December 2011 - Grocery Challenge

meg72

Found £5 iceland saving stamps whilst rooting through a kitchen drawer this morning and need loo roll and eggs from there so will use them today. Hoping to resist buying anything else in there but we will see.

PolkaDotsAndLace

Totted up the receipts yesterday and have about £7 for food for the rest of the month, and a £1.89 Asda voucher. So £9 all told. Will just see how it goes, only one last shop planned for the 29th which will just be veg, bread and milk mainly.

Morganarla

Got my monthly budget all set for January.. December went to hell in a handcart! When's the new thread going to be up? I'd like to join..

elantan

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

Welcome Elantan. There is a great bunch of people on here who will support you in your endeavour. As suggested start slowly or you will fail and get discouraged.

Start by doing a stock take of what is in your cupboards, fridge and freezer and then meal plan for a week or two. See what meals you cam make with what you have and then make a list of what you need to complete those meals. I plan to use my slow cooker around three times a week, have at least two meals without meat and to have at least one simple meal a week like omelette and chips. When you can try to make a bit extra and freeze it for those 'end of month, have no money' days or those 'I really cannot be bothered' days. I usually have a list of seven main meals that I then choose from to suit the day, others do a day by day list.

Do you eat breAkfast? If not do you find yourself snacking during the morning? Try and make sure you have some breakfast. Porridge is a good cheap option or SM branded cereals. Also do you take packed lunches into work or do you buy lunch at work? Pack lunches are the way to go.

Check out the recipes at the beginning of the Grocery Challenge thread as well.

thanks very much for the warm welcome, i'm afraid i think i am going to need alot of support i just noticed some people are adding take aways etc to their challenge ... that takes me way way way over the large budget i have already :mad:

i will do a stock take today it makes sense to start here ... but i really am not very good at meal planning .. i have tried several times, and failed each time, i do use a slow cooker but have found the meals to be rather tasteless tbh ... i think i must be doing something wrong as i hear alot of others say how tasty etc the food is

thankfully i do eat breakfast, usually porridge and toast funnily enough

edited to add: i work night shift so dont take sandwiches with me ... hubby does, he takes a can of cola packet of crisps sandwiches and fruit every day ... all bought out of the budget

please bare with me as i slowly learn to do whats right ... i may be some time

rosieben

elantan, baby steps!

Have a look here for some basic meal planning tips.; or maybe start with a basic list like this - you may find other useful ideas on that thread too. Keep it as simple as you like

Its up to you what you add to your grocery budget, I don't include takeaways as I don't have them often, but I do keep a note of how much I spend on them as I like to see where my money has gone.

Set up your grocery budget how it works for you, there is no right or wrong way

quintwins

elantan wrote: »

thanks very much for the warm welcome, i'm afraid i think i am going to need alot of support i just noticed some people are adding take aways etc to their challenge ... that takes me way way way over the large budget i have already :mad:

i will do a stock take today it makes sense to start here ... but i really am not very good at meal planning .. i have tried several times, and failed each time, i do use a slow cooker but have found the meals to be rather tasteless tbh ... i think i must be doing something wrong as i hear alot of others say how tasty etc the food is

thankfully i do eat breakfast, usually porridge and toast funnily enough

edited to add: i work night shift so dont take sandwiches with me ... hubby does, he takes a can of cola packet of crisps sandwiches and fruit every day ... all bought out of the budget

please bare with me as i slowly learn to do whats right ... i may be some time

when i didn't include takeaways my groceries budget was fine but my takeaway one went mental so i need to include it toe reign myself in, if you have an entertainment/days out budget it could come from that you don't have to include it here

i love my slowcooker but i did find when i first started using it everything tasted the same, until i socked it with fabric conditioner (found this tip online) i had cooked something in it and the taste had stayed in teh bowl, even now i give it a good clean before i use it even if it's already clean, mine has a hairline crack so needs to go in the bin

crisps can be quite expensive we buy value ones or in buying branded refuse to pay over 10p a bag, could you swap hubbys coke for squash? and maybe bake a few buns to add to his lunch, i have kids so fairy cakes are common here using value eggs and value marge we get about 10 for 30p and it entertains the kids

shop around for your fruit i try to only pay 10p-15p per portion of fruit at the mo i have apples at 11p and clemintimes at 10p each, bananas average out at 10p each in supermarkets, we only use frozen veg or reduced unless it's a fab offer


if you struggle with meal plans do cards with 30 meals on them and buy the stuff to make them and freeze it all then you can pick and choose from the cards the night before so it's not too strict, there is very few thinsg you can't freeze

buying a ham/gammon cooking and slicing on a slicer can be alot cheaper than shop bought if you have a slicer, or homemade sandwich fillers can be cheap, i love egg mayo or egg, cheese and mayo

like rosieben said baby steps if you try do everything at once your more likely to give up but these are all things to think about

adysmum

Well been to aldi this morning and managed to get everything in for xmas except the custard for dessert. Had enough cash left over so didn't dip into my budget at all :j Just need to pick up milk, bread, custard before the weekend so that will come out on thursdays budget. Really happy with myself so far, £98 saved over 3 weeks. Thank you everyone for giving me the motivation!

Hopefully not need to get anything bar fresh bits til the new year so will save a bit from next weeks budget too. Planning on a freezer and leftovers week!

[Deleted User]

Hi All
Just bought my first ever topside of beef joint. It's quite a small one - hoping it will do me an OH over two nights though.

Does anyone know if you can do these is a slow cooker? If so, what do you do? Or, what is the best way to cook it for nice tender melt in the mouth results?
All advice gratefully recieved.

Allie x

kippers

elantan wrote: »

edited to add: i work night shift so dont take sandwiches with me ... hubby does, he takes a can of cola packet of crisps sandwiches and fruit every day ... all bought out of the budget

please bare with me as i slowly learn to do whats right ... i may be some time

My dh loves his coke and won't have anything but diet pepsi or diet coke (won't drink the own brands), but we did try tesco's own but he hated it. My dh hardly goes out and hardly ever drinks alchol and doesn't smoke so i decided if his only vice is coke then i'll deal with it...so i now wait for offers on the bottles and stock up, he only drinks one or two glasses a day anyway.

As far as takeaways in the budget...not everone includes them...we don't (though we hardly ever have one due to money and a lactose intolerent dd lol)...you decide what you budget is and what you want to include in the budget.

It does take a while to get in the swing of the GC, remember Rome wasn't built in a day...but don't give up if you don't manage it a t first and above all be realistic or you will fail everytime.

Good luck.

Long_tall_sally

Just added on spends from last couple of days. I hadn't actually set a target for this month due to how fed up with the whole thing l felt last month but already £10 over the normal target. However I don't feel too bad about this as obviously there is more food to be bought at this time of year. I haven't actually bought the turkey or of course the fresh veg yet but apart from them & more crackers for cheese, I don't actually need anything else. OH's payday should be Monday so will probably be this Friday or maybe even earlier so not many days left in this month's target now. I already have 1 joint of beef & 2 joints of pork in the freezer so that will certainly help with Jan or Feb.