January 2012 Grocery Challenge

Coxy11

Had burgers in baps tonight from the freezer, with homemade chips. DS1 invited a friend round for tea - dontcha just love it when they text you as they are on their way home. Nice lad tho'. Luckily there were enough burgers and buns (leftover burgers from a scout camping trip in October), so not a problem, although it meant that the two buns I was saving for packed lunches tomorrow got eaten.

Emergency shop at MrT just now netted some whoopsies (naan bread, baps, pastry), plus the fruit I needed, Kenc0 coffee refill (thanks whoever posted about this - better than half price), plus a new canopener as ours has given up the ghost.

Off to update sig.

PS. good idea to whoever suggested putting special offers in bold. I love hearing about people's whoopsie finds, but at least special offers are open to everyone and could save peeps a few pounds

Mrs_Money_Penny

Hi All Have been missing for a good 3 or 4 months due sadly to my dear Dad passing away with cancer. So what with the New Year I feel I am ready to start again with the grocery challenge.

Could you please put me down for £200 for January.

clarkey1000

I like the idea of making a list of the food in the freezer. I may have trouble identifying some of the meals I've frozen though! :rotfl:
Spent £1.80 on a coffee today (to get me through a few hours at the soft play) and £2.40 on eggs from the farm shop.
Hoping for a NSD tomorrow.

PennyGrabber

freyaluck wrote: »

Spent £4.90 so far this week, £3.00 on eldest dd school lunch today:o Forgot to take bread and milk out of freezer last night oops, learnt my lesson and wont happen again.

I always keep my bread in the freezer. I make sandwiches either the night before, or in the morning (if i forget!), and I make the sandwiches with frozen bread. That way, I don't waste bread, and you don't get those few slices that taste like you should've eaten them a few days ago!! The bread just defrosts in the fridge, and you'd never know i'd make it from frozen!

I used to, in the dim and distant past, make a week's worth of sandwiches on a sunday night, and freeze them, and then just take them out the morning of. You can't freeze salad-type things, but then, my ex oh would only ever have corned beef and ketchup sandwiches, and I would have cheese/sausage/ham/whatever, and if i was that fussed, I'd add some tomato etc once defrosted!

No spends to add to the gc today. Enjoyed the fish and chips (my leaving present to my friend) and the company, will really miss her when she's gone

Good news from the garage. My motorbike went into hopsital yesterday, and I was warned that it could be fatal, but they fixed it really easily so yay! Will try and work out how to pick it up tom with the children (may have to get friend on board!).

NSD hopefully tomorrow, then will spend on either Sat OR Sun. Don't know what dinner is tom, but needs to be a five-minute job, then the weekend dinners are hm pizza and hm chicken nuggets (chopped up breast in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, so really healthy! And cheap, as one breast does the three of us, and I got loads reduced in coop last year.).

Take it easy,

PG x

moneysaver13

Need to stop buying toilettries, Mr Wilko still has Tresemme (900ml) down at £1.98 instead of £4+ so grabbed two of these, along with some washing gel sachets for DS1 for his return to Uni and then popped into Mr B's and bought 3 x colgate whitening toothpaste reduced from £2.60 to £1.30, I had a 25% off and a 250 points voucher, both from the advantage machine, so in the end paid £3.25 for all 3 and got £2.50 in points. Then used my £5 off no.7 voucher to get a concealer for £3 and bought a large Elvee shampoo, £3.79 reduced to£1.90 but I had a 25% coupon for that so all in all did very well at Mr B's by spending £7.19 and saving £12.40 but I must stop buying all these toilettries. So total for January up at £74 though £15 is for DS1! Thank you to everyone on this forum who has pointed me in the right direction. Never used my advantage card in the two years I've had it but its has already saved me loads in January!

PennyGrabber

Oh, meant to say, I daren't do an inventory of my freezer - I may not get everything back into it again! Serious freezer tetris going on in there! I did an inventory of the cupboard under the stairs a few weeks ago, and found 7kg pasta, 3kg rice, 12 tins toms, and loads of other stuff... Oops!

One of my main resolutions for shopping for this year, is to learn to say "Oh well, we'll have to go without until shopping day." That's what used to happen when I was a child, and I didn't suffer too much, so that's what I'm going to do now! Run out of squash? Drink water! Run out of milk? Have toast instead of cereal, and fruit tea instead of normal. Run out of pasta (yeah right!)? Have rice. Run out of bread? Make some! Run out of biscuits? Have fruit/make cakes/have anything else!

recovering_spendaholic

LisaJane wrote: »

I teach a child piano once a week and charge £7 for it. My plan is to use this money only for the next 4 weeks (until pay day from main job) on food shopping which means my budget is £28 for 4 weeks grocery shopping!!!


I am starting tonight as I just gave the girl her lesson at 5 pm...wish me luck!

Wow!! The piano teachers round here charge at least £15 and more often £20 a week!!! She's got a real bargain!!

JillD wrote: »

Quick question for you all - I have a load of celery in the fridge, going to make celery soup tomorrow (found recipe on the recipe thread - thanks to all who maintain this :beer:)
I also have half a bag of spring greens to use, do you they think that would work in the celery soup ? Was thinking 1 1/2 heads of celery, 1 1/2 large spuds, couple of carrots, couple of small onions and the half bag of cabbage.
What do you think ? And if the cabbage is a no go what else could I do with it ?

I use spring greens or any other cabbage in home made minestrone soup - I just chop celery, carrots and onions and sweat in olive oil, then add shredded cabbage, tinned tomatoes, mixed herbs, a good squirt of ketchup, tsp of balsamic vinegar and stock and simmer for about 20 minutes, then add a handful of dried pasta and when that is cooked throw in a tin of cannellini beans and season and serve with parmesan and crusty bread.

I had a hospital check up today and on the way home it was lunchtime so I went into a nearby asda and got a meal deal for £2.50 - while I was there they had lily o'briens chocolates reduced to 50p. I love them so got three lots!!! May be store specific I'm not sure.

Had to give DD2 extra lunch money today as she didn't have a drink to take and I didn't have a bottle to refill, plus she wanted to get toast from the breakfast club as all her friends do it.

Have just got to nip round to the little Tesco for milk so my total spend for today is £7.

Still eating well from the freezer and cupboards - managed to make a full on roast dinner tonight with meat and veg from freezer and hm yorkies!

meg72

bupster wrote: »

Piggeh, I do one onion, some garlic, a beef stock cube or two, half a pack of minced beef, a can of kidney beans, a can of tomatoes, a teaspoon of chopped chilli, and a teaspoon of hot chocolate or cocoa, plus a squeeze of tomato puree. I sweat the onion and garlic, add the meat and brown it (not grey, mind, brown - it'll shrink like anything but the flavour's loads better), then bung in the rest and simmer until it's gloopy. Anything up to an hour. I'm not a precise cook - can you tell? :rotfl:

ANOTHER spend tonight - had to go to Sainsbobs for milk - added whoopsied multiseed bread and a pack of 8 corned beef slices for a total of £3.67. I do like my corned beef . Must stop spending though, the milk I needed but that was it.

Thats the recipe I use for Chilli, but without the hot chocolate, Ihave never heard of this being added before, does it make much difference?

stardrops42

piggeh wrote: »

Nice

I was going to do one with kidney beans but they take too long to cook. This looks easier, although beef stock cube might be worth a look

I sometimes add a splash of worcester sauce to give it a bit more of a kick! But by far the best thing to do is make it the day before you want it as it always tastes better:D

Brassic_Park

Spent the whole evening at hospital (visiting a relative who's been given 24 hours ). So had to get cash out of the hospital ATM, £1.85 surcharge, cos the canteen didn't accept cards. So £10 on two horrible plates of slop. But do you know what, I'm not counting it.