I'm eating out of the freezer and cupboards challenge

Lynsey

Afternoon all.

ms_night_ryder - yes, very quiet which is strange??

NSD for myself yesterday and popped to Lidl this morning to pick up some bacon and toilet rolls for my Brother. I bought the 5kg bag of onions for 99p and naan breads for 49p - total spend so far = £1.48.
Forgot to take the advent calendar coupons. :mad:

Skipped breakfast, but used a Groupon and had coffees and cupcakes.
Hubby is having liver, onions and mash later, I'll just snack and have some cupcakes I brought home (4 per Groupon and too much).

I might pop to Sainsbury's later to put lottery on a have a look, but not that bothered.

Foodbank stuff bought today from Lidl:
2 x Ginger nuts @ 29p = 58p
2 x Rich Tea @ 29p = 58p
2 x Custard creams @ 35p = 70p
Total = £1.86

Managed to get 2 Thornton bars.

Lynsey

Welsh_Poppy

Afternoon everyone,

I have not spent a penny all used out of our stores
Yesterday we had.
Beans, poached eggs on toast for lunch and for dinner as Friday
Fish chips and mushy peas(I had 2 vegetrain Sausages.

Today OH at a day school so a pack up .
Dinner will be mashed carrots and Parsnips, mash potato steak and ale pie and gravy...mine minus the pie.
But OH going to be near a lidl so going to pick up something and get the advent calendar mind you the calander will be for him:-)

You ladies sure dont spend much I hope to be the same when I understand where the coupons come from and how to use them:-)

[Deleted User]

Afternoon all
Yes very quiet ... hmmm....

Doing well this week though bought a couple of "instant" meals for the freezer as ends up cheaper than a takeaway for those "just cant be bothered to cook" nights.

Just breakfast and sandwhiches today then off out for dinner!

Tomorrows plan is using up last of the bread and some eggs (may also make cakes? ) which are almost at the end of thier life (will check they dont float!) Then have an array of stews, chilli's and a couple of instant meals which I am hoping will see us through till xmas interspersed with xmas do's and pasta bakes! :rotfl:

Am aiming for £1200 spends on food next year ... (as you can see already siphoning some of it into this year!) hoping with coupons, yellow stickers and not buying what we dont need Ill manage! Will stay inspired and supported by you lovely lot!

[Deleted User]

Afternoon all
Wondered why thread was so quiet too!

Not much going on this weekend. Had l/o bread for toast with beans. About six slices of it left so should do for breakfasts/snacks for the next two-three days.
Sausages in rolls for lunch, and DM is having a cheese + pickle sandwich later for dinner, and I will attempt to have the cannoloni stuff AGAIN - was going to have it last night but didnt fancy it so had a baked spud instead. Decided it must be the cheese sauce putting me off the pasta so will grate extra cheese with the extra bacon I am planning to cook to go with it.
Stores beginning to go low, will be nice to go bargain hunting tomorrow and fill up.

Lynsey

Evening all.

Popped into Sainsbury's early to put lottery on and nothing really worthwhile reduced - mainly just sandwiches. I bought a box of basic mushrooms for 29p (not great quality), but will do for stir fry, curry and perhaps spag bol.
Days spends total £1.77 and weeks spends only £9.70
Last 3 weeks spends total £46.76, so still £13'ish left to spend to stay on £60 4 week budget - I'm well pleased and that includes spending £19.78 in the Nestle shop.

Spent another £1.08 on 4 boxes of Sainsbury's tea-bags for the foodbank.
I also got a £3 off £20 till-spit (wanted £4 off £20 lol) and that'll go towards hubby's whisky and maybe port for Xmas.

Dilemma time?? Do I spend money for the foodbank on chocs etc from The Nestle Factory Shop, or do I go for "proper" food??

Deleted_User - don't "beat yourself up" with the budget and trying to "pinch" some of next years budget to subsidise this years.
£1200 is not a lot anyway and you'll need to get loads of reduced stuff, Lidl weekend offers and coupon stuff. Please start afresh with that £1200 next year and don't add any more pressure.
Looking at your £400 per 1/3 year breakdown, I would suggest going for £300, £400, £500. The 1st 1/3 should be easy, especially if you grab loads of bargains at Xmas/New Year - good luck.

Took out those Tesco kebabs for hubby tonight, the ones that stink the kitchen!! At least they've created some space and I have approx 3/4 of an empty drawer now - whooohooo.

Lynsey

[Deleted User]

Evening all (again)

Canneloni creation was a success! The extra cheddar took off the fake cheese taste and the bacon was all crispy. Will do that with the other portion I have left too and wont be buying it again in future after this fiasco!

Freezer hunted tonight while dinner was cooking - pulled out the minted lamb steaks for dinner tomorrow night, plus the rest of the chicken goujons for lunch tomorrow and/or Monday. Will see if I can get something off y/s to go with them, or try and get a small bag of cheap oven chips.

Planning on making a pasta bake at some point this week or next with the last small pack of mince from freezer. Also have kidney to use up so will take that out at some point to have with some steak from the outside freezer. Having chinese takeaway with a friend on Tuesday night but thats as far as I've got at the moment lol.

Dilemma time?? Do I spend money for the foodbank on chocs etc from The Nestle Factory Shop, or do I go for "proper" food??

If its for Xmas, I would put some chocolate in, definitely.

blackandwhitebunny

I've been MIA for longer than usual this time but really need to get back into this in a big way. My father died suddenly but not unexpected a month or so ago so I've been having to sort all sorts of bits out, I don't want to go into too much detail but he and his wife had made a complete mess of their finances and I've had to foot most of the expense. Then in classic it never rains etc OH car decided to give up the ghost. Its a freelander and the head gasket's gone for the third time so basically dead but not before we'd paid £450 for a new catalitic converter and £200 for halfo*ds not to fix the problem:mad: which turned out to be the head gasket. I'm going to be writing to them asking if we can have the £50 they charged for doing the diagnostic back as obviously they were wrong. :mad:
All this means we're broke, have had to buy a new car (OH has gone to the other extreme with a mini cooper) and we have balances on two holidays to pay, obviously booked before all this happened.
I have managed to do better this last month, we used a voucher to do a big online cat food shop and that's made it easier to keep on top of things. I've got our fruit and veg expenditure down to £12 a week max, it was often £17 - £20 and have bought very little for the last few weeks except loo roll and whoopsies.:D

pamsdish

Really happy with my spends this month, waiting to see Aldi super 6 ,then will meal plan for week.

lemmings1986

morning all hope everyone is well
well just done a meal plan for week all from stuff in cupboards and freezer

today- chicken dinner,mash,roasties,stuffing,carrots,swede,yorkie puds
monday-chicken tikka curry,rice and garlic and corriander naan bread.
tuesday-meat pie,mash peas and carrots
wednesday-pork chops,new potatoes,colslaw
thursday-sausage pasta bake (will need to buy some mushrooms)
friday-fish fingers chips and peas

pack lunches will be hm mini pizza,sandwiches,bagel or the mini cheese and onion pastys ive just made

so if all goes to plan i should only need to buy mushrooms and any ys reductions :cool:
i am on a mixture of nights and earlys this week so should be able to get some good reductions.
ive got 8 working days left then on holiday for 3 weeks and then start my maternity in the new year :j:D so am planning on using all stuff in freezer and cupboards and making lots of meals from scratch.
sorry for long post hope everyone has a good weekend (whats left of it):)

[Deleted User]

blackandwhitebunny - so sorry for your loss and expenses, sounds horrible.
Back when my dad passed we had problems with money too, and then our washing line went and broke - thankfully the company gave us a new one for free as we had it less than a month, and also I got a flat tyre a few weeks later! Not quite on the same par but bad things always happen in threes I find.
In any case I hope you get back on the straight and narrow soon. You'll be needing those holidays I bet!

--

Big T's shop today as promised, quite a few bargains, used up nearly all the coupons I wanted to as well.
Got a £167. 59 shop down to £142.05 - saving us just over £25! :j

Reduced/couponed stuff this time around:

Cushelle £2.18 -> with coupon down to £1.68
Velvet loo roll £1.75 -> with coupon down to £1.25
Select a Size Thirst Pockets £2.00 -> with coupon down to £1.50
Velvet Balm Tissues £1.50 -> with coupon down to £1.00
Nivea Lotion 250g £3.49 -> with coupon down to £2.49
Welchs Grape Juice £1.29-> with coupon FREE
Matchmakers £1.00 -> with coupon FREE
Tropicana Grape Juice £2.28 -> with coupon down to £1.78
Roseanna Pink Onions £1.30 -> with coupon down to 90p
Old El Paso Sour Cream Dip £1.99 -> with coupon down to £1.69
Old El Paso Jalepenos £1.39 -> with coupon down to £1.09
Roudele Garlic and Herb spread £1.69 with coupon down to £1.29
Choc a Block Ice Cream £3.99 -> with coupon down to £3.49

Beef chili enchiladas x 2 £2.50 reduced to £1.32 each
Veg & cheese enchiladas £2.20 reduced to £1.13
Strawberries £2.10 reduced to £1.45
Diced Turkey £4.00 reduced to £2.70
Ready meal pasta pot £1.50 reduced to 90p
Crumbed Ham £3.30 reduced to 85p :eek:
Iced Buns 6 pack 70p reduced to 45p
Value white rolls 12pk 35p reduced to 25p
Brussel Sprouts £2.00 reduced to 99p
Broccoli/carrot mixed veg £1.25 reduced to 75p
Large square pepperoni pizza £4.00 reduced to £2.40

Used £10 worth of saving stamps to bring the cost down more, and Welchs coupon scanned at £2.59 so got extra £1.30 off the shop.

We also took advantage of the 3 for 2 on the Mexican stuff, just picked up a cheap pack of fajita spice mix in case fajitas are ever wanted. Two of the 3 for 2's on cheese (three blocks of cheese, pack of dairylea, the tub of Rondele, and the grab pack of cathedral city they've been advertising on TV recently)

Have separated all the enchiladas and cut the pizza into eight pieces, - thats 14 meals! :T Managed to get the value oven chips in Mr T's, so that will bulk the meals up with pizza, and will have salad with the enchiladas.
The diced turkey is in the freezer with the stirfry veg, nice as a backup type meal when I'm home long enough to cook it! :rotfl:

DM is more than chuffed with her grape juice(s), ice cream, and her body lotion, was going to try and get After Eights for her using the other Nestle coupon but there werent any on the shelf!!! Will try in Morries tomorrow.