October 2011 Grocery Challenge

lou33

so far in october i have spent £4.22/ £100 so £95.78 left this week this was for cooking lesson in school why do thay always need silly stuff you do not have in and will never use again
(sorry cant post numbers in red as i dont know how if i cant work it out will have to ask one of the kids and get laughed at for the rest of month unless someone on else can let me know)

rej-c

Yes, some of us live in hope of B&M coming anywhere near us

Rising from the ashes, and others looking into dairy milk alternatives - FWIW, carton soya milk [both chilled and non-chilled types] has come a long way in the past 10 years or so that I've been using it, so if you haven't tried it for a while it's worth having a go - if you're not going to make your own oat/almond milk, of course .

I'd start with one of the supermarket own-brand unsweetened value/basics-type ones, which I find perfectly fine for cooking and cereals [NB I don't have milky hot drinks, so can't vouch for their use there]. In proper :money: style, work your way up the brands from there if you need to. I enjoy rice milk, too, but more for cereals than cooking - it's generally a little thinner than soya milk and has a more noticeable flavour. There's usually an offer on somewhere - rice milk has recently been reduced at Mr S, for example - so shop around.

Whatever type you go for, BEWARE THE SWEETENED AND FLAVOURED STYLES. Nothing like getting a carton of soya milk in for cooking something savoury, then realising you've accidentally picked up, say, one with vanilla flavour [the Yorkshire puddings ended up not happening the day I did that, although I was tempted to see how weird they would be vanilla'd :rotfl:]. Unsweetened basic stuff is far more versatile and therefore MS :T

Right, my update: no more NSDs yet, unfortunately, and a little more spent than I would've hoped. £22.18 added, but that does include an organic fruit and veg box - bought as a one-off experiment to see about quality, how long I can stretch the contents etc. I can probably do better [what I really need to do is find a market], but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it's nice to see our fridge shelf packed with healthy stuff for a change. Just need to make sure that we waste absolutely none of it. So, salads and stir fries will eventually give way to soup, no doubt

Have a good day, everyone. I'm stuck with snuffly lurgy too [in fact I'm basically panda-eyed and Rudolph-nosed], so I wish us all better soon.

meg72

sproggi wrote: »

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

Marvelous, what a lovely Mum you are.I am sure your Children will
remember this experience for ever.

For anyone looking for cheapsweets I amtold that Morrisons have
five packs of Chewits for 56p.

rising_from_the_ashes

adelight wrote: »

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.

Adelight - this sounds great - easy and cheap..... what do you use as a thickener?

rej-c wrote: »

FWIW, carton soya milk [both chilled and non-chilled types] has come a long way in the past 10 years or so that I've been using it, so if you haven't tried it for a while it's worth having a go - if you're not going to make your own oat/almond milk, of course .

I'd start with one of the supermarket own-brand unsweetened value/basics-type ones, which I find perfectly fine for cooking and cereals [NB I don't have milky hot drinks, so can't vouch for their use there]. In proper :money: style, work your way up the brands from there if you need to. I enjoy rice milk, too, but more for cereals than cooking - it's generally a little thinner than soya milk and has a more noticeable flavour. There's usually an offer on somewhere - rice milk has recently been reduced at Mr S, for example - so shop around.

Thanks all - Just on Mr Ts website having a look. So far, I've found the following to try (all 1 litre):

Long-life

T value unsweetened soya = 59p
T calcium enriched soya = 63p
T unsweetened organic soya = 98p
Sunrise organic cafe expert soya = 99p
Alpro unsweetened calcium enriched soya = £1.09 / 3 for £3
Oatly enriched oat drink = £1.10

See there are also cream substitutes so may have to add a couple of them too:D

Fresh

Alpro light unsweetened soya 90p
Alpro soya 90p
T unsweetened soya 99p

There are a few rice ones but these are more expensive than the Lacto*free I currently use @ £1.38/litre so will wait until these are on offer!

A huge bag of porridge will also be going into the trolley so I can try to make my own but thought I'd get some "ready made" to try to see what I'm aiming for!

Will probably hang off until the start of next week (only went to Mr A on Monday) in case there's any other bits I need by then.

hjanea

So much for planning to come on here everyday!! However I've not spent much so far this month and only a bit of it has been on unnecessary things for DD. I have just over £10 left in my purse and had hoped for an NSD today but one of my smoke alarms went off at 4.30 this morning(battery warning) so needs a new battery, however I don't know whether it was the upstairs or downstairs one so I think I'd better get 2 and change them both-so that'll be nice and pricey.
Managed to make too much bolognese sauce on sunday so we had spag bol again yesterday, so shepherds pie today and that might last 2 days as well. I've got some cauliflower that needs using so I may make myself some cauliflower cheese (dd probably wont like it!) to have to eak out the shepherds pie. 4 meals for the 2 of us from £1.20's worth of mince is pretty good I think, though of course it had added things, probably only £4.00(for the veg, tinned toms, spaghetti and potatoes and cheese) in total, so not that bad. Might have to have it every week!!

quintwins

nsd today i was very bad and had takeaway last night it was a rubbish day and i really regret it now as it's £9.50 wasted that i really could have used

rosieben

lou33 wrote: »

..(sorry cant post numbers in red as i dont know how if i cant work it out will have to ask one of the kids and get laughed at for the rest of month unless someone on else can let me know)

look down at the quick reply box at the bottom of the page - the text colour button is the capital A with the black line underneath; you'll need to select the text first if its already written

jadaroo

Right i've done my first shop in October last night and managed to grab myself - chips, 3 bags of crisps, 6 Smartie Ice creams, bottle of coke, pepperoni, 12 fish fingers, mozzarella and a treat for myself of some Nivea firming cream for £9.47 after a few vouchers so this was my little treat shop. Although today im off to As*a to stock up on meals. I just wish I had a Morr**ons close by

[Deleted User]

Ist day of spending any cash this month and spent 17.50 on essentials only leaving £82.50 for the rest of the month only another 26 days to go :)

ebayqueen_2

meg72 wrote: »

Was very down today,feeling really rotten, think I have the lurgy.and you know how when you dont feel well everything else piles on top of you and seems 10 times worse.

Worried about my Mum,as things are not looking too good at the moment and worried about finding money to keep travellling to see her.

Well the post arrived and in it a large brown official looking envelope, I couldnt be bothered to open it thinking it was probably bad news anyway.

Slept all afternoon so feeling a bit better and braver I opened it and am now quite stunned it seems
I am offered several thousand pounds lump sum pension or more weekly pension.

If I take the lump sum my money worries are over,

I have now put my £50 grocery back in my food purse and will treat myself to a bargain /whoopsie hunt tommorow.

Nice things do happen sometimes,dont they? :j:j:j:j:j

Hi Meg:)

Good things do happen .......... and to nice people too:A

So delighted for you and now the pressure is off you try and not get too down about things. Not easy ... tell me about it.

Take care and keep going