October 2010 Grocery Challenge

Herbyme

sharronej. I like your slow cooker plan. Also did you know you can throw in some easy cook rice about 30 - 40 mins before the end (I think) and the rice is all done too, ideal as it makes the rice less plain and dull.

I am busy re-checking the things I should have done to keep Oct in check and vowing to do them for real in Nov. Thanks all for all the support!

de1amo

rosieben wrote: »

that's why planning is a help; I do meal planning and I make sure I corporate whatever needs using up this week, into this week's meal plan.

your situation is very different, I would love to be able to shop locally and have a decent range of shops to buy from; we have one over-priced, under-stocked c00p within walking distance, otherwise for me its a 2-hour bus journey to any decent shop


'safe to eat' time is a whole other discussion which I wont start here

last time i went back to the uk i was 'seperated' from my own home in the centre of Bournemouth and İ had to live with my sister and her husband in the suburbs-i was appalled about the lack of convenient shops that you could just pop to--their out of hours shopping was done in a very expensive tesco express(where you couldnt get meat etc) and the main shop needed a car--in the town centre near my own home i have the choice of 2 main supermarkets--asda and lidl- when i was a kid they had small chains that my mother could walk food home from our suburb house--its like that still in turkey--it begs the question whether the dominance of the supermarket has really been positive for the majority of people who live in the suburbs --it makes car ownership obligatory and soaks up the fuel too.
İ also saw how much wastage went on in my sisters house --milk and bread seemed to last no more than 2 days in summer--it couldnt have been too 'new' when purchased in my view or its cheaply produced--veg was the same - my sister is not on a restricted budget and shops between waitrose and the like!!

When i said NİL stock in my freezer--all you can find in our freezer are ice cubes--we buy fresh food daily that gets consumed as a part of a roughly planned meal system we have---we dont have a chest freezer!!---close to my home is 2 home bakeries 2 fresh meat butchers--4 delicattesents and 2 small 3 'tilled' food markets--we dont live in the centre but can get what we want til about 9,30pm--its time the uk people demanded the government ended the dominance of tesco and the like--its gone backwards there!!

Doom_and_Gloom

For this month we spent £44.37 so have 63p left out of the starting £45 . Obviously our month doesn't end until the 31st but we won't be going shopping again as we went shopping last night.

I hope to see people over on the November thread .

D&G

de1amo

'WE SPENT' i have a lot to learn if 'we' can live on 44.37--not even i could live on that amount 4 years ago in the uk and i thought i lived a basic life then!!

earthmother

Right, after my earlier post about bananas, DH has popped to Mr T, so I can now declare for October - I am £2.42 under budget, at £277.58 :j, with 13 (46%) NSDs to my name


Now I'm off to the November thread - AF delivered today, so it's already started - hopefully that's not a bad sign

sharronej

carolinerunner wrote: »

sharronej. I like your slow cooker plan. Also did you know you can throw in some easy cook rice about 30 - 40 mins before the end (I think) and the rice is all done too, ideal as it makes the rice less plain and dull.

I am busy re-checking the things I should have done to keep Oct in check and vowing to do them for real in Nov. Thanks all for all the support!

No I didn't know that - so if I've got a chilli cooking I can just throw the rice into the sauce?

Doom_and_Gloom

de1amo wrote: »

'WE SPENT' i have a lot to learn if 'we' can live on 44.37--not even i could live on that amount 4 years ago in the uk and i thought i lived a basic life then!!

Our freezer is still very full - 5ft freezer and is huge.
We have a lot of food in there - even though we have trying to eat it down for ages as we need to defrost it :rotfl:. We also buy most of our food reduced. We buy reductions such as bananas at 20p/kg, galia melon for 49p, pack of kiwis for 18p, lettuce for 10p, avacado for 10p, 2 bulbs of garlic 21p, brussel sprouts 37p, bird eye chillies for 19p etc. Obviously what is available changes as does the price the produce goes down to. If we can't find what we need or can use reduced we get it the cheapest way possible - deals, own brand or basic. Believe me if it wasn't for the freezer being so full we would have easily spent double the amount!

Craftyscholar

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Store cupboard items are stored with longest use by dates at the back, shortest at the front, and are stored in categorgies, i.e. all tinned chickpeas together, all tinned kidney beans together, all tinned tomatoes together, all coconut milk together, mixed beans, baked beans, soup, tuna and so on, and the same with flour, sugar, rice, pasta and pulses.

Freezer I have a small upright one and half of a fridge/freezer, which have a drawer for bread, garlic bread, naan bread and crumpets, a drawer for frozen veg, a drawer for meat (labelled and dated so oldest gets used first) a drawer for ice cream and frozen fruit, a drawer for chips/hash browns/potato wedges/onion rings, a drawer for home made frozen quiche/lentils loafs and so on, a drawer for half used tins of tomatoes/chick peas/coconut milk/peppers/celery/leek/mushrooms/grated cheese and so on.

Now that is what I call organised!

de1amo wrote: »

'WE SPENT' i have a lot to learn if 'we' can live on 44.37--not even i could live on that amount 4 years ago in the uk and i thought i lived a basic life then!!

Yes, that was my first thought as well. Very impressive.

Chloris

Thanks sharronej and carolinerunner, my husband and I have discussed getting a slow cooker, I think it would be really useful for days when we are out all day. Which size would be good for a family of 5? 2 adults and 3 small ones. Need to do some research :T.

Craftyscholar

Went to MrS today - £7.86

So I am declaring at £89.02/£90

MRSMCAWBER - can you put me down for £90 again for Nov please?