November 2010 Grocery Challenge

CupOfChai

Hi there, just in to record my week's shop again, spent £10.77 this time. I've got a couple more bits to get during the week, and then one more big shop for the month, so if I can behave it's looking fairly hopeful I will manage to make it under budget for November. Off to catch up with the thread now, good luck to everyone else who is trying too!

JulieGeorgiana

mummygems wrote: »

I have 8 adults and 4 children to feed on christmas day but everyone is thankfully bringing something with them so I wont have to pay for everything but will still need a fair amount of food. Not sure whether to up the grocery budget or list the christmas food seperately. What does everyone else do? There will be food, soft drinks and alcohol to budget for. Decisions decisions

If it's just my family (son and husband) I buy small amounts each week, and we eat more out of the freezer (which I stock up after Christmas) and my budget stays at £40 a week.

If I feed more people, I might use my tesco clubcard vouchers to help me out (£20) but even then I just prepare even further in advance!!

So my budget next month will be £40 a week for food, and £60 for the butchers (which is the allocated amount I spend every 2 weeks)

BUT, I don;t buy turkey... we have chicken!

I find turkey is horrible... and very VERY expensive for the size!

Winged_one

I spent a bit over the weekend, but I am pleased with my hauls!

I went to Lidl first, as they were having a festival as part of their 10th birthday celebrations. All fruit and veg was half price (great as I usually buy loads!), I got my usual load of cheese and apple juice, 2 bags of sugar (the builders are using LOADS) and 4 bottles of wine. And we found the little crackers we got last year for Christmas - just a snap, hat, joke and sticker but nice small ones and colourful. So we got enough for everyone at the dinner table on the day (which meant 2 boxes).

We hopped across the road, in order to get some meat in SuperValu. I got a rack of lamb for Saturday's dinner, mince beef for chilli, chicken kievs, pork belly slices and a couple of other bits. Then we went into the library to get new books.

We went on to the next village where DD and I stopped for a late lunch, and then we went into SuperQuinn - mainly to get some pots and pans which are on special offer (save up stamps type), and a couple of things that I cannot get in the other shops.

Overall, I spent 103 euros (sorry glitch was making it look like THOUSANDS!!) on food this week, and I have loads for this week. I am using up my stocks, and the plan is to head up north in 2 weeks time for a large shop. (I will need to watch my spends before then or I will actually go over on my annual budget - although lots of that shop will be stores for the next 3-4 months, so maybe I should alllow some slippage).

We had the lamb with a herby crust (using herbs and breadcrumbs from freezer, and juice/rind of half a lemon), and raost spuds. I used the leftover lamb (2 chops worth) to fry with leftover spuds and the last 3 slices of pudding, and a couple of eggs, for yesterday's lunch.

Last night, I chopped half the pork into a sweet'n'sour with noodles. The other half, I chopped into chunks and froze for another evening (easy dinner night).

Tonight is a chilli that DH made last night.
Tuesday: Chicken Kiev and HM wedges
Wed: Chicken and mushrooms with rice/mash
Thurs: Meatballs and oven chips
Fri: Lamb chops, possibly

rosieben

mummygems wrote: »

... Not sure whether to up the grocery budget or list the christmas food seperately. What does everyone else do? There will be food, soft drinks and alcohol to budget for. Decisions decisions. .

If I were feeding a lot of extra people I think I'd keep it separate in an 'entertainment' budget; if you include it in your GC it might be useful to work out how much those extras have cost so you have a truer picture of your GC spends

Sue14

Not too bad a spend in A*da yesterday, a total of £29.73, but all I got towards Christmas was 2 jars of pickles, 2 jellies, and some custard, still it's a start I suppose, lol!

Shysarah

Had a trip to Mr S this morning and had a stock up. First shop really since my operation so ended up spending £33.91. Got some 3 for £10 meat and also some veggies. Stocked up on a few other things too and tbh I really should not need much until the end of the month.
I hope lol

Siggy updated x

findingmyfeet

morning all,

not had a chance to post much this month but thought i had better report in. Total spent so far this month is now £265.51 and i still need the supermarket sometime this week so may end up slightly over budget. Having said that so far this month i have sent a huge box of tins etc to my ds a poor student-or so he says! and also have a box of tins/dried stuff i am stashing for christmas and some bacon, sausage and large piece of gammon for christmas too. hope you are all doing well, will try and catch up with the posts later.

rosieben

JulieGeorgiana wrote: »

I reported it too! Looks very suspisious!

I think its an ad, 2 posts, neither of them saying much, but both have the name in the title; I put a link above to another consumer forum where they've been doing the same thing

I feel a bit like an OS vigilante :rotfl:

missfit_2

Hi - spent just over £15 this weekend on food. Made another chicken soup using ingredients from Aldi - all the veggies I wanted were on a deal this week. It should do me until Wednesday. I have enough in freezer and cupboard to keep me going until the weekend and its a good way for me to use up some foods which I have had for a while. Also got a few bits from Tesco using my £4 voucher including some reduced soups 39p down from £1.50 which I have frozen. So it looks like I should come in within budget which is a big achievement for me as previously I was spending around £260 on food - just for me. Think I'll have to increase my budget next month due to Christmas but not by too much.

mummygems

Long_tall_sally wrote: »

I also have a tin of Carnation Evaporated milk with a BB of 1/10 that I am not sure whether to use at all or what for. (I also have a tin of condensed milk & a tin of Carnation caramel.)

The evaporated milk and condensed milk would do nice with a jelly. If you make the jelly and let it set a little then whisk in one tin of the milk pop that in the fridge and its a really nice light mousse type pudding. I always had this when I was poorly lol.

Not sure about the caramel one unless you pour it over bananas?

Thank you everyone for your comments about what I should do with the GC budget and xmas food. Think I am going to keep 2 different totals so I can see where I am (especially because it will be half term and also DH will be home for some of it so it will be easier to see if the grocery is on the up with them at home!).