December 2011 - Grocery Challenge

tracey12_2

mum26 wrote: »

Diesel is the issue for us, I have a 10 miles round trip school run twice a day plus at this time of year there are extra trips out there for discos and plays etc, I have a quarter of a tank left so it's not looking like it'll last, will have to find some money from somewhere for some more fumes

I know the feeling. My eldest dd is in school and my youngest dd is in nursery so just feel like I am driving around most of the day picking them up at different times. I have to drop dd at school for 8.45am, drop off dd at nursery for 9.00, then pick up dd from nursery at 11.30am and then go home and back to school for 3.00pm. It will be worse on Monday at eldest dd leaves school at 3.00pm and has to be back for 5.40pm as she has her nativity.

It will be a lot easier when youngest dd starts school in September. I am spending a fortune on diesel at the moment and I find that if I don't go straight home I end up spending loads at various supermarkets

A NSD for me today, we have been busy doing homework this morning. My youngest dd had a make a hat for her christmas party on Wed.

Tracey

sproggi

Updates from me for the last few days,
Thursday finished my Christmas shopping all barring a couple of stocking fillers and fresh foods (veg, cream etc). Took mum to get a few veg from a house on a village near us, they have a shed that they sell bits from, got myself a huge cauli, some sprouts,carrots, some gorgeous pears and some black kale! All for £3.30.
Friday our local MrT finally had some descent reductions, a lot of sliced meats, most in my freezer to be turned into main meals, a few given to DS1 to put in his (now overflowing) freezer to give him a bit of variety in his packed lunches, also got him a bag of apples for a whole 10p!
Total spent £81.58 including pork and beef joints for Christmas.
Today will be a NSD.

Random thought, would black kale, that looks purple, be classed as greens? :think:

Sproggi

mandco

well my plan of keeping it under £20 failed drastically lol total spends of £40 to declare though that does include a piece of gammon and a few christmas munchies that I dont need to get next wk now and a few bits for school xmas parties that I forgot about so not quite as bad as it seems hopefully.

apart from bread should be able to manage till my planned big shop near the end of next wk just need to stay out of the shops and stick to the meal plan.though the b1g2f j2o offer in mr m starting monday is tempting will be getting some anyway but it means making a special trip as theres not one local and then theres the temptation to buy extras while i'm there :think: decisions decisons

overall not doing too badly so far this month though still have the big shop to do though hopefully that should pretty much see us through till the end of the month apart from f&v/bread/milk top ups.

hope everyones ok and not been too affected by this lousy weather.

ms_night_ryder

I need my hands smacked!

Went and spent £28 today! not all from budget, was in mr t's managed to spend £15 on 7 bottles of reggae rreggae sauce and relises, 3 of these bottles are to go with the levi roots cookbook as part of a pressie, a huge 2.5 kg bag of hme fries cost 1.20 after use of free bag coupon, a jar of honey, lemons, jus roll puff pastry on bogof, curry powder, carribean all spice and some half price blok icecream.

Then spent £5 in 99p store, a mixing bowl, a money tin to start my sealed pot challenge, 7 pack of golden wonder, moam pack and some choccies.

Then i went to my neighbors butchers, neither him or his wife were there, so didnt get a discount, spent £8 on 10 sausages, but they are all meat, dont give out any fat in my george forman and are way bigger than sm ones and great quality and tasty, so i didnt mind, next month will only go in if i see them for a discount, not including £8 of what i spent so £20 to declare.

So i am £15 over and just hope i dont buy anything else, had to rearrange things in the freezer and defrost more stuff to eat, i am eating at my grandmas tomorrow and have a curry and pasta bake cooking as i type, so won't need any food for the next 3 days at the least!

recovering_spendaholic

meg72 - hope your knees feel better soon
prepareathome - you are lucky having a farmers market near - we have one but there aren't many non-veg stalls there so it isn't worth me going.

£25 spent in Aldi. DD2 was at a sleepover last night and this morning I got a call to say she had been sick so she has obviously got the bug I had yesterday. I had to pick her up and the kid lives right by Aldi so I nipped in to get some stuff. Got enough for a few meals plus bin bags, antibac cleaner, washing up liquid, washing liquid and foil.

I got some Ashfield farm sausages which were only about 69p for 600g so I hope they aren't horrible - my stomach is not better enough to be eating yet so I will have to wait a few days to try them.

Made a loaf in the breadmaker (my new favourite thing) and now have a raisin loaf in there. I need to get bread flour so that hopefully will be my only spend tomorrow.

Still haven't bought any Christmas cards or got the decorations up!!!

LittleMai

I haven't posted for a few days so here is a catch up:

Thursday - 49p on reduced egg custard tarts, £5 on some Swedish candy. Ikea have stopped selling Swedish candy (apart from Ikea brand candy), so as a colleague's sister was coming over from Sweden I asked if she could bring some of my favourite candy over (Kex and Bilar, if you are wondering!!). Then in the evening was the Institute of Structural Engineers Christmas Dinner, so that was £18.65, I didnt have to go, but I wanted to go and meet some people (networking!).

Friday - NSD :j

Today (Saturday) - £7.40, on mainly treats, and a bit of veg for dinner. I know I should stop buying treats, but its so depressing in december, I need something to cheer me up. Its the short days that I hate, its already pitch black!!. Also £10 on dog food, but that will be a christmas present for the RSPCA where I used to volunteer.

So far this month I have spent £52.02, which is more than half of my £100 budget, and we're not even half way through the month.

I fear this month will be a case of too much month at the end of the money, rather than too much money at the end of the month. :eek::eek:

meg72

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

meg72 - hope your knees feel better soon
prepareathome - you are lucky having a farmers market near - we have one but there aren't many non-veg stalls there so it isn't worth me going.

£25 spent in Aldi. DD2 was at a sleepover last night and this morning I got a call to say she had been sick so she has obviously got the bug I had yesterday. I had to pick her up and the kid lives right by Aldi so I nipped in to get some stuff. Got enough for a few meals plus bin bags, antibac cleaner, washing up liquid, washing liquid and foil.

I got some Ashfield farm sausages which were only about 69p for 600g so I hope they aren't horrible - my stomach is not better enough to be eating yet so I will have to wait a few days to try them.

Made a loaf in the breadmaker (my new favourite thing) and now have a raisin loaf in there. I need to get bread flour so that hopefully will be my only spend tomorrow.

Still haven't bought any Christmas cards or got the decorations up!!!

Thanks Recovering, knees are a bit better, hope your tummy bug is too.

I havent written a card or got any decorations up either.They are in the loft and cant face any ladder yet. Hoping my daughter will have time to do it tommorow or Monday.
Glad you are enjoying your BM ,I would be lost without mine.

PolkaDotsAndLace

Around £30 spent in Asda today - budget isn't looking great! If I can manage to keep it to £5ish next weekend then I should make it in under, and I will need to empty the freezer a bit so we can get stuff in for Hogmanay. Only problem is I can't really avoid going to Asda next weekend, since I bought scales today that are absolutely rubbish (they must be faulty - I can't even set them and they're so flimsy, my fault for buying Smartprice I suppose) so will have to go in to return them, hopefully I won't end up spending money!

quintwins

expensive day here, gifts for the birthday party the twins were going to, then hubby brought our other wee boy to town for buns as he felt left out i told him to buy his a toy in poundland aswell, so he spent £8, then his parents bought us tea and hubby bought milkshakes as a thank you it cost £10 for all of us, so £18 food spends to add

tigerfeet2006

Today we have started to clear the lounge of all the crap and detritus that has accumulated in there since I have been ill, which is a lot. It is about a third done. I have managed to get to the lounge window now and taken the voile and put it in the wash, cleaned the window, woodwork etc. The window is a floor to ceiling one with a low cill. I've put fluffy snow on the cill and then popped pine cones in amongst it, which we spent some time this morning decorating with glitter glue. The kids had such fun with it. They've also written their school Christmas cards, though I suspect they've forgotten people and will being more tomorrow. I have made a start with sewing Christmas trees today. Have done two and just need to pick up stuffing tomorrow. Will try and do sme more tomorrow and hopefully get them in the window. DC1 and I are going to make snowflakes tomorrow which will go in the top of the window. I also moved the plant pots out side from the front of the window and swept the front. Our house fronts straight onto the pavement with a two foot piece where I can put pots etc.

I put the SC on this morning so I didn't have to worry about doing any cooking today. I browner off the 4 sausages I had left from yesterday and sliced them thinly, then bunged them in the slow cooker. Chopped up a couple of onions and fried them off with a couple of cloves of garlic and bunged it in the SC. Then I added a tin of drained chick peas, left over pumpkin that needed using, tin tomatoes, 2 tblsp tomato pur!e, 1tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp ground coriander, 2 tsp leaf coriander, 2 tsp cumin, salt and pepper and 3 or so blocks of frozen spinach. Served it with rice. Clean plates all round

Tomorrow we have church in the morning, home for lunch, will do some more sewing and cleaning then the cubs and beavers have Christingle to do at 4 pm. Back for dinner from the SC which will probably be Chicken Cacciatore. Not sure what we are doing for the evening as yet probably sleep