June 2011 Grocery Challenge

JIL

69chick wrote: »

Thanks for this recipe, I have got everything in for it and I love a prawn curry but have never cooked one myself! its only me that does prawns in my house...a quick question - will I be able to freeze this if I do a big pan of it? if so will I need to make sure I buy fresh prawns that have never been frozen?

I have never frozen it, but my suggestion would be that you freeze a batch of the curry before putting the prawns in if you see what I mean, then defrost both the curry sauce and prawns and reheat them together.

69chick

Sounds like a good plan JIL thanks

katholicos

That £10 i was going to give DD the other day for food, well i didn't give it to her because she was a real pain in the backside that day and she wouldn't even go to get the shopping (and i haven't been shopping for groceries either. YAY). Little toe-rag! Made a nice cold pasta salad this evening which we ate with homeaked bread. Hope you all have a super duper weekend!

Mothership

69chick wrote: »

Mothership if you are around can you clarify something for me about the 2nd purse system (I am obv a bit thick where these things are concerned!) do I take it that you buy your stocks when on offer with the 2nd purse money, put them away, then do you pay back the purse the full retail value of the item say for example a box of teabags as and when you take the box from your stock to start using??

The only thing with me is that I tend to buy all my groceries either when a) they are on offer anyway as I am not fussed by brands or b)if no good offer on branded then the basic/cheapy options.....do you think this would still work for me as I love the idea....

I thought I would put the difference between my budget for June and what I actually spend in the purse to start me off,then put £10 a week in...

I keep a note of what I use and pay the purse back when I have the funds. I don't buy anything unless its on offer. I put £10 per month in the 2nd purse.
Since joining the GC I've been stocking up my freezers using the 2nd purse, I pay back £3 per day for any food I take from it and use the 2nd Purse for re-stocking. I've been buying most of our meat from Donald Russell.
My grocery shopping is 1/4 of what it was last year. I've not spent much at all this month, I only need to buy perishables like bread/milk/fruit/veg. I look for opportunities ie; whoopsied veg, then build our meals round them. I spent 60p in A**A last night and got enough veg to do us 5-6 days. It felt soooooo good going into a supermarket and walking out with two bags full and only spending 60p LOL.

I'm in the middle of my latest experiment, to see how little I can spend.

My cupboards and freezers are bursting, so I only buy things I'm running low on, (top up shops). I think after 30 years of doing this I've reached saturation point.

If your serious about doing this keep a notebook and record everything you buy, write the use by date next to it. So for eg; if you buy 6 of something, write 1 beside it for each item you use, when you get to about 2 left its time to look for an offer. Make sure you rotate your stock.
I use a really small notepad and pencil, I keep it in the 2nd Purse.
Good luck with it. As your stock builds , you will notice you need to spend less and less on your weekly shop.

Sorry I didn't answer your question. You decide what you want to pay back, If its a B1G1F offer and I got 2 for £1 I usually charge myself £1 each. Or you could charge yourself 50p each.

supersally01

Evening all,
went to Mr M's and spent £70, which was not bad as OH came with me. Working 3 nights now, so made chilli in SC for OH, will last all weekend. Also made chicken Korma for me and DD13 (DS04 won't eat it), leftovers packaged up into take away style packaging complete with rice, so she will not starve whilst I am working!!! LOL!
My garage stock is growing nicely, got 4 x coke bottles for £4 today. Try to get something every week. Also tried a lot of the value stuff in Mr M today, after reading some of the posts here, DS04 certainly gave the value peaches the thumbs up tonight !!! Have a good weekend all!

espresso21

Well, last night was a complete write-off. The migraine and sickness just got worse and worse over the day so I bought some food on the way home (bit of an overspend unfortunately) and gave it to OH when I got in - told him he had plenty of options as to what he wanted and then I went to bed. That was at about 7pm and I slept on and off till 7 this morning so I guess my body needed it. At least I have woken up headache-free! And hungry!
69chick - you're right. I get irritated at the way my migraine days mess up the budgetting, but you're absolutely right - it would be far worse if I didn't budget at all!
Halfasixpence, good idea re the stew. The problem is (as embarrassing as it is to admit) I don't know how to make a stew!

metherer

Hi

You might all have seen this, but the article highlights how grocery prices have risen since 2006

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004884/Middle-class-families-squeezed-soaring-food-fuel-bills-leave-900-worse-year.html

rosieben

Hello JIL, welcome to the GC :wave:

I've added your prawn and chickpea curry recipe to the front page index :beer:

quintwins

morning all havent really been on my aproved foods order arrived yesterday and wow thats an awful lot of junk food lol, one of my items were wrong so waiting to hear back around a refund but so far the total is at £72.85 then i went to tesco last night for the kids clothes and got a punnet of grapes for 98p 6 bread rolls for 21p and 2 bottles of pepsi for £2 and 2 brocolli's for 22p and a 60p bag of chips, will update my sig now i'm way over but i'll have plenty of sweets and other rubbish to see us threw the summer

i just had a homemade egg muffin which cost me about 15p to make (reduced muffins and reduced egg ) compared to wat that would cost in that well known place i'm very happy gonna make a tatie and brocolli bake for tea with the last few sorry look spuds and reduced brocolli

XSpender

A small spend at Mr A this morning to add to my total. Bought mufins and bacon to make DH a nice fathers day breakfast. Is it me or have bacon prices gone through the roof?:eek:

A couple of pennies well and truly dropped this morning:o You think they might have dropped earlier bearing in mind how long I have been doing the GC:o The frst was that tinned carrots are much more expensive than fresh:rotfl:and the second was that I am going to have to split my shopping across 2-3 stores to get the most for my money. As a full time working mum this is going to eat in to my free time but it has to be done. Luckily I have a Mr A, Ald*i and Mr S within a 3 mile radius and DH works next door to a Mr T. He has already been told he is picking up value cocoa next week for my baking:rotfl:

Whoopsied qu0rn lamb steaks tonight with roasted new pots and veg for tea tonight. Fab lollies for pud:)

I have a huge sack of scone mix that I got from AF a while ago that I must start using. DH is constantly hungry at the moment, I think it is because he has almost stopped drinking booze, so I am going to see if it is not too sweet for cheese scones as he prefers savoury to sweet. If it is too sweet I will have to make normal cheese scones the old fashioned way:)