June 2011 Grocery Challenge

chocolateteddy

JIL wrote: »

I find that if you buy a lot of fruit and serve it as one piece of fruit it does go quickly as you cannot reallY just eat half an apple or half a banana.
I dont know if it would help but tinned fruit is cheaper than fresh fruit. When my children were at home I would buy the cheaper fruit, such as apples, oranges, bananas, tinned pineapple, tinned peaches, tinned manadarins etc and made up a big bowl of fruit salad. using the fruit juices from the tins to keep it all fresh.

Then it was easy to put into bowls and encouraged the children to eat it as it did not need any preperation.
You could also make some chopped up carrot sticks, celery etc which is also healthy and not as expensive.

Thanks for the idea unfortunately mine hate tinned fruit - have tried it, both separately and the fruit salad idea. All 3 children just love fresh fruit - my ds will take an apple to school for snack having had fruit with yogurt and cereal for breakfast and then have fruit when he comes in - he is a human dustbin though LOL If he didn't eat fruit it would be something else - at least it is healthy and not crisps, biscuits!! Ds loves carrots but just prefers fruit.
Think I need to meal plan better then maybe that will reduce cost by just buying what I need

TheThriftyScrumpers

My spends are up to £149.40 but I feel much more in control as I am back to internet orders and only buying what I need. I will do another list of what I have in the freezer as much current list is out of date now. HM burgers and HM potato wedges and salad for dinner. Yum. I hope you all have a good weekend. x

Mothership

Just back from S********s got enough veg to do me a week for under £4
:j:j:j
8 packs of on the vine tomatoes, 1 bag spinach, baby corn, 2 packs thread noodles, 1 bag greens, 1 bag Lambs Lettuce. 4 Aubergines, 3 pots of coriander, 1 bag organic carrots, Cauliflower & Broccoli, 2 tubs prepared fruit, 1 tub humous a baguette and a pork pie.

Chow Mien Saturday + A big pot of Spinach and Avocado Soup
Bhoona Lamb Sunday
Mousaka Monday

JAMIEDODGER

Spent another £7.61 yesterday. £108.16/£350 now:)

quintwins

morning all, i'm hoping for a nsd today altho i find saturdays hard and we usually do spend a wee bit, also oh got a £20 bonus this week so he'll prob be wanting to spend it, i'll just have to remind him that all spare pennies go towards a house, i might suggest we go for a walk

chocolateteddy i don't think theres anything wrong with spending that much onn fruit if you have small kids tbh, also i don't find tinned fruit cheaper, even value tinned fruit is 30p per tin but only feeds 2 maybe 3 at a push, but if you look about you can get apples or oranges at 10p each and a banana is more filling and generally 14p each, however it might eb worth looking for veg boxes in your area, or going to the local farm shop or market, i can get huge apples at 10 for £1.50 in mine that i can cut into 3 for the kids or half for me and oh

zpr1c3

Hey,
Doing pretty well at the moment I think.....must try not to speak too soon!

I am up to £74.45 leaving me with £125.55 for the rest of the month which should be easily do able. Strange really as have lowered the monthly budget by £50 this month and don't seem to be struggling at all, clearly was wasting the extra money on things I don't need at all.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Zoe

Aril

I've totted up this weeks spends and it comes in at £47 so am on track still to make it for this month and hopefully shouldn't need to buy too much as the freezer is chocca. I have incorporated a weekly whoopsie walk into Waitrose as their reductions are really good with the remainder of the shopping coming from either Tesco or Sainsburys. Usually there aren't many bargains to be had in Sainsburys but they had loads of really good reductions on meat this time. Unfortunately learnt that I am to lose my job on 31st July so making the money stretch becomes ever more important.

Aril

HalfaSixpence_2

Put me down for £400, please, including petfood and household cleaning stuff etc.
Hi - the last time I participated in one of these was June or July 2009 then I moved/changed jobs and have basically been so busy since that I have been just paddling away hoping all would be OK most of the time not knowing where I was financially with any exactitude. Having just sat down, pushed through the angst and anxiety and worked it all out, I'm about where I thought I was - head above water and no dreadful surprises *But* looking at the numbers, it's clear that I have been spending more than I thought I was, and I thought I was spending too much anyway<g>. I actually had more disposable income than I thought, not really having twigged that the car expenses I get in my new job more than cover petrol costs and so I should have been able to save from that towards other car expenses etc. But because I was justr going by 'feel' and how much I had in the current a/c, the extra just got sucked up into food shopping etc. And actually food costs should have gone down because my DH is away two or three days a week and gets fed on expenses and DD is at Uni so half the week it is just DS and me. Though as DS is a ravenous 6ft teenage ham sandwich disposal machine that's not as much help as it might sound.

Also, DH and I both eat a low-carb diet for health reasons; we are both borderline prediabetic/type 2 diabetic and the reason we've stayed borderline for 8 years with no meds is because we eat that way, so I'm not up for changing that. That means we can't eat bread, potatoes, pasta or rice except as a very occasional treat, which means some of the usual 'cheap meal' expertise goes out of the window! Also, I live in a small rural community and buy as much as I can from the local farm shops and village shop rather than Tesco, and that's important to me. I know what I spend will seem a lot and hopefully I will get it down further when I get a better handle on it but if I can stick to that this month it will be a significant step for me. To be honest, just staying on top of things enough to know what I have spent will be a significant step for me!

Thanks

PS to the lady with gestational diabetes - there is another very helpful site at diabetes.co.uk with lots of forums etc.

rachelww1

£76.84 spent in Mr T's today. A bit more than I wanted to spend but a loss less than previous weeks. I did a meal plan for the week yesterday, so actually only got what we needed. Also DH stayed in the car so that helped :rotfl:

Cleosmum

Weekly shop came to a total of £51.68 over Mr S, Mr T and Mr Al Di. I used a £5 MOC in Mr T that they sent me as an incentive to go back, and Mr S I used my staff discount. I have 2 more £5 off MOC to use in June which will help! I only have to spend £20 so I get the bare min and only whats on offer in Mr T. I check mysupermarket and printed 2 lists.

I need to get washing up liquid tomorrow as I didnt realise we were on the last bottle!