March 2011 Grocery Challenge

Missus_Aka

NSD 4 Today i will not be going out, woken up and feel real sick today just want to sleep but no chance of that with DS. Have already spent £68.97 of my £95 budget already but i normally spend most of my budget in the 1st week and then a lot less each week after. Probably bought a couple of things i could do without yesterday too many prawns for my stirfry next week but i do like my prawns.

Well done NICK on clearing your debt i have cleared £2500 from payday companies since the beginning of the year so i am very happy with that. PHEW!!! That will never happen again

PennyGrabber

I'm at home today with a horrible migraine. Taking some lovely tablets so I can see straight, which is always a bonus! I decided that I would do something GC rather than 'waste' my day, so I've sorted out the cupboard under the stairs (my 2nd pantry!) and the top shelf of my pantry (puddingy stuff). Wow, I have a lot of food! Seriously, it's ridiculous! I think this is half the problem - I end up buying new stuff to eat, because there's so much choice at home I don't know what to have! Plus, there's stuff that's been lurking at the back of the shelves for so long that i didn't know I had it.

Just had some loyd grossman mushroom pottage soup for lunch from AP. Really nice, and only about 20p! Got another 4 of those, and only managed 1/2 of one today, so next time, I'll split the packet into 2 and freeze/fridge the other half. So, about 10p per serving - bargain!

Off now to continue the major stocktake. Going to start on the freezer in the outhouse - wish me luck! If i'm not back tonight, you can assume i got buried under mountains of frozen UMOs!!

PG x

Kitchenbunny

Afternoon, all. I have somehow managed to spend another £5 today on mushrooms and a packet of sauce I liked the look of but can't find in our normal supermarket. Unfortunately treated myself to a holiday lunch and have to include that Bad me. Anyway, I shall update my sig accordingly.

KB xx

ab7

Went to the sainsbugs for the first time today and spent £22.50 which I thought was remarkably restraint for me...:beer: got some of the basics stuff and hopefully save some pennies. Hope these tbags are decent :rotfl: Not had a frugal few days though and have had to use the corner shop for milk/bread but on the bright side made the kids use up their frozen homemade butter yesterday when we ran out so that made me happy. Need to be super frugal this week as had forgotten about a direct debit that leaves me £30 but the cupboards/freezer etc is good so I can just meal plan and make bread if needed

Hippieechiq sorry its taken so long to get back to you this thread moves so fast! I use butter in pastry as me and oldest DD are veggies but you are way more experienced in pastry so I dont think I could help anyway

CRANKY40

Reporting in with grocery spends of £83.60 so far this month. Hopefully that will cover a lot of meals and I won't need much next week. I also have a voucher for £1.52 towards next weeks shopping because of the A$da 10% price guarantee.

Pinwheel

Hi
I need to report a couple of little spends for this week. I spent £6.29 in Sain****ys on apples, yoghurts, some onions, mozzerella for Saturday's pizza, tortillas, sour cream and a red pepper for 80P!!! They didn't have any in L**l and I was making a big batch of vege chilli which costs very little, and makes 10 portions so I felt I could justify the price! It's a Nigella recipe from Feast which she does with a cornbread topping, I don't make the topping - my DH and I just have it with tortilla chips (basics of course) sour cream and this time an avocado (which was on offer in L**l) mashed up with lemon some sour cream and some cayenne salt and pepper. It was lovely! I also spent £2.00 on milk in L**l.

Thank you to everyone who replied to my posts about including alcohol and L**l face cream.

Right I'm off to make tuna pasta bake before school pick up, have a good afternoon everyone.
PWx

Gorgeestwo

First shop of the month at Mr T's today, spent £72.81, am all stocked up again ready for doing lots of baking :j
Seemed to end up buying some grapefruits, have no idea what I was thinking so any inspirational things to do with them apart from topping them with tons of sugar would be great please
Will update my sig now.

helen_jelly

Afternoon everyone

I went on the [EMAIL="C@op"]C@op[/EMAIL] website and joined as a member t'other week and have just got my card through and 2 £5 off a £30 spend that don't expire until June so when Loo roll or some other storable "too good to miss" offer is on thats where I'll be lol

Need milk as I forgot to get it out of the freezer - bum!!

See you all later

Helen x

russetred

NSD for me today. Does any one know what went wrong here. I saved up all my fresh brocolli stalks freezing them straightaway. I took them out last night to defrost and this morning the smell that hit me when I went into the kitchen was horrendous.It was really concentrated over boiled brasicca smell.

TooMany4Legs

Hi RussetRed...
Unless I'm mistaken things like brussel sprouts, broccoli etc near blanching in boiling water before being frozen?
I'm a complete newb though so I'm sure someone far more knowledgeable will be along with the right answer soon!

TooMany4Legs xx