October 2010 Grocery Challenge

sharronej

JackieO wrote: »

All of the stuff I already have either in my fridge or freezer and my cupboards.So I am going to see how long I can go this week starting today with £7.00 to see if I can last out for seven days on literally a pound a day.I know I have quite a bit in the cupboards which obviously helps but there's only me to feed so it should be easy.
Tommorow I shall think of a different menu from first thing in the morning .
So I have seven pounds for this week and hopefully no reason to spend anything yet as I will be living out of my stores.
I really do have to get some of the stores down before Christmas so this will be a good incentive for me
Watch this space :):)

Sounds like a good idea, may I join you? I've spent an amazing amount of money in the first ten days of the challenge and I want to cover my niece's 21st birthday meal out of my £300.00, which if I take that and Tuesdays MrT delivery means I will only have £45 left to last me until the end of the month ...could be tricky! :rotfl:

Winged_one

Just lost a long post - grrrrr
€49 overall spend this weekend. €29 in F&V shop, included sack potatoes, 20 eggs and 20 oranges (and loads more). €18 in local deli on bread, coffee, nice mushrooms, fish and macaroon. €1.49 on sunflower oil in local store. Am surprised it is staying so low this month.

Tonight: Bacon, HG cabbage, mash, parsley sauce
Mon: Spag bol
Tues: Pasta, blue cheese sauce, leftover bacon, mushrooms
Wed: Meatballs and wedges (I think)
Thurs: Chicken korma
Fri - prob takeaway

hannah:-)_2

Hmmm, not sure I'm getting the hang of this. I've made some cheap meals using some reduced things (woopsies?), but seem to still be spending more than I'd hoped. Popped into L!dl today to get some lunchbox bits and got sidetracked by mini bottles of wine So, that's another £6.55 to add to my total. It's not much I know, but we all know how quickly it stacks up

BTW lots of you on here talk about freezing veg - do you need to do anything to it first, or just chop and bung it in the freezer?

cw18

hannah:-) wrote: »

BTW lots of you on here talk about freezing veg - do you need to do anything to it first, or just chop and bung it in the freezer?

Depends on the veg....

Mushrooms I leave whole (or chop or slice depending on size) and freezer as are.

Onions, leeks, celery and peppers I slice/dice and freeze as are.

Carrots, beans, cauli and brocolli (the only other things I've yet attempted) get prepared as they would for cooking for immediate use, then blanched before freezing.

Chloris

A NSD yesterday. £1.16 today in the c**p on whoopsied bread and some cream to go with pumpkin soup from the freezer. Homemade chilli and jam buns for tea. Seem to have quite a few meals on my planner that I have the ingredients for already. In theory I can last a while but I have an urge to make chocolate brownies so I may have to buy some chocolate:rotfl:.

CupOfChai

NickJW wrote: »

I SHOULD be okay, despite using up over three thirds of my budget...

You what? :huh:

Sorry, couldn't resist .

[Deleted User]

Well all went well today and to plan so tomorrow I have sorted out what I am having to eat.

Breakfast :shredded wheat,O.J. and a cup of tea.

mid morning: just a thermos of coffee as I am taking my DD for some interviews and I have a bit of running around to do
.
Lunch ; banana sandwich, and an apple and a cup of coffee (It will be in my car as I will be going to several differant places with her during the day
.
Afternoon snack will be a drink, and maybe an apple.

Dinner: I have decided will be two M&S finest haddock fishcakes with parsley souce,(I bought them at a reduced price about a fortnight agoand they have been in my freezer ever since. and carrots.

Pud will be some apricot swiss roll sponge cake with some fresh cream poured over it .

Supper will probably be a nice cup of hot chocolate with a dollop of squirty cream on top as a treat.

All of the food I have in my cupboard and fridge freezer so I have nothing to buy for the second day running and will have my £7.00 intact Two days down and five to go.

I have Uni tomorrow night but I always take a drink in a bottle with me as the machine drinks are £1.50

sistercas

off to work in a mo so little time to shop thank goodness , hoping for a NSD today

spent more than i wanted to this weekend , so need to reign it in a bit

NickJW

CupOfChai wrote: »

You what? :huh:

Sorry, couldn't resist .

LOL! It took me a while to get what was wrong with that, but I have realized my error! :-) I meant three-quarters! :D:D:D:o
And there I was saying at the start of my email that 'my maths has really improved!' :rotfl:

triticale

I've updated my signature total, this weekends combined shopping (Mainly Mr M + asian grocers {89p 4 pints milk!} & Mr S for beer) came to just over £20, but that included the weeks beer, a box of coke which will last for a couple of months (I rarely drink it but like to have some in for when I do fancy a can) and some daffodil bulbs!

Got lots of lovely nectarines and plums for DDs and a BOGOF on their fromage frais. Got some nice FR chicken thighs in my SC at the moment, the meat of which will be str-etch-ed this week (curry, pie and HM pizza). :j

Got 4 jumbo sausages for 85p from Mr M, they were meant to be for making HM sausage rolls this week, but one might find it's way (battered) into my DF fryer with chips and mushy peas! (obv peas not in fryer )

Got some walnuts so will be baking something nice tonight for my daily work snack, probably some kind of oaty walnut biscuit. Hoping this to work out bettr value (and nicer!) than forking out for a pack of kit kats or similar every week.

Took care of weekend meals by using up OH's freezer and cupboards (she had 4 different half-full bags of various potatoes!:eek:) we made a fab pea & potato curry on Saturday (I also brought home a tub of the HM curry paste concentrate to freeze) with chapatis and I dug out a half-shoulder of pork from the depths of the freezer:rotfl:and slung it in the SC Sunday morning = lovely tender pork dinner with crispy roasts and veg.

Looking at my total I've spent two thirds of my budget in under half of the month - does anyone elses end up like this?

I'm not too worried as I knew that the first shop of the month would be bigger, stocking up etc and because I have my meal plan for the whole month, I know I don't need to spend more.

I am feeling quite confident of staying within budget, the test will be not spending every last penny though, and trying to actually stay a bit under! (Seriously, if I don't chastise myself I'll be there with £1.38 of coppers on the 28th trying to work out what I can get with it!)