March 2011 Grocery Challenge

jumblejack

I thought I ought to share my success here as all credit goes to the monthly grocery!

Yesterday I bought the weekend offers from lidl: lean steak mince £1.19 and new potatoes 59p a kilo.

(I also bought 4 packs of potatoes from Tescos at 30p. When I got home I noticed that they had charged me £1 for each bag. Took em back and they gave me double the difference!! It was £5.50 odd!!!)

I made mince n onions in gravy with new potatoes and cabbage.

I only used half of the mince n onions.

I put some of the left over mince mix with the leftover steamed baby potatoes into a large pie!

The remaining mince mix was added to a tin of rinsed kidney beans. I also added paprika, chilli & cumin, yum!!

As I made a LOAD of pastry, I made a flan with hm soft cheese (some of my thermos yogurt separated into curds n whey so I seived it and it's yummy!). I just added eggs, milk, herbs & salt. I poured it over broccoli florets in the case.

I reserved some of the hm soft cheese to go with the chilli tomorrow instead of soured cream.

With the pastry cuttings I rolled it and cut out discs with a cup, popped them into a bun tin and spooned in
lemon curd to make tarts.

The flan, pie & tarts all went in the oven together and it has cost next to nothing for several days worth of meals!!!

£1.19 mince
39p new potatoes (I still have some of the bag left!)
10p cabbage (whoopsied!)
26p flour (half a bag)
19p value kidney beans
7p broccoli florets (whoopsied, half a bag)
25p margarine (3rd of utterly butterly tub on offer at 75p)
15p lemon curd
20p hm soft cheese (made from UHT milk)
5p spices

(My eggs are from my hens so i havent put a price)About £2.60 for 3 main meals and a batch of tarts!!
This is for a family of 4!!!!! If you bought eggs then it would have cost just under £3 in total

Gosh, how CHEAP is that per head, per meal!!!! It feels so great to not waste anything and to feed the family at less than 25p a head feels great too. **runs off to shine her halo!**

Sunnyday

beemuzed wrote: »

Doing very badly this month - more than a third of the budget is already spent!

Beemuzed - Try not to worry as it can make things worse, i do this quite often and as the last part of the month approaches you usually find that you hardly need to buy anything at all as there is so much food in.

Try and look for a couple of cheapy pasta/rice based meals which make all the difference.

Jumblejack - Massive well done :T:j It just shows what can be done when you put your mind to it and manage to get the offers. Good job that you noticed about the spuds :eek: I`ve been overcharged at MrM rwice in a week recently :mad:

Well DH has vanished again this morning taking the evasive receipt with him, i know that its £31 and pence so i`ll adjust my siggy and then add the pence when i do get my mitts on it.

No shopping planned for the next few days

Have a good day peeps.

SD

looie

morning all, just reporting my spends from last week - a grand total of £19.27.

Went to t's on Saturday, bought utterly butterly bogof, quite a bit of reduced stuff ranging from 25p to 35p, ryvitas, crackers, juice 2 for £2.50, cheese bogof and milk.

I will only need crisps and yogurts today which I think are on offer at a's so won't need to go shopping until the weekend

Hope everyone has a good day, not at work today so we are going for a drive to the coast x

SavingJane

Walks in LATE LATE LATE VERY LATE which I'm very sorry for as perfer to join at the start

Hope everyone is doing ok and hugs to all that need them

I did well last month Budget was £250 and I came it around £160, thou was a short month!!!!

This month I shall say £225 as it's a longer month and don't want to cut down too fast and not make it. Thou I hope to keep it under £200

Shall update sig when I've added last week's spends together.

I have done a meal plan for the 1st 4weeks of the month, 1 week used so will work out last week of the month this week as might have to do a small online order at end of week and can add food for that week onto that as will have a tad room in freezer.

rachbc

Total spends so far 81.51 - though that does inc a £8 fruit tree from lidl - only had 2 types of apple left when I went - really wanted a cherry too!

Thats about third of budget so far but for half the months worth of fresh stuff and all the dry/ freezer stuff so fingers crossed....

Still kicking myself about friday's takeaway!

tessie_bear

hi...im off shopping in a bit...asd$ and b and m i love a browse in the later shop...seems to have interesting food bits and bobs...got a boring list for the other shop

to new peeps have u considered a look at the old style boards ? there seems to be a wealth of threads on cutting grocery spend...a shame in some ways but i admire anyone who wants to sort out their spending and do their best for their family iyswim

take care
tess

rosieben

janie-h wrote: »

It took a little while to realise that you didn't have more than seven days in a week :rotfl: - just a selection of recipes that you could cook. E.G. Monday would be a chicken recipe, Tuesday pork, Wed pasta and so on. ...

it works really well for me, and I swap days around if I want to; at the moment I'm trying to empty my freezers and use up some pantry stock so I did an inventory, wrote down a list of meal options and its a case of pick-a-meal-a-day this will take me to the end of March buying just vegetables, plus the usual milk, eggs etc (runs off to figure out why tomorrow's sainsbug order is nearly £70 then!)

I know a lot of people struggle with meal planning but at its most basic it's just a list of meals

* * *
jumblejack that's brilliant! :T

Sunnyday, I've added your SC brisket to the index

Chloris

I am doing sooo badly. But I will be brave and have a look at the cupboards. Will have to tighten the belts for the rest of the month.:cool: Have updated signature.

quintwins

fedupandskint wrote: »

Does anyone have any ideas for purple sprouting brocoli and pasta meals?

Sorry its early!

what about pasta bake witha simple white sauce (or some sour cream like jamie oliver does if you have some) topped with cheese

cutiepieabf

fedupandskint wrote: »

I've had leftover brisket for tea too! It was lovely and a small amount left now - not too sure what to do with the last few slices - in a sandwich or in a leftover concoction I think!

NSD weekend for me too - another full NSD weekend like last week. Aiming for Mon/Wed/Thurs for NSDs next week then off out for the weekend so food shopping is Fri/Sat

Froze the breadrolls made today and kept one for a work lunch tomorrow and the lemon drizzle cake was very nice too! I halved the ingredients as didn't have enough butter for the larger version. But a smaller one is just right for me!

Next lot of baking will be next weekend and possibly another loaf cake I think - will have a mosey through my cookbooks for some ideas to see what I can use up whats in the cupboard

how does banana cake sound? it is gorgeous in a loaf tin. if you dont have a recipe let me know and i'l post later.