January 2012 Grocery Challenge

rising_from_the_ashes

blackandwhitebunny wrote: »

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.

blackandwhitebunny wrote: »

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.

Ohhhh that's a houseful & visitors too!:D

Mine were a bit funny about eating it once it'd been opened and was worried when I switched to the 4kg & 10kg bags (soooooo much cheaper). I looked at storage tubs in PAH (I think they were about £15 :eek:).

I ended up getting some of the plastic storage tubs from £stretcher. Each one takes a 4kg bag and has a snap lid which is totally airtight - £1.99 each or 3 for £5 and I've had no problems with them eating it.

Really with that many, the only way to significantly reduce the costs is to bulk buy both the pouches and dry.

I buy from several different sites as the offers vary so much month to month:

• PAH quite often do really good offers that are available online only (so you'd never even see them in the store) BOGOF on 4kg bags etc
• http://www.medicanimal.com/ (have managed to get 10kg RRP @ £56 for less than £39 and also great deals on Skinners dog food)
• http://www.petplanet.co.uk/ currently have 4 x Whiskas for £10)
• Amazon can also have good deals but they are sometimes quite time consuming to find!

If you can (and realise this isn't easy from my own endeavours of trying to feed mine last year and put money aside) - try to put a few £s away so that when a really great deal comes along you can really take advantage - Mr M did 3 boxes of Whiskas for £6 a while ago ...... I think I've just about finished the load I got and it's several months later!:)

HTH:)

Kerry78

First spend of the new year. Was organised and took a list. It was just a small top up at A**i. Picked up mushrooms and broccoli too as they were only .49c. So €10.20 total

Chloris

God this thread is moving quickly! NSD number 2. HM parsnips soup and jam tarts for lunch, salmon quiche, sauted pots and salad/beans for tea. We had dried fruit and nuts for snack time . Will see what the cupboards look like tomorrow.

jo84

First shop of the year! Went to Li*l and spent £23.17, will be eating the contents of the freezer this week, just needed bits and pieces. Had list and done meal plan. Off to make lunches for work tomorrow. Enjoyed Christmas but kinda glad to get back to normality!

bupster

Right, had sausage and broccoli pasta for tea (but think I might have done something peculiar to my metabolism over Christmas as I feel starving all the time!). Used the rest of the 80p sausages in a casserole that's bubbling away in the slow cooker. So that's tomorrow's lunch and four or five portions of casserole that I'll have with polenta.

Also decided to make up chicken and chorizo jambalaya now so I don't get into a frazzle on Saturday. It's HUUUUGE. :eek: I had to keep adding stock as there wasn't enough liquid, and it's grown, and grown, and grown. I'm going to make that again for certain . Well, if it doesn't get out of the freezer by itself in the night and come after me...

tigerfeet2006

Someone earlier on the thread said they had some polenta left. I do this cake with it.

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/LEMON-POLENTA-CAKE-5308

Bonus is it is gluten free

sonastin

OK, I'm going to jump back on the GC wagon for 2012. Please put me down for £200 for January for 2 of us. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to it this year - last year was woefully overspent! Had an unplanned trip to A$da this afternoon after AA man got my car working again and made me go out for a drive so I've already spent £40.02 but that was largely on veg and lunch box stuff for work - both of which have been sadly absent from my fridge for several days now!

PolkaDotsAndLace

£4.44 spend today, just on essentials like bread and milk.

Working out my shopping list for the weekend though, on A*da's website so I know roughly how much it will come to and am utterly gobsmacked that their own brand sausages have been hiked up to £1.28 from 82p before Xmas! :eek:

Do hope that's not a sign of things to come Still, a couple of months ago I was oblivious to these things, at least now I'm aware of stuff I can shop accordingly.

mothershipton

put me down for £300 this month please, we spent nearly £5K on food last year, yikes. but we have one less mouth to feed as eldest is at uni, although I do send him back with food parcels.

Old_Meanie

I am afraid I spend about £400 a month for two people! After reading some of this thread I feel I am going badly wrong somewhere. Unfortunately I have a chronic illness and cooking is becoming more and more difficult even with my partner helping and I think I spend a lot on convenience. I am going to follow the advice at the start and just note down how much I am spending on what. I am going to have A SERIOUS try at this challenge so any advice on cutting down on convenience foods whilst keeping cooking to a minimum would be welcome. Thanks