January 2012 Grocery Challenge

ClaireT13

Just popping by to report my spends for today.

In total £77.42 :mad:. This takes my total to 170.42/300 for the month and it's only the 31 December and it's got to go until the end of Jan.

Broken down, this is:

£22.48 - Aldi
£5.00 - Iceland
£45.84 - Tesco
£4.10 - Greengrocers

I have meal planned dinners for the whole month and intend to make enough leftovers to cover mine and DH lunches. Hopefully now the only things left to buy will be any perishables, a few bits for kids lunches and things for my DS's birthday tea.

I think I'll have to have a few NSD's .

Happy New Year to everyone!!

oliviarosejackson

Hi, could I join please? We are a family of four, me, OH, DD 8yrs and DS 14 months.

We still have a lot of food left in from christmas, so I am going to set a budget of £200 please. My usual is £250, but would love to get it down to £50 per week.

bikelesschick

I've not had the chance to catch up with the thread and I don't think I'll have enough time today either, just wanted to post my budget for this month.

After the fiasco last month I decided to play safe and try for around £250 per month. As we're going to be away for half of the month, can I please be put down for £125 this month? I don't think we'll spend anywhere near that as we have enough for until we go away but we'll see how it goes.

I hope all is well with everyone:) and wishing you all a very Happy New Year!!:beer:

aberdeensaver

123budget wrote: »

I notice a lot of people say about using lentils to make meat dishes go a bit further. Is this red lentils? I've only ever used them in soup before so how would you use them in bolognese/shepherds pie? Do you just add the dried lentils to all the other ingredients when the meat has been browned? About how much lentils would you add in proportion to meat? Can they also be used in a chilli?

Sorry for the list of questions but really have to cut back majorly on food and I usually use 500g of mince for a family of 5 (4 adults 1child) in one meal so wondering if I can stretch 500g mince for 2 meals or am I being unrealistic?

Hi 123budget,

Can I suggest with bells on Jamie Olivers Chilli Con Carne recipe its available on his website http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/good-old-chilli-con-carne It uses 500g of beef, a can of kidney beans and chickpeas (not totally conventional) and a huge number of veg. I cant remember how many it says it serves but I can get 8 adult portions out of it, served with brown rice and some guacomole and sour cream (optional!) it will make your meat stretch! It is not spicy at all so very child friendly.

E x

recovering_spendaholic

Kylieminoag wrote: »

Am humming and hawing about whether to spend some of this months budget on a bread maker. Please can anyone offer me any advice? The family get through a full sliced loaf every other day. What would be most economical?

Thanks

Just saw your post and thought I would tell you that I bought a breadmaker at the beginning of December. I got a panasonic and it was on offer at Very for around £90 plus there was a send away £20 cashback offer so net cost about £70. I was very sceptical that it would be a)cheaper and b) nice bread and I have to say that it is both and then some! I make the small loaf and we use one a day, although there is some left over each day which we use for toast the next day, or else I whizz into breadcrumbs. I buy the Tesco bread flour which is currently 62p for 1.5 kg and I get almost four loaves out of that, plus the cost of the yeast - Allinsons easy bake 92p a tin and I am not even half way through that yet from when I got it about a month ago. I reckon it costs me about 30p for a normal white loaf, but I have to say that I prefer the milk bread so I reckon that that costs me about 40p a loaf. Given that it is so much nicer than shop bought bread I find that that is a good price for me to pay. I used to spend about £6+ a week on supermarket bakery bread and now I spend about £2.50 so it is definitely cheaper for me and could be more so if I didn't use the milk. I reckon that the breadmaker will have paid for itself in about 20 weeks.

There are all different kinds of breadmaker but the general concensus seems to be that the panasonic is the best. I reckon that that is true as I have not had a less than perfect loaf yet. My friend has one too and she finds the same, but I had a Morphy Richards a few years ago and that was very hit and miss.

Spent £5 this morning on breakfast out with a friend (it was my turn to pay) so that is the first of this month's spend. Both kids are out tonight so I will eat up the last of the chicken casserole with some rice and/or peas. There is still loads of pasta bake from last night it the kids want something before they go out.

Off to update signature!

bramble1

Last of my spending for this week today! No more shopping till next saturday! Spent £7.49 so need to update my signature with the total spend. I think i might have been a tad ambitious with my annual budget, but will see how i get through Q1 before adjusting it. We've got alot of food in, so hopefully there won't be much more spending this month.

PennyGrabber

123budget wrote: »

I notice a lot of people say about using lentils to make meat dishes go a bit further. Is this red lentils? I've only ever used them in soup before so how would you use them in bolognese/shepherds pie? Do you just add the dried lentils to all the other ingredients when the meat has been browned? About how much lentils would you add in proportion to meat? Can they also be used in a chilli?

Sorry for the list of questions but really have to cut back majorly on food and I usually use 500g of mince for a family of 5 (4 adults 1child) in one meal so wondering if I can stretch 500g mince for 2 meals or am I being unrealistic?

When I buy a 500g of mince, I split it into 4 (125g), and each bit does us for a meal. There's one adult and 2 children. We put in a tin of toms, a handful of lentils, some grated veggies/frozen veggies, onions (that I cut up and freeze), a stock cube and sometimes a jar of pasta sauce, other times a load of herbs (sauce goes further). That makes enough for a good meal one evening, plus leftovers for me for lunch the next day. HTH

adelight

£3 at market on veg, £10.46 at lidl on veg, eggs, dried fruit(WHY?!! got home and remembered i have kilos of it already), milk, odd bits
£13.46 so far already thank god i have so much flour so i can make rolls for OH's lunch and to bulk up his meals, and some jars of HM curry sauce to make bean curries.

eta: 123budget i use equal amounts mince and lentils or mince and soya mince. i think lentils are actually a lot tastier than soya mince.

Ches

Just updated my siggie. I did main shop on Friday and have £26. 03 left to get milk/bread/salad/bacon and chicken breasts later in the week.

PennyGrabber

adelight wrote: »

and some jars of HM curry sauce to make bean curries.

Jars of hm curry sauce?! How do you make this?! How long does it keep for? I'm definitely interested in this!