I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

VfM4meplse

Sofiaki wrote: »

I'm still looking for an equivalent site to MSE (doubt it exists) in French.

Back to the drawing board. :j

I think you're right, c'est la vie!

Spent £3 today on some wraps and barley water from the Co-op for my parents. Mum popped out to Lidl earlier and took heed of my request for chocolate before it sold out - and came back with 30 bars lol.

Lynsey

Popped into Sainsbury's to put lottery on (wasted £2 as only 1 number!!) and spent another £1.93 on a pack of Wiltshire ham (half-price offer £1.44) for sandwiches for plane and a reduced tub of extra thick double cream (49p), just had with h/m apple crumble - so todays spend is £10.80 and weeks total is £21.40.
Sainsbury's had lots of stuff reduced, but left all apart from the cream and that was dearer than normal!!

Weeks 1 -6 = £87.74 (average £14.62)

Weeks 7 -12 = £126.69 (average £21.11)

12 week total = £214.43

12 week weekly average = £17.87

So last 6 weeks a lot higher as Xmas stash used in 1st 6 weeks of year, but freezers are still pretty full and mostly good quality stuff and mostly reduced.

Not much will be spent now up until 31st March, so well on target and very pleased.

Minestrone was lovely as was apple crumble and made some buns using a Wright's mixed seed bread mix - 6 very large buns for sandwiches tomorrow, might bake some more on Tuesday morning for sandwiches for plane. The dough was lovely (made in bread-maker), very sloppy and easy to handle. Bread tasted much better than baking fully in bread-maker, much less "spongy" - well pleased as this is my favourite Wright's mix.

katskorner - that was a good shop and great use of coupons.

Sofiaki - no MSE equivalent in France?? There's an opportunity for you. lol

VfM4meplse - well done to your Mum, they had stacks though in my Lidl.

Lynsey

lyra

Lip_Stick the Bethnal Green museum of childhood is fab, went there last year. We didn't plan it but we went on St George's Day & my friend's little one had a fab time making things. http://www.museumofchildhood.org.uk/
We also went here: http://www.horniman.ac.uk/ which was fantastic.

Sofiaki - the bit about the cat made me laugh :rotfl: It's funny going back to my parents, as I live in a flat & don't have any pets, I forget when I'm round theirs that I can't live any food lying around or it'll be taken by either the dog or cat by the time I get back to it!

Well no spend day as am at my parents but will have to pop out on monday to go to the chemist & will no doubt end up in the large co-op next door while I'm waiting for the prescription..am sure they did Wrights mixes last time I went so will print off another voucher :T I got some brownie points from the boss, she loves bread making & forwarded her the voucher..she was delighted! :A

Sofiaki

Lynsey wrote: »

Sofiaki - no MSE equivalent in France?? There's an opportunity for you. lol

Cough cough - wouldn't have a clue where to start, and not sure I could handle something like this even if I did. It must exist, it's a question of wheedling it out. They're only just getting into special offers properly but sell out very quickly of the bogofs worth having. Very impressed with your low spending. Something to aspire to

"Sofiaki - the bit about the cat made me laugh :rotfl: It's funny going back to my parents, as I live in a flat & don't have any pets, I forget when I'm round theirs that I can't live any food lying around or it'll be taken by either the dog or cat by the time I get back to it!"

Lyra - he's never done anything remotely like this before, that's why I was so shocked. He does have good taste though, 100% butter pastry. Mind you, he also scaled his way onto the top of the wardrobe for the first time yesterday, leaving a trail of chaos, including one of the loudspeakers. Suspiciously quiet today ...

Night all. One hour less in bed tonight :mad:

cheerfulness4

I too am in awe of your spending (or lack of it) Lynsey. Love the break down.

Katskorner- Wow on that coupon shop! Well done. :T

Have a couple of little spends to add to my sig. Bought another box of oats-so-simple £1 (with coupon), big bag of ham offcuts from Morries £3.22 and a reduced apple pie from their bakery 59p (we enjoyed that with AP foods cheap squirty cream round Brit got Talent)

So £4.81 to add to sig.

Miss my cat. All the funny things they do. Even eating your pastry! How could he have enjoyed that?! :rotfl: How old is he?


EDITED: Thought out of interest I'd look at my first quarters totals. A little more than Lynseys.

First 12 weeks of 2012 total spend = £617.16 :eek:

Average weekly spend = £51.43


The first 4-5 weeks we had 6 of us for meals, then it went down to just the 4 of us.
Did have the expense of trying to help DS1 and his wife set up their food cupboard and in Feb baby was born, so that meant helping out with easy foods.
He's now working again, phew, so hopefully they can float now.

See, I can come out with the all excuses for why I've been overspending around £20 per week!

Will do better hopefully in the next quarter.

bramble1

Morning all!

small spent of £7.49 on essentials in sainsbobs today. Living totally out the freezer until payday.

Lamb shank for OH for dinner, currently defrosting, I'm going to have quorn i think.

Planned meals up till friday that i don't need to buy anything else in for, so hopefully not spending anymore money this week!!

Trying to decide what to have for lunch now!

[Deleted User]

Mornin all!
Lynsey- also in awe of your spending - I dont know how you manage it!! I try to be frugal where I can with shopping but nowhere near your levels- truly a guru!!

Have picked up a couple of the wrights bread mixes so will give them a try - am I right in thinking you can print out the coupon as many times as you want? ... may get a few more if so! Also managed to pick up some reduced cereal (still just over £1 but my favourite normally sells £2+ so never buy full price!!) have a voucher for free PG tips and got a few loaves of reduced bread (50p not as good as some but still not the £1 they normally go for!)

We are well and truly stocked up again so am vowing to try and stay away from unecessary shopping. Id like to make quiche as Ive never made it but LOVE it and it seems cheap and will go a long way for lunches etc.. a quick question to the quiche makers- can you freeze it when youve made it?

Todays plan is cereal for breakkie (have 3 boxes plus 2 bags of porridge in the cupboards- still have one box of free shreddies from last yr which will be the next box I open!) , sandwhiches for lunch with meat and salad yogurt and fruit (all in fridge) then leftover pizza from last nite for dinner

Have some sausages defrosting to make a casserole tomorrow with some almost sprouting potatoes which I may cook up tonite to go in it or to turn into potato salad/mashed potato!

Resisted the lidl cheap choc as already have a couple of bars in and trying to lose wt so I feel very virtuous!! :rotfl: Also got 2 standard bars of aero through as a freebie so thatll balance it out too!

I think they are opening a lidl v near me soon so getting very excited about the prospect of that!! Im quite easily pleased!!

Need to add up grocery spends but think we are averaging about £150 a month for two of us including any alcohol, toileteries and cleaning stuff ... not too bad I guess could be better but a lot of it is having the time to go hunting for bargains on a more regular basis which I dont always have!

Kirri

^ I make and freeze quiche - I do it in individual foil dishes (20 for £1 Wilkinsons) as they are handy for pack lunches etc as well as dinners and seem to cook ok straight from frozen even. So easy and cheap to make

I couldn't get the free PG Tips voucher to work, said I had no vouchers I got the free Mentos to pick up and might do an early run to Morries for the bread mix tomorrow and I have the coupon for the almost free? baking fruit ingredients from Asda to get - I can't understand why Wrights have issued a voucher for that much and which will be used on an unlimited basis?! It has rather more additives in it than I would choose but I will be using it inbetween my other preferred flours to save money!

I had leftover hm pizza for breakfast, need to make bread this afternoon so lunch will have to be yoghurt and cake. Been bit lapse the last few days as have been out a lot including the pub and walking/visiting places/appts and just haven't had time to cook much. Did over 20k on my pedometer yesterday but then gave in at the destination and bought a cake..

VfM4meplse

^^^Hm leftover pizzza for breakfast, yum!

Well, I'm finally safely back at home after 3 weeks+ away. Left all but one bar of chocolate stashed in my parent's drinks cabinet, the one I have taken will only be eaten if I'm desperate. My sister was unusually thoughtful and left 4 pints of milk in my fridge....having assessed the contents of my freezer and cupboard, as long as no-one pops by unexpectedly for a cup of tea in weeks 2-4, I think I could easily manage w/o shopping at a supermarket for 4 weeks. I've still got 48 Weetabix and a stash of Branston baked beans 4-packs that I bought 3 for 1, but would have to be quite desperate to eat them! For years I've had the mentality that there must be bread and milk in the house, since I joined this thread I've realised that it is possible to make do without it, so let me see! Now it's summery, there will be a better variety of stuff on the fruit stall, so I'm looking forward to that.

I wonder if Lidl weekend offers will tempt me at all? Unlikely, as they are usually for meat and processed foods. If I do buy anything from the supermarket it will be a want and not a need lol. We shall see....

Edwardia

Couldn't sleep last night, finally zonked after 4am feel wasted today although no alcohol was involved

OH in town atm buying UHT skimmed milk for him, Lactofree for me, dog food for the mutt so under £10

Got an email from Tesco saying we've got vouchers so am wondering whether I can do internet shop of offers ??? Depends whether I save enough to pay for the delivery charge !! Otherwise not worth it.

VfM4mepls if you buy UHT tetrapaks of milk from Lidl they are 62p whole milk or 49p for skimmed.