January 2012 Grocery Challenge

blackandwhitebunny

aberdeensaver wrote: »

Have you tried to mix it with another type of biscuit, even if you just start with 100g of another dry food with 900g of Royal Canin, he/she might look at a bit funny for a meal (or two) but will soon realise thats all thats on offer. Then you can try and slowly (50g or 100g) at a time start to increase the cheaper food. Only advice when choosing a cheaper food is try and find a similar flavour (for the smell).

Hope it helps.

E x

Thanks for the suggestion but we've been there, they manage to sort out the biscuits they want from the cheaper ones and then sit and look at you pleadingly:o
They will have the odd helping of go cat biscuits but seperate not mixed with the others.

redkids1972

Done my first shops of the year been to m and s Aldi and coop. Spent 33 but added to NYE spends brings my total to 59 pounds. Got loads in so fingers crossed that's it till weekend

Flat_Eric

So instead of retiring to the sofa with my kindle, I decided that I wasn't to move away from my desk until I had meal planned for the next week.

Thus I have a menu of sorts planned up until sunday. Just two more lunches (sat and sun) and two breakfasts to decide on.

Also need to see if I can re-jig stuff so I'm not buying anything - use up freezer/fridge/cupboard contents instead!

kersplatt

Planning to make veggie pasty's this evening to take to work for lunches and knock up some muffins for school lunches to freeze. Also got to make a batch of sweet potato and lentil soup to freeze. Busy busy but hopefully will keeps spends down significantly.

Just totted up the Christmas bill - I knew it would be big but heck! To be fair the kids presents were mainly clothes as they had reached the stage of looking like nobody loved them - they've both had huge growth spurts in the past few months and nothing fitted well anymore. I did all my Christmas shopping on the 23rd and 24th thereby getting all the sale items so reckon I saved about a third on the cost. Also have filled my freezer prior to Christmas with various whoopsies.

Anyway will look forward to joining in. We've had whoopsied roasted vegetable pasta sauce with fusilli tonight, dinner for 3, 25p!!! Bargainacious.

blackandwhitebunny

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

How much is it costing you Bunny?

I've managed to get my cost (also only feed Royal Canin) from £8.50 / cat / month down to £3.50 / cat / month - by bulk buying when on offer.

This works out cheaper than I could get food from the sm for.

We have five official cats, 4 of whom are senior citizens so they have two (occassionaly more) pouches of felix senior a day as well as biscuits. The youngster (known as spoilt little girl cat:o) has sheba or gourmet pearl and the biscuits. They are very fussy and incredibly spoilt - we find the biggest problem is that they refuse to eat the biscuits if they have been open for a few days no matter how carefully we seal and store them, they also seem to like a variety so we often buy a few different small packets. They go through about four packets a week plus two small boxes of go cat. And then our oldest lady was kept as an indoor cat until we adopted her and we've never been able to get her to go outside and she'll only use beauticat litter.
We also have the neighbours cat popping in for a snack most days and there's a stray that we feed outside when he comes around.
WE spent about £35 on Saturday which will last us basically a week, might have some felix over as we bought 6 boxes (3 for £8 at PaH):eek:
None of the cats are overweight by the way;)

JIL

medsdemon wrote: »

OOH Maybe do a pudding as I have a xmas pud that I bought last year and we still didn't eat it this:rotfl:and a carton of brandy cream that need using pronto.

How about this?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolatecheesecake_79990

with the brandy cream,

janiepopps

Spiggle wrote: »

Welcome all the newbies joining us. Remember to do a stocktake at the start, only shop with a list and, especially if it's your first time budgetting/monitoring spends, keep receipts and list them either in a spending diary or on a spreadsheet so you always know how much you've spent and how much you have left for the rest of the month. As was said earlier, taking the money out of the bank and having it in a separate purse really helps at the start too. The effect of seeing money reducing is more powerful than you'd imagine! :cool:

See you all later,
Spigs

ETA: Thanks rosieben, a good idea some are filched above. Newbies a list of tips is in post number #345.

Thanks for the reminder, I've just listed EVERYTHING in my pantry, cupboards & shelves (no mean feat I can tell you!) and have just enjoyed a big bowl of last years xmas pudding for tea, which had managed to hide a whole 12 months in the very back of a cupboard :T It was bl**dy handsome!

[Deleted User]

No money spent since Christmas Eve on shopping and havn't seen the inside of a food shop either .I am shopping from 'my stores' as much as I can this month.I had a nice box of cream crackers donated to me from one of my DDs that hadn't been opened so a few cheese and crackers with HM soup for me over the next week for lunches.
Plus quite a few left overs that I shall use up throughout this week.I am determined that no food shall be binned at all this year if possible(very little is anyway as I'm quite frugal:):))
I am also going to have a hunt for some nice fish recipes as I have a boxful in the freezer of various sorts.My resolution for this year is use up as much as I can before I buy anymore as I think I must have at least 6 weeks food in the cupboards and freezer.Maybe some odd meals but if it stops me racking up the supermarkets tills then I shall be quite happy.
Good luck everyone with the new GC challenge

blackandwhitebunny

First spends of the year were not too bad £6 at the market on fruit and veg and £16.41 in Sains. We have loads of food in and I am determined to use that first before buying anything else so it was largely things like fruit juice and milk.

tessie_bear

hi...nsd today as well but might need to buy a few bits tomorrow...just got some chicken legs out of freezer...might roast or do a casserole with them...will do some rice with it and cook a bit extra and use for fried rice the next day....love making that and it is so much easier with cold rice

kids off until wed so might go swimming tomorrow with them and perhaps out for lunch

take care tess