May 2011 Grocery Challenge

pepsi-kins

Hi All,
Well I've had a very low spend week, (which was very much needed!) I have only spent £7 odd which was I didn't really need, but had to spend £10 to use credit card at local discount shop, so I bought a box of water filters and a box of broken biscuits. I do need to get some fruit and veg, yogurts, milk and bread tomorrow, but thats about it. Need to keep this up, sticking to meal plan very well, and trying different recipes which is good, except for the kedgeree I made last week, which was absolutely YUK, made me laugh DH was too scared to say it was horrible,so tried to plough through it, when I said I couldn't eat it, it was so horrible, he said "thank god for that, do I have to eat mine then" (Yes! no, i'm not that cruel)

Have a good week everyone x

XSpender

Hello folks!

I haven't posted or read as much as I planned to this month so I hope you are all well and doing great against your budgets.

I got paid yesterday and it is going to be a tight month so rather than just keep adding up my receipts until the end of this month I am going to give myself a £150 budget from now until the 21st June:eek: This will include all food, nappies, toiletries and alcohol.

I went to Mr S this morning and spent £91 but used £12.50 of nect*r points so a total spend of £79.23 to come off the budget already. I have meal planned for the first time in months and have sorted the meals for the next 2 weeks with a few extras for later in the month. I am so out of practic it took me longet to meal plan and check my super than I spent in th shop! I also have bought enough dog food to last the two dogs until the end of the month.

I will probably need nappies before the end of the month so that will be a big chunk as I buy te giga sized boxes from c0stco.

Hoping to keep in touch this month

XS

69chick

Another 18.22 spent in Mr T's, needed some more pork fillet as we are cooking for my Dad as well us us tonight and one pack wasn't enough, anyway thought I might as well do the 3 for £10 thing again and got some more bacon which I am freezing and a pack of Pork chops also in the freezer, I also had to get some bits for tonights dinner which will be a nice meal as dh is a good cook also got milk and bread which I would have had to get tomorrow anyway so hopefully won't need to touch the shops until at least Monday....

ds goes away on his first school trip on Monday for the week and I won't have dh Mon or Tue as he is away on business so will just be me and my wee girlies, which means we can have fish yay (both my boys won't eat it)..

Hope everyone is doing ok on their budgets today, I always find weekends are the time I just keep picking up bits in various shops!!!

catch you all later

CRANKY40

Total of £50.97 spent this week. I had to go to both Te$co and A$da as A$da didn't have a lot of the things that I wanted. The good news is that I'm sticking to my budget more or less and I had my 2 stone off award this week at fat class.

Living_proof

I have been to Aldi, Lidl and Asda to ensure costs are as low as possible, and I got a lot for my £17 but this will take me slightly over budget and I still have one Saturday to go. The whole idea behind having such a low budget this month is to try and get some store cupboard items used up, freezer stuff likewise.

I am amazed at the differences in prices for some items - I bought a good-sized pineapple in Aldi for 89p and saw a slightly bigger one in M & S for £3 !!! It does not pay you to shop in a hurry these days. If you don't eat too much meat or junk food I still think food in general is a good price but my children are grown and flown so there's not the pressure on me that there once was.

I haven't had a chance to read this week's thread yet but hope you are all managing to stick to, or close-ish to your budgets.

katholicos

Went to Aldi yesterday and spent £7. I've adjusted my signature. Today was NSD number 12 and I had baked potatoes, cheese and coleslaw with home made butter and for pud i pulled some of my rhubarb and had it with some yoghurt.

espresso21

I'm back. Sorry, was out of action for a few days - migraines really lay me low. Even worse is the fact that the pills I have to take for them cost £4 each!!!
I'm a bit miffed today - I made a meal plan for the week to avoid those little stops in the store everyday where there are so many temptations; Tesco delivered today and THEN my husband found out that he is going to be away all week next week which means my carefully planned menu for 2 is now not going to work!!! Grrrr!
Hope you're all doing well. Special hugs to Hippeechiq, Guccigoo and Spigs.

PennyGrabber

NSD today, but nearly wasn't about 3 times!! Went to the park, nearly had ice creams. Need milk, was going to go to co0p but didn't, then we went for a bike ride, past a local shop, didn't go in. I have enough milk for 2 bowls of cereal tomorrow, and uht if that's not enough, so i kept telling myself that i'd get some tomorrow when i get a few other bits anyway. WILL GO ARMED WITH LIST!!! In fairness, there are only a few things i need, but my aim is to pop in and pop out. I'll kind of need to do that anyway, as i found out today that my ex (not ex husband) had a heart attack earlier this week - he's 45, so i'm going to go and see him in the hospital tomorrow too. Busy day, as also painting ds bedroom, and have a builder coming over to give me a quote for some building work i'm planning on doing with my outhouse. (Not GC so i'll put it in brackets i'm planning on turning it into a photography studio) Will mean some major cutbacks in an already tight budget though...

Nearly the end of the month - come on everyone, we can do it!! SMs do not rule us!

PG x

CherryPie

espresso21 wrote: »

I'm back. Sorry, was out of action for a few days - migraines really lay me low. Even worse is the fact that the pills I have to take for them cost £4 each!!!

Now i think you have to pay for prescriptions but unsure how much. But I too used to suffer from terrible migraines, it's taken me years, and a locum Dr, but my solution is Metoclopramide. The locum Dr told me he was so confident they would work, that he would be astounded if they didn't and to let him know if they didn't. Needless to say, I've not had to go back to the docs!! :j

And if they do work, the price of 1 prescription for a lot more tablets!

NSD here for me, and will need to have a few more as payday not till Friday!!:o

Winged_one

Spent €63 in Mr SQ today. Needed a good few stores items that I hadn't expected - pasta, rice, lasagne sheets, dishwasher tabs, sugar, flour tortillas, cereal, tinned tomatoes, ....and some fresh fruit, veg, bread, milk, cooked meat and a treat of a small tub of fresh pesto. Didn't need any raw meat this week.

I used most of a ball of mozarella for cheese toasties for lunch, but there's enough for tomorrow too. And I used up most of the pack of ham dated yesterday - between toasties for lunch, and cooked into pasta and sauce for DD's dinner. Risotto tonight for me, with dried mushrooms from cupboard, turkey stock from freezer (from last weekend's gift of a carcass), and using the last glass of white wine in the bottle too. So I haven't done too badly on using up leftovers so far.

I,m pretty much sticking with the menu I posted the other day for next week, although I have a few other options if I don't fancy the planned dinner any night (like chicken fajitas, sausages and mash, pasta carbonara or a thai chicken curry). I don't think I need to buy much for the next few weeks other than essentials (milk, bread, fruit and veg) and tonic (definitely an essential!!) - I've just opened the last bottle today. Perhaps even until DH gets home again - well, here's hoping anyway.