November 2010 Grocery Challenge

Chloris

Did our weekly shop yesterday at Mr M and the C**p, total of about £65 (I have already updated signature with the exact amount). I have spent a lot of our budget already but that does cover a meal plan for the next 7 days. I will need to pick up milk and possibly some beef (eek) but they have what appears to be a good offer on braising steak cubes in the C**p at the moment, 3 packs for £10. I'm new to buying meat for the new slow cooker so I'm not sure how good a deal this is. Might be worth trying a butcher?

nellis10

OK Went to Mr T today and spent £80.87 but that did include:

• Christmas Wrapping paper 3 for 2
• Christmas Tags 3 for 2
• Cheapie Tags
• 3 Money Wallets
• 3 Birthday Cards
• IPod Docking station with Radio £32.00
• Wrapping Paper
• £25 iTunes Card £25.00
• Zoo Am I Game for DS xmas pressie
• 2 x Lego Figures for DS Stocking

Actual Grocery Shopping £4.66
German Sausage for Pizza Tonight 1.60
Victoria Sponge for DH Birthday Cake 1.00
Lemon Drizzle Cakes 0.97
Pancakes for Lunchbox 1.09

Veg Box from Farmer
£13.20
Includes Standard Veg Box
2kg Onions
1/2 Dozen Eggs

seasalt_2

Have just updated my signature. Please can you put me down for £275 this month. I have no idea if I can keep to this. Lost track last month because of going away/meals out etc and now paying for it in worry! Would really like/need to get it down to £250 but don't want to set myself up to fail or completely alienate the family! So far I have spent £15.36 - almost entirely reduced items so hoping it will last us until beginning of next week.

Mollina_Girl

I have just done my weekly shop at Morri*ons and spent only £17.24 thanks to my store cupboard inventory and meal plans. - This brings my total to date to £71.92 - sig updated
Milk was 2 x 4pts for £2 so bought plenty and put in freezer.
I make my own bread and already have plenty of ingredients.
I plan to use all my fresh veg first then at the end of the week use frozen.
Hopefully I should not need to spend anything more until next Thursday. - Fingers crossed.

adelight

Hi all! I managed to resist all the whoopsies in Budgens tonight so today's my second NSD
I'm bulking up my meals big time this month, just turned a stuffed sweet potato into two meals worth by doing a huge side of rice. And yesterday I threw all my odd bits of veg in a lentil spag bol which ended up making six big portions at <25p each!
One of my free cartons of goats milk goes off tomorrow so I've got a pint jug full to the brim with oats soaking in goats milk in the fridge, which will turn into ~7 portions of porridge pancakes

freakyogre

£1.50 spent in Tesco today on 9 small cartons of juice. Bought mainly because I was thirsty, but they'll be handy for next week as i'm on jury service (should be anyway, I started on Monday and was released until next Monday as they're not ready yet).

XSpender

Weekly shop done at Mr S today totalling £40 odd. £14.50 of this was on some minty baileys for Christmas and some sleepsuits with 25% off for DS. Used my nectar points for these so £25.91 to be taken off my budget.

We invited some friends down for our X Factor theme night on Saturday earlier this evening but after I had been shopping so I need to get a couple of bits to expand what we have as I was only planning on feeding the 2 of us. Will need another fajhita kit, 2 peppers, doritos and some seasoning to make spicy wedges. Oh and some more beer and limes. Chilli and rice I have in abundance.

Best go update the signature before I forget.

Shysarah

More spends to add...

£4.74 t MrS on a pizza (treat), loaf of bread, whoopsie croissants and whoopsied quiche.

Off to get my sig updated xx

Rebekah24

Checking in

Managed to chase up a refund tonight so hopefully £10 will be winging its way too me shortly. In the meantime managing with what I have

OH brought me from his pantry (his car boot!!)

2 rice pudding
1 packet of buscuits

In the larder is
soup
crackers
squash
tea

Manage 15 days, then we will split an order from MrA

Hanging in there, another NSD

katenut

Diflower wrote: »

I was really cross this morning, I had the car for a couple of hours and went to MrT with a list of bread flour and other baking bits and pieces as it's 3 for 2 - except it wasn't. Nothing at all in the whole section. I went to customer services, he called the dept manager, the manager came - except he was the bakery manager not the grocery one. Having been there about 15 mins, frozen food in my bags, and needed to get the car back, I couldn't wait any longer.

I had the same scare Diflower - was running out of bread flour, can't justify the petrol to Mr A to get some to was delighted when I checked online and it was 3 for 2. When I got to the store there was no sign of any offer, however I had to get it anyway so I got 3 bags. When I checked my receipt the third bag was free!!! There's no harm in taking it to the till, and if the computer says no then just don't buy it I think that maybe it takes a while for the staff to get the offers put on the shelves maybe?

losingpatience wrote: »

I put aside £220 a month for groceries which includes toiletries and whatever else we purchase in the supermarket and this is for me, my OH and 7 guinea pigs. I have already spent £105.28 of this budget and it's only the 4th I've gone through the receipts I have for the month and broken it down to different categories so the spends are:

Alcohol - £31.94
Other drink ( including pop, milk etc ) - £2.72
Food - £29.06
Entertaining - £27.25
Guinea pig food - £9.68
Others - £4.63

Alcohol is exceptionally high as we took advantage of sainsburys 25% off 6 bottles of wine as my OH's favourite wine was on offer. Entertaining is also high and is because I cooked my sister and her partner a meal as a thank you for house sitting whilst we were away for a week and also included sweets for the trick or treaters for halloween. Guinea pigs we spend alot on because they are on a special diet due to some health problems a couple of them have so they require a variety of fresh veg which unfortunately doesn't come cheap.

So with the guinea pigs costing around £10 a week to feed that leaves us with around £75 to last the rest of the month :eek:

Ooh, I'm very familiar with the guinea pig problem - with 2 little hungry squeakers of my own, and I'm a vet nurse so I'm all too aware of the need for lots of fresh veg. Can I suggest the following (depends on where you live but hope it helps!)

- Try your local agricultural merchants for a sack of 'outcast' carrots, normally £1.50 and keep for ages in a cool place (TBH me and DH eat these too, there's nothing wrong with them!)
- My pigs love nothing more than a bit of fresh grass and dandelions, free from wherever you can pick them from.
- We've got the local veg gardeners on our street well trained to leave their offcuts of broccoli, cabbage, carrots etc hung on our back gate, in exchange for some prime guinea pig 'fertiliser' - like gold dust apparently! We just clean them out into big bags, leave it to rot and share it out in the spring.
- Buy hay by the bale from a local farmer rather than the ridiculously expensive bags from pet food stores - a bale is normally £2 and will last for ages, as long as you can keep it covered.

Sorry for the waffle! First spend this month yesterday, of £18.81 on fresh fruit and veg, milk, ham and bread flour from Mr T. Going away for the weekend so that comes from a separate budget xx