May 2011 Grocery Challenge

JayJay14

Hi everyone, it is fianally raining here, first time for about 6 weeks - the veges will love it.

Doing strangely well at the moment, £44.54. I try to stick to £40 a week in SM etc so I have enough to go to costco for bulk stuff like coffee and dog food and it may be working for a change.

Will be going to A1di later to have a look at the super 6 and probably lidl on the way back as DS prefers the pop from there (they do a cheap irn bru clone)

Have to do a bit of stocking up as I now have a freezer that works (had two freezers peg out on me within a month and the replacement didn't work - top marks for the co op though, called them at 9 am last Tuesday and they delivered a replacement at 8.15 am on Wednesday)

Have to decide what to have for meals today, out of the habit as we have spent the last two weeks working out way through defrosted surprises:rotfl:

Gracie_1827

Morning all...went to Mr M's yesterday to use my 6p a litre off petrol....unfortunately I forgot to take my old till receipt from last week when I rec'd the voucher. The assistant was rather sniffy and said it's in the T&Cs on the back:mad: so didn't get discount.....will have to try for refund when I'm next there. But I did get 4 pints of milk not counted on my shopping...it was 2 for £2 but only 1 went through...so only paid £1.68:T (didn't notice til I got home). Bought boring stuff and a huge mango for £1, the theory being, make my own chutney. Found £1 by the trolley park at Sainsbugs on Wednesday and got £1 voucher from M&S...we're in the money!!!!:beer:

natlie

I have to go to Mr t's today going to get lunchbox stuff for the girls fruit mainly - but being pregnant I have developed a sudden craving for perle du lait lemon stuff - I have tried making lemon greek yogurt in my yog maker but its not the same - perle du lait is a creamy dessert rather than a yogurt - it 48p off though yay so at least my cravings are on offer lol

Elmo1985

Spend £11.00 in Iceland yesterday on various chicken related freezer products lol hot n spicy chicken strips, chicken nuggents etc etc and a bag of frozen peppers and some simpsons icepops which shouldnt have gone in but i couldnt resist

would have spent more but cant manage too many bags when i shop alone with the baby bump coming along im exhausted haha - babies are money saving!!! x

Oops almost forgot - spent £2.00 in poundland on flash multi purpose sprays and also £8.00 in Wilkinsons - i dont normally include these within shopping budget but we've done quite well so far this month so im including it

highland_fling_2

morning everyone,
transferring some under the stair stores into kitchen cupboards today. Down to my last pack of toilet rolls so if anyone knows of any good offers I would be glad to hear where to buy them.

Having left over roast lamb, pots, cauli and white sauce( I don't like cheese) for dinner. Cauli was on whoopsie counter and was perfect. Don't know why it was reduced. Having rhubarb sponge and custard for pudding. Was given the rhubarb.
Will have to have a lie down after eating all that.

Defrosting minced beef to cook in slow cooker over night.
Really need to use up some of freezer foods as they are bound to have been in there too long.

Hope you all have a frugal day.

Living_proof

I didn't have much time yesterday to do the usual early-morning trawl of supermarket bargains, but I didn't really need to much as still using frozen surprises. And surprises there have been, notably the breaded fish which turned out to be slices of bacon! That evening involved a quick menu change! Spent just £13.72 so still on target, although a business trip on Thursday will take me very close to a Chinese supermarket, so may be tempted then ...

slbhill

cutiepieabf wrote: »

:rotfl:oh i am sorry but this post did make me chuckle. these are the exact kinds of things i do. trying so hard to be organised and efficient and then bullsing it up somehow. :cool:

Soul sisters?? :rotfl:

susan946 wrote: »

slbhill wrote: »

Got home and decided to do a bit of cooking. Knocked the cookbooks over which sent my card index of recipes flying across the .....

Sorry - had to laugh!! Evidently you just weren't meant to make that carrot cake!!!!!!!!!!! Shame, though - it's delicious.

'S ok, I regrouped and made the cake. Took a few slices to work, gave a chunk to my in-laws and chunk to a friend who fed me dinner last night, and still have plenty in the cake tin. It was undercooked so the only thing holding it together is the icing but it is as you say delicious. I have been home baking a lot more since joining the GC - saves money & I enjoy it but I seem to have put on a bit of weight for some reason

dibblersan wrote: »

just sent my email to tesco customer services asking why my £5 points voutcher wasn't credited. I'm on a computer most of the time but this is the first time since the 3rd I've not been doing a thousand other things so I hope they don't make a fuss it's been a couple of days.

I'm also not happy now I sat down and looked at it about a gammon they sub'd. I was assured by the driver that it wouldn't be more expensive than the gammon I ordered, and it's not- £7, not £13, but it's also much. much smaller.
....
is that just me?

It's not just you - but it is the way they work, not just a one off where you've been unlucky. If they sub a product they will not charge you more but you may get a lot less for the same cost. One time they'd run out of the 400g own-brand tins of soup I'd ordered, so they sent the same number of half size branded tins and I was meant to be happy because they only charged me the same price The only definite way round it is to say "no substitutes" to everything but that has its own problems of course.

quintwins

if your not happy with your subs you can send them away with the driver, which is abit stupid since if you ordered them you'd want them

anyway today shud be a nsd were off to mil for sunday dinner then were gonna plant some spuds and veg in there garden, since we can't get a roativater into ours and hubby said he doesn't wanna dig it by hand again this year, so they said we could have a row dow there, they also have cheery, plum and apple trees and rubarb that we can take wat we want off, we have a big pear tree aswell but we forgot to spray it this year so hopefully it will be ok, so were really hoping our fruit and veg bills will drop soon

dibblersan

highland_fling wrote: »

morning everyone,
transferring some under the stair stores into kitchen cupboards today. Down to my last pack of toilet rolls so if anyone knows of any good offers I would be glad to hear where to buy them.

if you need to stock up on a number of things then approved food have packs of 9 nouvelle for 2.50.

quintwins wrote: »

if your not happy with your subs you can send them away with the driver, which is abit stupid since if you ordered them you'd want them

the driver did offer, but he also assured me that it wouldn't be more expensive and i feel that it is more expensive and that they should either have sent 2 to make it the same weight, or they should have charged the pro-rata cost.

it does/did annoy me, but i will learn from it. I was also a little annoyed that one of my loafs of bread was ripped so when I finished putting everything away the next morning it was half stale already - should mention that my delivery wasn't until 11pm and i'd only moved in the day before so there were boxes everywhere.

but today is a good day

I've got a huge amount of spiced chicken soup for work in the comming weeks (20 portions) and i'm making scones to go with today.

I'm thinking cheese and garam masala for atleast half of them, but I'm wondering if it might be nice to make some fruit (lemon curd and mixed fruit) for an 11am snack with coffee.

I plan on making at least some of the soup chicken noodle (water it down a little as it's very thick and add cooked noodles) so wouldn't want a scone with that anyway. The soup already has rice and potato chunks in it - more of a runny curry really, but I don't know.

I won't have time to make more in the week really so i need to anticipate what I'll fancy then now.

Sparklyfairy

Ok just spent a grand total of £40.52 between Ald!, L!dl & Sains - so I feel we have some organisation to my monthly meal plan. I'm attempting to do some OAMC - mainly for kids & dh as I NEED to get back on track with my diet...I find that if I can just grab something nice & already made for them I'm less tempted...here's hoping anyway!