January 2012 Grocery Challenge

Kylieminoag

Kylieminoag wrote: »

Menu plan this week: (Must make it a No spend week!):j

Breakfasts - cereals or porridge or egg 'n' soldiers:D

Lunches - HM broccoli soup or cheese and chutney butties or freezer soups or fish finger butties (yum!)

Thursday dinner : HM potato cakes with HM ratatouille and roasted goats cheese (whoopsied at christmas :eek:but still looks and tastes good)

Friday dinner: Individual quiches made from remainder ratatouille and whoopsie spring roll pastry (like filo!) served with butternut squash risotto (no parmesan so will try goats cheese crumbled in instead)

Saturday dinner: HM pasta bolognaise from freezer and HM garlic bread

Sunday dinner: Roast chicken, stuffing and fridge veg followed by apple pielets (use left over spring roll pastry)

Monday dinner: chunky chicken soup with pearl barley (made from yesterdays carcas and left over veg) and crusty (I hope) HM wholemeal bread


Sorted!:cool:

No excuses to go to shops.... we drink black tea anyway :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Note to all money saving colleagues...... spring roll pastry was nothing like filo and was a complete disaster:eek:..... I ended up putting it in the bin when it had defrosted and making my own shortcrust! I couldnt even use it to make spring rolls because it broke when I tried to bend it - note to self... do not buy spring roll pastry! This will ruin my DTFA total for the month.... hmmmph!:mad:

Still not been to the shop though!:T:T:T

Have a lovely weekend everyone!:beer:

WelshWoofer

Just back from the first week of February budget shopping. I had originally done a mini budget of £30 for the week but managed to spend £33. However, I've had norovirus this week (absolutely disgusting - projectile everything:eek:) and wanted to give the house a really good clean to make sure its all gone and bought lots of antibacterial sprays, wipes and and other cleaning bits and bobs that put me over budget. I did also get a big ham bone for the dog as a thank you for being so good when I was ill (not many walks and definitely no plays:() - he's currently trying to bury it under a cushion - bonkers pooch!

Risingfromtheashes - I know what you mean about it being scary being on your own with the threat of redundancy. I'm single too (recently divorced) and all of a sudden there's just me and nobody to fall back on. I think if I were in your position I'd up my budget a little bit each week to buy non-perishables like cleaning stuff, loo roll, dried and tinned food and toiletries. That's all the expensive stuff and if the worst happened you could get by with just buying fresh food for a little time while you tried to get a new job. Good luck - hope it doesn't happen.

meg72

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Ok, so first we'll start with the OK bit.

Just back from shopping and managed to stick to essentials in Mr T so £15 there.

Then a quick trip into the Co*op as wanted to stock up on Persil £3.19 (1/2 price) whilst it's on offer. Also saw lots of orange stickers but resisted most apart from some chicken breasts which started off life at £7.50 (which I'd never pay - I'd rather buy a whole one, but they are handy if I can get them for a reasonable price) which were down to £2.80.:j Bought quite a few of them (there were loads so not sure what's happened this week!

Good news is that it's now chicken stuffed with soft cheese, wrapped in bacon (from freezer) for dinner - one of my favs!:)

Anyway, now well into Feb's allocation of the budget which brings me to my problem........ there's a good chance I may be made redundant in a couple of months:( (if I do survive it is an almost certainty it will happen within a few months).

This has, naturally, put me into panic mode - esp being single, there's no one else to fall back on.

Looking at it from a worst case point of view, I'm wondering if I should build stocks as much as poss just now - with the hope that if it does happen, I'll have food / household cleaning stuff / toiletries etc to tide me over a few months so I've only the mortgage/other bills to worry about ..... but it'll blow the budget altogether (but would hopefully be recouped later in the year as I won't need to buy stuff then and could life off the stocks I've built up)...... but again, I'd probably still want to hold reasonable stocks for the inevitable early next year.

So .... I'm thinking I should increase the annual budget this year to help with this but ...... mmmmm any thoughts would be most appreciated.:)

So sorry to hear you may be redundant, It is a scary thought especially when you are on your own. I have been on my own for about 20 years now and still feel a mild panic if something crops up
unexpectedly and there is only me to deal with it.

I would up the budget and stockpile on offers if you have the space. It can only pay off for you in the end,even if hopefully the redundency dosent happen.

Sazdaz

Well finished under budget which isnt bad for first month of doing the challenge at £120. 85. Done a large online order for Monday which will come out of Febs challenge so going to try and reduce what we spend again this month and go for £110 for February.

Ninno820

Oh dear me dear - its just 5 days into my feb budget and I have gone bust - totally. To psend my voucher I spent £32 in Ald* today, £20.08 in Lidl and then £43.23 in Mr T. In my defence Mr T's was mainly decaff coffee on offer (how does Mr T justify charging nearly £2 on a ys portion of coooked chicken!) and the rest was mainly storecupboard food which will keep into march, april may etc. In fact Ald* gave me the muesli for my parents stay in Easter.

With complete common "Ninno" sense I have decided to pay for today's shopping from the 2nd purse / savings as it will be used after february and therefore leave me with just under £20 for the rest of the month to spend on fruit and veg.

Note to self -avoid any supermarket - even when on offer - you just get sucked in and buy "off plan" to reach the spending limit! I'm even posting my £5 off the next £40 down to my mother so that I am not tempted to use it before it expires next weekend. I feel like a shopping junkie!

On a different note - no one told me that not shopping freed you up for other things. Tidying a basket of toiletries I found a M & S card that I have no idea whether it still has cash on it. Next friday I am popping into M&S to use a £10 voucher so will get it checked then. I also have a money off a £20 spend in M&S to be used by next weekend so if the card is still loaded then ...... oops here we go again.

Take care everyone - I'm hoping for a NSD week.

Living_proof

I am very recently single again, with a freezer full of portions for two and to be honest, not much of an appetite for anything which involves much effort now. I am going to have to change my shopping habits now as I find I don't want certain foods because of the association with ex-OH. I used to love shopping and finding the best buy would give me a real buzz, but right now I just rush into a SM, buy the bare minimum and rush out again. That is my weekend.

Still, one has to look forward and I think I can probably go a few months without buying anything apart from fruit and veg. and milk. However, the two-portion stock of goodies means I have to eat the same thing two days running and feeling so blue it's just not attractive.

This feeling will pass and I have big plans for the spring and summer in terms of relocation. My whole shopping situation will then have to be reconsidered. For February I will put down for £120and try and get back on track to spend less and less.

rising_from_the_ashes

WelshWoofer wrote: »

Risingfromtheashes - I know what you mean about it being scary being on your own with the threat of redundancy. I'm single too (recently divorced) and all of a sudden there's just me and nobody to fall back on. I think if I were in your position I'd up my budget a little bit each week to buy non-perishables like cleaning stuff, loo roll, dried and tinned food and toiletries. That's all the expensive stuff and if the worst happened you could get by with just buying fresh food for a little time while you tried to get a new job. Good luck - hope it doesn't happen.

meg72 wrote: »

So sorry to hear you may be redundant, It is a scary thought especially when you are on your own. I have been on my own for about 20 years now and still feel a mild panic if something crops up
unexpectedly and there is only me to deal with it.

I would up the budget and stockpile on offers if you have the space. It can only pay off for you in the end,even if hopefully the redundency dosent happen.

Thanks both :T...... it reared it's head this time last year but was avoided as they made cuts in other budgets - which sadly means it's much more of a reality now. I'm just having one of my "panic" days IYKWIM:o and these are times when I do wish there was someone else to lean on.

I'm going to do as you suggest and stock up on non-perisables when I see offers like the Persil today (I now have around a years' supply:)) and leave the annual budget as it is.

I think I can live with the fact that the monthly breakdown will look overspent for the next 2/3 months while I do this. Note to self: don't worry about it (I am a born worrier!:o).

Fingers crossed and if it doesn't happen I'll be able to use the stocks later in the year and balance the books.

I'm only fairly recently DF so there's not a lot of savings to fall back on and I'm only just getting on top of putting money aside each month to budget properly for things. I could just do with a few months more to get myself properly on my feet IYKWIM.


WelshWoofer - hope you're feeling better and the dog's enjoying his bone!:)

wear280902

PLEASE can you all give me some HELP and ideas for this month or links to other threads I can read
(long story but I have to hit the cutbacks hard) have very few items in freezer and stock cupboard basics (herbs, spices, rice, pasta, lentils, chana dahl, veg stock cubes and a couple of tins of tomatoes). I have £200 for FEB month for family of four DD has school dinners DS needs a pack lunch he has a wrap plus whatever else and its half term for a week in the middle.



Went to Li*l and bought an XXL pork shoulder which I could do with some ideas with...should I cook it all and what would be the best way to cook it to give good leftovers for meal on monday or should I split it into 2. Would normally just roast it.

Need a certain amount of veg or fruit in a week as boy suffers with constipation and I am trying to maintain or lose weight (although portion control would certainly help).

Have 6.5l slow cooker currently on loan. All ideas appreciated as I am new to this and finding it diffivult to make so many changes so quickly when I am having to work more evenings OT and so have less free time ( apart from Sat and Sun afternoons at work when I can pop on and off here for inspiration ;-) )
Vicky.

bupster

Had terrible start to my February, with big spends on a night out, and a quarter of the budget gone but hardly any food bought. On the upside I have a full freezer, so if I recover from the lurgy that's sitting on my head right now, I can do some batch cooking and only have to go to Aldi for a tenner's worth of bits and that's me for the month. I've got another night out to come though that's going to kill me even more, and had a BIG outlay for my new course which is derailing other budgeting plans.

I've been using my lurgy as an excuse not to look at what I spent last month and what I need to do next. Time to stop whining and get on with it...

123budget

Done my first big spend of Feb £67.55 - went off the list a little so I must NOT go to the shops this week!!