October 2010 Grocery Challenge

katholicos

Tonight there is only me home and i've just made a rough freezer inventory...i found a frozen 'whoopsied' spicy veg curry in the freezer and 2 x smallish frozen fish on batter. Ive defrosted the curry in the mike and i'm cooking the fish in the halogen oven. Have resisted a grocery spend and today is another NSD :-)

jintyb

Hippeechiq wrote: »

Wow! That's one hell of an achievement jinty, fabulous! - well done you :T

sistercas wrote: »

goodness Jinty thats brilliant well done :T i think you can forgive yourself for the tahini paste

Thank you both, :A

~moneysavingnovice~ wrote: »

I feel like I'm doing quite well this month

Got my 3rd weekly shop of the month tonight, and have made my list so hopefully will get everything for less than £60.

I am loving my new slow-cooker- everything I make in there does us two dinners, and it makes cheap meat so tender and yum (I know you all know how great they are already, but I'm a late-comer to the club )

Hope I'm this positive when I update with tonights spends later!

I adore my SC - welcome to the "convert club"!:rotfl:

Hippeechiq

Diflower wrote: »

Sorry Hippeechiq I had it in my head it was you...have now spent 15 mins finding who it was! It was Mythi, so thanks to her...
It's not a slow-cooker recipe, it's this one:
http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/181620/Aromatic-slow-cooked-pork
.

No need to apologise Oooooo - that does look lush - I'd be interested to hear how it turns out too

Just been reading on another thread how much dearer Te$co is for flour than A$da..... so went and checked for myself, and my god!! Te$co are 17p per 1.5kg value bag dearer than A$da smart price, 40p per 1.5kg bag dearer on their own brand SR Flour/Plain Flour dearer, and 79p per 1.5kg bag dearer on Strong White Bread Flour!

A$da will no doubt follow suit when their stocks are depleted, but it makes you wonder what the price of a loaf of bread is going to become!

mrsbowie

anyone know how to cook brisket so that it can be used as a roast meat and not a stew? thanks

Lindy_-_Loo

8 days left of our grocery month and this being the second month weve done a monthly shop, think weve saved but spent £14.76 today and will need a chicken and beef from netto tomorrow. Have run low on a couple of basics so will need to stock up a little better next month.

Janeryan

Just went over in Sept by £5.39 so not too bad-so far for Oct have spent £108.14 so am trying for £200 for oct altogether please.

Spiggle

Hi All,

nattyt wrote: »

Hi all can you tell me what you wouldn't include for example do you include toiletries such as face wipes (not very OS i know but sometimes essential!)? Just counting up what I have spent so far and wondered about this! Thanks.x

Nattyt, I include everything for the home so toiletries, cleaning products etc. I don't include booze as OH and I have very different 'needs' for that. So, we have £15 per week pocket money each and he buys what he wants out of that. One of my cats has a special diet which is expensive and I didn't include it originally when we started in March but I began to add it in in August.

I would not include eating out (it's a very rare occurrence anyway) nor take aways (which are equally rare). I have set up piggy bank accounts for things like birthdays, christmas, entertainment, clothes, etc and an amount goes in each every month. For Christmas this year (the piggy bank accounts are new) I am not counting any treats in the GC (listing them separately) but will include all food for the event.

Hippeechiq is right though, it is your challenge. We are not in competition but are here to support each other with whatever we decide is right for our own families. So you include whatever you want.

Chloris wrote: »

... Independent fruit&veg shop £4.63. I am pleased with the fruit and veg as I got 7 big peppers for 75p, 3 punnets of raspberries for 99p, cauli for 20p, massive box of mushrooms for £1.50 (the size they deliver the mushrooms in!), largish punnet of seedless grapes for £1.19. ... So if I may pick your brains I would like to know where is the best place in your experience to buy free range chickens? We used to get the co*ps elmwood but we are going to switch back to free range so I need advice!

Chloris, by choice for taste (and I won't touch sm chicken!) we always get our chicken from the local butcher. It's always free range and the benefit is even if they don't have on the shelf what you need they'll butcher it for you. (I know some on here mind have had quite bad experiences with this.)

mrsbowie wrote: »

anyone know how to cook brisket so that it can be used as a roast meat and not a stew? thanks

Mrsbowie we do a pot roast of it where we do add veg around it, cover it and cook it very slowly. We sear the joint all over in a pan before putting it in the roaster. It is really tasty cooked this way and we tend to take the lid off a little before the end to brown off a bit more. You don't have to put veg with it though. You could treat as a normal roast and leave out the veg but the rule with brisket is always cook covered, long and low. If you tried the normal 15/20 mins per pound and same over it would not be good.

Jintyb, fantastic result. :T Hope I can get down that low one day.

Ok, offski now. Will see you all tomorrow and keep up the excellent work all.

Take care,
Spigs

Long_tall_sally

At last - I have caught up! Not posted for a few days as RL got in the way. I have over-spent again (I know - what's new there?). Had a NSD today & only a very small spend yesterday of £1.34 BUT on Wednesday I spent £27 odd at Morrisons, £33 at Lidl, £8 Aldi & £8 Co Op. Stocked up a bit on bread, coke, sausages, mince, branston beans & many other things beside. Still have a week & a bit to go so need to get into damage limitation mode now!

sharronej

Oh dear, Friday night at the chippy £6.00 duly noted. Really need to eat out of the freezer and cupboards next week or I'm not going to manage to come in on target - I realise I'm possibly stretching it too far trying to include the meal out but it's worth a try!

~moneysavingnovice~

Spent £57 and that included 50 dishwasher tablets and stuff for a roast on Sunday and a curry for tonight. I'm so pleased with myself!