January 2012 Grocery Challenge

LondonDreamer

Was going to try and get to the weekend, but really did need fruit in the end.

Had two £5 off vouchers at M&S so decided to get ahead on next week's shop. They didn't have many whoopsies but did get 6 tubs of double cream for 10p each, a sandwich for tomorrow for 50p and a massive Kilner jar of sweets for a fiver - the jar would be worth about that alone and will definitely get used. Plus the dine in for £10 meal with a chicken marked at £7 and a few multibuy offers.

Full price, I think it was around £65. Paid £29.58. :j

123budget

Think I'm doing something wrong??
Whenever anyone else quotes another poster it seems to come up in a lovely little box with coloured background. - Mine don't? I click the 'quote' button and sometimes edit the quote before I add my reply but otherwise not sure what I might be doing wrong - any suggestions?

NickJW

Grrr - bit annoyed with myself. I was on the tube and nearly home when I realized I forgot my noodles at work! :mad:

I 'should' have gone back to work to pick them up, but instead I went to M+S and picked up 2 packs of sausages for £5, reduced crab pate (80p) and muffins (55p) for lunch tomorrow, a reduced 4 pack of paninis (80p) which will go in the freezer for lunches next week......and a huge block of mature cheddar which looked lovely, so I couldn't resist costing £4

So tonight I'll have sausages with mash from potatoes already in the cupboard, green beans already in the fridge and onion gravy already in stock. Tomorrow I need to remember the noodles from work!

I did see handwash at M+S but at £1.65 for a small bottle of Carex...I think I'll hold off - I did have SOME restraint and held off that until I find a cheaper place! :rotfl:

rising from the ashes - anything with cheese and bacon is a winner! I hope it's nice

angelatgraceland

Had a tiny spend in Waitrose today. £1.90 on a puzzle book-not Grocery budget , 95p for a packet of tomatoes and oh-they paid me to take away 2 loaves of whoopsied Hovis marked at 19p each! Good job I bought the tomatoes or they may have noticed! It was a 2 loaves for £2 deal-50p off so it came off of my 2 lots of 19p. Wonderful! The SA made me laugh-wasn't looking and greeted me as "sir". Then apologised(I am not at all masculine looking)and said it was the end of her shift. Well I stuck out my chest and said "I am awaiting my operation"-"I am trying to get rid of these". We were both laughing(she was no youngster either)hopefully I brightened up her day!

quintwins

yesterday went to pot, i had bad news so hubby came and brought me to burgerking for lunch and then we had chinese for tea it cost roughly £25 so have added that, then i went to tesco today and got some great whoopsies spent £14.98 but who could turn down 3p rolls, 7p loves and 22p for 3 mince pies?


have updated my total im just under £100 now and really cant fit anymore in my freezer, i do need spuds in the next few days tho

hamish222

Have managed to read thread at last. Have tried challange many times and failed. Running down my freezer and cupboards and will start fresh in Feb. No budget for this month as such, just aiming for as little as possible. Have spent £7.01 since 9th of Jan.

PennyGrabber

Hi all,

NSD today, and I finally managed to pick up a western union bank transfer from my dad. He gave my two £50 for christmas each, and they have already spent £50 between them out of my money, so that's £50 back into the coffers!!

Dinner tonight was chicken tonight and rice. I love jars of stuff that take 20mins from start to finish! Sometimes, I just cba to do anything better! Children will be at their dad's this weekend so I'll be using up as much as poss. Trouble is, when I do something like chicken tonight, I only use half a jar! Then I have to freeze the other half, but i have no space in my freezer! I also need to freeze half a jar of pasta sauce, although I may just throw that onto some pasta and call that dinner tomorrow!

I've still got half a Christmas cake to use up, and some other sweet bits and bobs, which aren't helping the diet at all, but what do you do with them? I'm re-gifting a birthday present for my sister in law this weekend, and made her a card, so that's nice and cheap! Just a bit of electricity to see what I was doing!

Thanks to everyone here, I'm so much more aware of my money. It's really hard sometimes to say "I can't afford that", but now, I'm getting really good at it!

Not planning on spending tomorrow, but will need to do a packups shop at some point over the weekend, and I'm limiting myself to just that. I don't need meat, I don't need cleaning stuff, I don't need tea/sugar (found NINE different types in my baking cupboard the other day!!!)/beans/soup/tuna/etc, so literally just some ham (a!di prob), bread, fruit but not apples, and that's it. I have yogs ready, as there was an offer earlier this month. Oh, my dd has been begging me for some detangling spray, so i may get some of that, poor love!

I'm just off now to create a poster for my children of 'breakfast options'. They love choosing their own stuff (they're 5 and 6), but my dd is forever saying "But i don't know what the options are!" My plan is to have different sections - toast toppers, cereals and weekend/holiday treats. Then I'll print it out and stick it to the fridge. One of my resolutions for life is to fix things that annoy me. It annoys me that she says this, so I'm fixing it! She won't now be able to say that she doesn't know what the options are, so the mornings may not get so fraught from the outset! The other good thing is that it will encourage them to have more of a variety, and help me to organise stock levels.

Goodnight all, sorry for ramble!

PG x

PennyGrabber

123budget wrote: »

Think I'm doing something wrong??
Whenever anyone else quotes another poster it seems to come up in a lovely little box with coloured background. - Mine don't? I click the 'quote' button and sometimes edit the quote before I add my reply but otherwise not sure what I might be doing wrong - any suggestions?

Hi 123budget!

When you press quote, you just need to make sure that you leave alone the bit in square brackets that says

Delete as much of the post then as you want...

.

Hope that made any sense, and helps!

PG x

mummyjane

I did my weekly shop today as we've got a manic weekend ahead, stocked up on lots of basics including rice (5kg for £2.50 from Mr A), orange juice, fruit, yoghurts for the kids lunches/puddings (ds ate them all when he felt poorly) also bought a few bits to pack out the freezer. Couldn't resist buying fresh bread - that'll teach me to go in Mr A's at 9 in the morning!

My veg box came today as well so I'm making leek and potato soup in the morning

Suffolk_lass

lemmings1986 wrote: »

sounds daft but has any1 got any other ideas what i can use them for????
thanks in advance hope evry1 has a good, am off to bed will be back later to see how every getting on :):):)

I make chicken pie with tinned soup - especially the condensed soups but any soup is good. You might need to thicken the regular soup just stir in a little cornflour while it is cold and it will thicken when it gets warm -

The pie is stripped bits of leftover chicken from a cold roast (before I boil the carcass for stock/soup) pulled into pieces and mixed with a can of sweetcorn niblets or leftover carrots and a handful of frozen peas and the soup. If I'm doing a top only pie the soup goes in with the rest, stir it up - if it's a top and bottom pie, thicken the (regular) soup first and let it cool down a bit before adding it. Put everything in a pastry case topped with milk/egg to make it lovely and brown and cook it for 35-45 minutes - I do 35 in the baking oven (350F/180C) then ten minutes in the roasting oven (450F/230C) but in a regular I would do it at 190-200 (fan - no fan). Hope you like it :beer:

Doing quite well on NSD but slightly regretting driving past Waitflower within an hour of closing time but I really don't need anything today so probably for the best