May 2011 Grocery Challenge

Hippeechiq

Evening all......(said in my best Dixon of Dock Green voice )

Nice to see you back XSpender How is the new job going?
Hello and welcome to all newbies :hello:

I'm having a horrible week. Full of important appointments and I've not slept properly since last week, meaning my head is even more foggy than it's usual menopausal, stressed out self
On the bright side though, DD is handling the week very well, and I'd rather it was me having the rough week than her

sistercas wrote: »

jackieO /hippeechiq i like the envelope system, i think i will adopt it , my problem is i have a fear that i wont have enough money when i get to the till . how do you overcome that ?

Hiya sistercas
I know what you mean - it's always been a fear of mine too.
I work out how much my shopping is going to come to before I go out. I appreciate that this may not be so easy to do if you're spending £30, £40 or more in one go but as I have to carry home what I buy, mine seldom comes to more than £20 per outing.......actually, I work out how much it's going to come to in each of the shops I go to before I leave home. Needs must when my money is so tight.

Also - the £25 that I save out of my GC budget each month for Xm*s, stays in my account until the end of the month, so if I were to go over, I could use my DC and dip into that, but I've never had to, and I'd be damned annoyed with myself if I did....it doesn't alter the fact that I know it's there if I did miscalculate though

Having an expensive start to the month, already at £41.86 :eek: I have used some items from my stock, so have had to pay back the 2nd Purse, but even so - I'd rather it was less than £41.86 on day 5 fgs!

I've noticed a couple of Te$co value items disappear in the last month - wouldn't surprise me if all the SMs tried to phase out their value/smartprice/basics range - the gits!

Welcome dibblersan :wave:
DR are an online butchers that sell very good quality meat. Spigs & Mothership are the girls to ask, as they use them I believe.
http://www.donaldrussell.com/pages/category/category.asp?ctgry=ShopByCategory_Butchers&cookie_test=1

kalojac

Hi Pink Winged - can you please put me down for £350 please, will update my sig soon, thank you

boysma

Declaring another 19.94 spent over last few days inc 1.99 for 2 loo rolls in local garage:mad: That wont happen again I can tell you.

Emptying freezer rapidly but keeping to my shopping lists pretty well so far, so for once I am rather optimistic about this month - have a feeling that will come back to bite me in the b*m:D

prophecy_grrl

I have only spent £26.41 of this week's budget - I have been extra frugal. I'll need to spend about £40 next week, on Monday, but aiming for minimum spend till then. Planning to buy DS some fruit and yoghurt when we go to town later but that's it till Monday. Off to update my sig.

nessie216

dibblersan wrote: »

I actually don't normally, but I don't want to go silly over budget. I tend to use approved food for my tins. I place an order for about £100 or so but don't want to do that for a while.

Tesco pasta was just too good to resist at 9p but there's no way I could have bought it with no car

9p???

Looked online and it is showing up 18p - so not fair! :mad:

cutiepieabf

cat_smith wrote: »

Definitely not criticising packet mixes (used to live on them as a student but received large schwarz spice rack with everything for a house warming present:T) but for a sausage casserole I use 2 onions, 8 sausages, brown. Little flour. 1 1/2 dstspns paprika, 1/3 of chilli. Tin of tomatoes, 2 carrots. Oxo stock cube and enough water to cover. Salt/Pepper. Simmer 1 hr add mushrooms in last 10 mins.

Bit more hassle, but I like cooking. As with most casserole type things, its actually better the 2nd day

thanks, i'll try this.

slbhill

Had a mixed evening yesterday! Went to MrT for weekly shop and stocked up on some things, should only need fresh stuff for the rest of the month I hope.

Got home and decided to do a bit of cooking. Knocked the cookbooks over which sent my card index of recipes flying across the kitchen, cards everywhere. The box didn't break & nothing landed in the pan soaking in the sink, so I picked it all up and put it back, only to knock it off again, this time the box did break. (Who, me clumsy??) Thought I would make carrot cake to use up some of last week's whoopsied bag of carrots, reached into the bag & found that two of them had gone liquid in the bottom of the bag :eek: and of course they had "bled" all over the others. Somehow I hadn't even noticed but once they were out they STANK, yeuch . In a way it was lucky that the goo had got onto the bag of potatoes (also whoopsied) I had just put in the veg drawer - I emptied the potatoes from the bag & found two were already brown and squishy on one side which I hadn't noticed in the shop. It looked like the bag had been dropped from a huge height :mad: and several of the spuds were bashed or split.

I also realised a slight problem with my planning - I had bought a big bag of mince, some onions and other oddments to try my hand at batch cooking. But there I estimate the available space in the freezer at 3 cubic inches :rotfl:

On the plus side I did make the cake without further incident and iced it using some Philly I'd had for ages (just within date). The cake was undercooked so it disintegrates rather easily but as long as you don't mind eating it with a spoon it's lovely

Just off to update my signature, let's hope i don't have any more traumas in the kitchen tonight!

Chloris

Have updated signature. Horrible. Must do better. Can do better. I am batch cooking for freezer so it should ease up now. Also replaced all toothbrushes. But still, must do better. NSD here.

Off to make carrot cake out of sad carrots and fruit loaf in BM. Also making fish cakes with LO mash and HM breadcrumbs for tea, will make double so freeze some.

Good luck everyone!

Spiggle

Hippeechiq wrote: »

... Welcome dibblersan :wave:
DR are an online butchers that sell very good quality meat. Spigs & Mothership are the girls to ask, as they use them I believe.
http://www.donaldrussell.com/pages/category/category.asp?ctgry=ShopByCategory_Butchers&cookie_test=1

Hi Hippeechiq,

No dibblersan, I don't buy from D*n*ld R*ss*ll but Mothership is a very big fan as are a couple of other members. I only buy meat from my local butcher which I find is far better quality, usually better value and is often more locally raised than anything I could buy in the sm. Also no sm free range eggs are as cheap as the fr organic eggs from my butcher. And I used to live not far from the farm where the eggs are sourced when I was a teenager (a long time ago ).

You and I are not too far apart by the way dibblersan. I don't have them but certainly the R*verf*rd veg boxes are available here (west of Cardiff) so you could check out their website. Alternatively, if you have a local market, (does Ponty still have one????) that's where you'll tend to get the very best value on f&v. Farmers markets can be good and offer things you may not see on your high street/sm but the ones I've visited have been hugely expensive by comparison to - well just about anywhere! As I don't have a market close to me I buy all my f&v from my local high street grocer (with the exception of bananas which I occasionally buy in the sm). Hope that helps.

Got to get off to work and hope to see you all later.

Take care,
Spigs

mfwin2019

Sorry just realised I havn't posted a target - I will try for £200 but with the BBQ season now upon us (or rather the extra alcohol that is drunk on hot days outside) it may be a struggle