August 2011 Grocery Challenge

WelshWoofer

Just popped into the greengrocers for a quick look and managed to part with a nice round £3 - this was on 4 big baking potatoes for £1, a punnet of strawberries and 3 bananas.
I'm going to count it into Saturday's shopping budget as the bits will be used throughout next week.
I have written a list for shopping on the weekend and will try hard to stick to it! I must say that it hasn't gone badly so far and I'm now trying to stick to £30 a week for me and the dog and, as you can see from my signature I'm managing so far - I will need to restock the freezer soon but for now its got enough to keep me going.

Islandmaid

Just blew all my tesco clubcard points on a years subscription to bbc good food mag £14 instead of £40+ the theory is that it will save me money in the long term with some great ideas - slight reservations as I maybe could have made more of them towards Xmas - hey-ho done now......

rosieben

debbiedeejay wrote: »

... Does night out food come out of GC or do you have seperate money for these?

Its up to you how you organise the challenge debbie, I include take outs but not nights out - not that I have many these days! some people have an entertaining budget and they include parties and meals out in that.

Welcome to the GC bella I freeze mash in portion sizes and a lot of Os'ers freeze baked potatoes and roast potatoes so you'd be fine doing either way

LumpyMoo

Hello :wave::wave:

I've finally been brave enough to come out and play!! I've been doing the GC unofficially this week for the first time in a very very long time, and am really pleased with how it's gone.

Did my final shop of the week today and got a couple of good bargains so very happy bunny

Just in case anyone's interested my local Aldi have in a couple of really good looking cake storage boxes - the type with a big lid that clips onto a solid plastic base. They had 'gateau' size and one that would be good for loaf cakes. Anyhoo they were £4.99 each, which I thought was a pretty good price. HTH someone.

Wet and miserable here so off to make Mac n cheese for tea:drool:

Nice to 'meet' you all!!

Lumpy x

flower91today

have added up my receipts for this month so far have spent 51.06.

greent

bella2121 wrote: »

Just a quick question I got some baking potato's on sunday from aldi 45p for 4 they are looking like they will turn any day now but i'm not gonna get chance to user them and dont want them to be wasted, can I cook them then freeze them? any thoughts????

You can put them in the salad drawer in the fridge for a few days to extend their life. Or you can cook them as jacket potatoes and freeze them, cook them as roast pots and freeze or mash them and freeze - in which case so as not to waste anything you can also freeze the cooked skins with a little potato in to do as filled potato skins when defrosted and heated up (with chilli, cheese and bacon, sour cream and chives, chicken & salsa... anything, really)


Smallish spend to add on for last night - I went out for a meal (prepaid and booked ages ago) - so DH went to the chip shop.... £5.65 there & £5.01 from Aldi for goodies... grr!

Off to update signature to reflect this....

rising_from_the_ashes

LumpyMoo wrote: »

Just in case anyone's interested my local Aldi have in a couple of really good looking cake storage boxes - the type with a big lid that clips onto a solid plastic base. They had 'gateau' size and one that would be good for loaf cakes. Anyhoo they were £4.99 each, which I thought was a pretty good price. HTH someone. :)Lumpy x

Hi Lumpy and welcome:D

Thanks for the tip about the cake boxes, DM lent me mine with my birthday cake in and my "darling" dog managed to get it off the worktop, chew through it (and get the cake inside). The main bit wasn't too;) bad but the lid was totally wreaked.

She wasn't very happy (understatement!) as she'd had it for years and apparently they're very hard to find. (It gets mentioned every so often).

Didn't think it would be that hard but still looking:( as all the ones I've seen are either too small (she makes a 9" Christmas cake) or too expensive (nearly £40:eek:).

Will pop to A*di tomorrow for a look!:D Fingers crossed.

LumpyMoo

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Hi Lumpy and welcome:D

Thanks for the tip about the cake boxes,
Didn't think it would be that hard but still looking:( as all the ones I've seen are either too small (she makes a 9" Christmas cake) or too expensive (nearly £40:eek:).

Will pop to A*di tomorrow for a look!:D Fingers crossed.

Hi!! And Thank you!!

Fingers Crossed!! The round one would have fitted a 9" cake easy peasy!

Lumpy x

WonderfulLife

I laughed out loud when I read about your spend on Guinea Pigs and here was I thinking it was pretty terrible of me to spend so much on buying chewing gum and pop. Any good guinea pig recipes? I hadn't ever thought of them as cheap protein :rotfl: Though they obviously aren't cheap since you spend over 5% of your total spend on them.

losingpatience wrote: »

Total actual spends so far have been £102.69 and I've broken it down as to where my money goes:

Alcohol 17.72%
Other Drinks ( soft drinks, pop, milk ) 8.04%
Food 47.41%
Guinea Pigs 5.34%
Snacks 6.17%
Baking ( flour, yeast, sugar etc ) 0.39%
Toiletries ( stocked up on a couple of things )13.53%
Cooking ( oils, herbs etc ) 1.4%

Love to All

hex2

Up to £171 of my £300 once the milk and F&V box come tomorrow. Mr S gave me a short dated £6 off a £60, then with my clubcard mr T today sent me £13 off a £90 and two £9 off £90's over the next six weekd or so, and I have a £5 off a £30 for Mr L for this week. I keep telling myself they are just sucking me in but I am very tempted.

The steak mince is half price this weekend at Lidl after all.......