October 2011 Grocery Challenge

Ches

We stretched the milk to last until tomorrow so a NSD for me today. I must admit to being temped to buy something sweet when I passed Mr T's to go to the library this afternoon but the thought of having to come on here and admitting a spend stopped me. I made a loaf today and we had chicken in BBQ sauce with rice for tea tonight all from stock. Tomorrow I am planning bacon sandwiches for breakfast and HM scotch eggs and salad for tea. I have everything in to make these so even though I will have to get milk it should be a low spend day. So far so good.

sproggi

A NSD for me, despite taking DS1 shopping:)

Sproggi

oldtractor

I'm going to try and spend no more than £210 in October.

angelatgraceland

Rainy-Days wrote: »

I would really love to join this thread - and it will be my first one ever!

Problem is we are going to have a big stock up from the butchers next week and that spend usually comes in at around £180.00 or so but that carries us for around four months. So I am guessing that you are saying I am going to have to add that in, in which case:-

Including butchers visit = £380.00 for the month

Without butchers costs = £200.00 for the month!

Can someone give me an idea how to go about this with the above! Thanks oodles

You say the meat lasts about 4 months but to be safe you may want to say it lasts 3 months and so count £60 each month for meat in your budget. Tis would be playing on the safe side and not restricting you too much each month. It is entirely up to you how you manage it-just keep a note of it. Thats the way I would play it!

Had a TSD day today(ok I just made that up)A tiny spend day(under a fiver).
Went to Iceland for 2 bottles milk, 2 loaves bread, value ham trimmings,pepperoni,nectarines. It came to £7.95 but I had a gift voucher for £5 so only £2.95 counts. Could have kept the voucher for Xmas but sure to lose it so safer to spend it wisely on groceries!
DS enjoyed a cooked breakfast today-not a normal thing at all in our house. He just had eggs bacon and fried toms as we had no bread this morning. Well he thought it was fantastic and hes not a big meat eater-bacon was a bit "different" for him so well appreciated.
Still using up "bits"-HM soup and some spag bol for me-couldnt be bothered with the pasta. Everyone has just "grazed" today except eldest dd who buys and cooks her own.

mrs_mum_3

Car-ree wrote: »

Hi, Can I join in this month,

Oh yes I forgot about sweets for Halloween!:eek:

Me too
Saw a tub of mini Haribo packets in Mr T for £5 last week - keep meaning to drop by and pick one up for Hallowe'en
Need to distract the kids from Trick and treating - I hate it
Any suggestions?

Mrs M

sproggi

mrs_mum wrote: »

Me too
Saw a tub of mini Haribo packets in Mr T for £5 last week - keep meaning to drop by and pick one up for Hallowe'en
Need to distract the kids from Trick and treating - I hate it
Any suggestions?

Mrs M

One year, I made a sensory halloween story up for my children instead of trick or treating.
I just filled some bowls up with things like peeled grapes (eyeballs), hot dog sausages (fingers), jelly (brains), dry leaves and small twigs (walking through woods) etc. then blindfolded my children and told them a story, at certain points, I placed a bowl in front of them and they had to place their hands in and feel the contents. They loved it, in between the screams at feeling eyeballs and shouts of "gross" at severed fingers:rotfl:

I had also printed off some pictures for them to colour, (pumpkins etc) and we strung them together to decorate the room.
Then there was bobbing for slices of banana and grapes, wordsearches and spooky musical statues. All activities were rewarded with prizes of halloween treats.

It only cost me £1 as I made use of things that I had in the house, only buying a bag of halloween treats from poundland and my children had so much fun that they did not miss trick or treating:)

HTH to maybe give you some ideas.

Sproggi

trulymadlyhannah

adelight wrote: »

coconut milk is also delicous, not the fatty canned kind mind but the stuff you can get at waitrose/health shops. almond milk is quite difficult to make(almonds are 400g for £2 in the ethnic section of tesco online btw which is dirt cheap) but oat milk is really easy and cheap. just blend porridge and hot water 1:4 ratio and add a little sugar and thickener. if it seems bitty, run it through muslin to remove the lumps or store it in a jug with a piece of muslin taped over the poury outy bit. you can experiment with enriching it if you want. thinking about this is making me consider trying to cancel my AF order now. what's wrong with me??

Silly question, but can you only use oat milk in cooking or would it be okay for cereals and drinks and such(maybe not drinks?)? Theres nothing wrong with you, after reading your post i am considering making some to see if i can reduce my £18 spend on milk a month (not that i will be able to make a big dent as my two little ones need the whole milk for their calcium)

Had a really good few days really proud of myself! Popped into Sainsbugs on monday for their value curry sauce, ive not bought any for a while but its gone from 9p to 19p:mad:! thats more than double the price. I did feel a bit of a stinge buying only 1 item at 19p and so opted for the self checkout, but had to call an assistant over anyway to show me where to put the coins:o

Also had to pop to A!di for milk, and only purchased milk...:T£2

I returned a unwanted gift to B&M also (repeat present) and exchanged for 1 x packet of soup, 3 jars of princes sandwich paste and 4 x advent calendars. The advent calendars were 89p each and i feel very organised! :T and after all that they still had 14p to give back to me

So im adding £2.04 to my total

Miss_Purple_Hat

Had a couple of NSDs (in terms of groceries, anyway!) but then I got caught out today after something unexpected came up and I couldn't go home for late lunch as planned after the last lecture of the day. So spent £3.80 on one lunch. I had snacks with me, but I wasn't going to get home until 7pm, and then I had to cook...

Threw together a korma, but instead of just meat, onions and a pepper in it, I loaded it with other veg too (though just this minute realised I forgot the peas I bought! Lol.) And I realised when I was frying the meat, onion and pepper, it was like I was cooking fajitas... So I kept back half of it which I'm going to freeze and now have that for fajitas in future, yum! So I used a lot less meat and got more korma - 3 generous portions. Gotta love vegetables!

Since I bought a huge bag of market value carrots for 70-something pence the other day, I also blanched and froze quite a few of those to make sure they last.

I was very busy in the kitchen and until quite late - the things I seem to be doing to save a bit of money on my grocery challenge! Guess I'm getting into the swing of things, lol. :rotfl:

mrs_mum_3

Keep seeing references to B and M - what is it?

sproggi

B&M bargins. I often see them mentioned, but never been to one as there are none in my county.

B&M

Sproggi