do food,clothes,toiletries,petrol etc. Meals out I class in food and same with takeaways. Daytrips I keep as entertainment/holiday budget. Booze however goes in with food.
We all have our own ways of doing this-as long as it works then its a good way.
Had a little spend in Iceland today. Got 2 packs of their bacon offcuts at £2 each as they were nicelooking slices-probably just a little thin.
Got 12 pints of milk, some eggs some ham offcuts(£1.75) and some smash for standby.(£1 with +50% free)
Total of £11.05.
They had some chicken thighs half price-was hoping to buy the 3 remaining packs-sellby date was today. Decided to make sure they were ok though as I went through the till so after one was rung up I opened the top with my carkeys and took a sniff-they were off!
Glad I checked before paying-saved everyone a lot of trouble!
Shame though-they would have been a bargain if fresh-sometimes Im lucky and sometimes Im not. If ever you are a bit undecided-do the above at the till before they even do the total!
Saves going back. Total spend for week so far on food is:£35.12. I truly can't believe it!
Made spanish omellete for tea using butternut squash and onions with one egg each and milk-it really was a sufficient serving! Recipe is on "cheap family recipes". Used up some of my ageing potatoes to make wedges with and boiled some carrots. That fed 4 for about £1.
Soaking dried peas overnight for a spicy pea soup tomorrow. I got lots of very nice quality reduced bread the other day to go with it. I will probably make quiche or something for later. Made another 4 jars of apple curd too-so easy and almost free as we have 3 apple trees. Just need to work on the plums now.

purplevamp

Just adding my last few days spends. Not going out has certainly helped with the budget

£3 in £Land, £5 in M&S on wasteful but delicious empinadas (sp) and £67.15 in Mr S for a full weeks shop. So £75.15 this week :T