September 2010 Grocery Challenge

seasalt_2

Spent £53.56 yesterday including an enormous nearly 6lb chicken reduced to £2.59 (Co-op). Should get a few meals out of that.

Also bought two 560ml bottles of "non-brewed condiment" at 59p each. Half the price of the brown malt vinegar and our Co don't do white vinegar anyway - it says the ingredients are acetic acid and water so am hoping it will do the same job as the malt - only for cleaning. Anyone else use it?

Spiggle, I bulk out our mince with red lentils or the little brown ones all the time - no-one has ever noticed or complained - makes it thicken up nicely too.

Changingme

This weeks shopping spends came to £55.74, I've been trying to stock the cupboards .I must get some tea bags later today as forgot these even though they were on list.

welshkaz

Asda came this morning so £70.60 to add but saying that should be fine apart from fruit now for the week ...

cheerfulness4

Another £8.31 spent between B & M (got some lovely cooked beef and ham) and Sainburys.

Now purse is away and no spending for a bit.;)

mrsmortenharket

Today

£7.57 in Morrisons & (very ashamed) £8.57 in McDonalds! We were at the retail park getting pe trainers & Many Bells for the cats collor. As the kids are back at school on Monday I thought I'd treat them. I had a fillet of fish burger thing with fries & a coke. Tasteless but so yummy! Won't have it again for a long while though as I won't go in there with the baby. He was home with his dad.

Cannot seem to manage to have any NSD's grrr.

Lisa x

gdyr1945

Thanks for tip about adding lentils to 'mince' dishes. I usually add grated carrots to bulk it out and also to get veggies into other half. Have also found that chicken goes much further if cut up. I buy whole chickens and then remove the meat; bones for soup, each breast will feed 2 x 2 with lots of veg for Chinese stir fry with noodles or rice and each leg can go into pie or casserole. So instead of one chicken doing us for 2 days it stretches 6 days.

Have been using Remoska for as many meals as possible. Have had this in cupboard for years and never really got to grips with it but thanks to this forum and the many tips for money saving have found it really good and 'he' hasn't noticed any difference. Hope we notice difference in electricity bills! All savings gratefully received!

Started survey on what I drink every day - takes 39 weeks but I get £30 at the end. Did it last year.

Just put in order at Dan Approved Foods; coffee still very cheap .59p and this is a major expense for us as it is one thing I cannot 'downsize'.

potz

adelight wrote: »

I love lentils I'm an addict... I have a bag of every variety of dried bean and lentil my local waitrose sells. But pearl barley is something I've never tried!

Bulgar wheat is another good one for padding out mince dishes like bolognaise (& similar veggie dishes). It absorbes the flavours around it and leaves you needing to add less carbs to accompany it.

Buying a slw cooker later - let the adventures in slow cooking commence!!!

NickJW

Hi All

Went a bit further out to Mr T today to get the 3kg bag of fusilli for £2 people have mentioned - ended up leaving there £23.47 poorer :mad: I did get a lot of food so it should last a while...who am I kidding, I swear what I have got could last me around TWO months (with just adding fresh veg and milk), but it doesn't stop me spending.....

Thought I would be good and went to the pound shop to get some toiletries - £4 in total, but then went to Mr S, and forgot that they have half price deals on at the moment so it would have been cheaper there...oh well - you win some you lose some.
Got some frozen spinach and a bottle of wine in Mr S because I'm going over to a friends house warming party (well lunch and drinks) tomorrow = £6.18 in total .

Also got some free range eggs from the greengrocers yesterday for £1.09 to go with the parmesan breadcrumbed coated chicken - served with salad and chips and was very yummy! Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

So much for me 'staying out of the big supermarkets to save money'! I might as well have just headed over to Mr S to use my triple nectar points. Having said that, I did get a few things from Mr T which were noticeably cheaper than Mr S.

Oh well - off to update my signature now Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

dinx1972

Hi all, need to get back into the swing of proper food budgeting again, now that I have a car and can get out to a larger supermarket (shopping out of our local Co-op was getting a tad expensive) so £420 for me for the month of September, and today in Mr S's I managed to spend £118:eek:, but that should last me 2 weeks (but it never does:rotfl:). Right off to post my meal planner for the week in the hope that if it is in black and white, I will stick to it.

seasalt_2

gdyr1945 wrote: »

Thanks for tip about adding lentils to 'mince' dishes.

You might find you need to add a bit more liquid as lentils absorb quite a lot - i usually bung in a tin of toms and then skoosh out the tin with water.