January 2012 Grocery Challenge

SpikyHedgehog

sproggi wrote: »

Wow, it has taken me 3 days to finally catch up. I could have just skipped through to the end, but I do love reading how everyone is getting on.

So far I have managed 2 NSD's and spent £17.42, mostly on milk and extra bits for DGS as he was visiting with DS1 yesterday and I had him all day today (14months old and he eats more than DS2 13years!).

Children are back to school tomorrow and I must admit to having mixed feelings about it, whilst it will be nice to get back into routine, it will also seem empty in the house with just myself and OH all day. DD2 will be back from her dad's tomorrow, but she is full of cold so will spend all day in her room.

Sproggi

I decided to post & then maybe try to catch up! M0rrin0ns tonight with the boys, but we did ok, spent £54 on groceries (+ £12 on thermal vests for DS1, £5 on reduced gifts to stash away for Mothers' Day, and £8 on DVDs but DS1 gave me the money for them), so I'm happy with that. Didn't get any flour though as they didn't have the ones I like, so next week will be more than it should be, but we have enough in the cupboard to last.

We should be back to school/work tomorrow, but DS2 has the tummy bug, so will be off, so I will be too. Not good, as I don't get paid for days off. Will try to avoid popping to T3scos round the corner for juice for him by using up the lemon squash in the cupboard. Though I do have a gift card for T3sco, so it won't be a disaster if I do have to.

seductivesmile

Happy New Year!
Well, its only taken me three days to catch up on the January Posts! my goodness we certainly are flying!
So far for January i have done a cupboard inventory, but yet to tackle the freezer, it is the bottom of a fridge freezer, so only 1 1/2 draws, but they are the perfect image of freezer tetris, I was even excited i had finished the cheese so i could take another grated bag out to fit half a tin of sweetcorn in, for tuna sweetcorn instead of throwing it out as dont need it til next week.
How do i upload a MS word table, i'm hoping for inspiration to help me use up all the millions of things i seem to have.
For january i am trying my hardest to use up some of my stocks, save the money and put it into my ISA, therefore i am budgetting my january as £60 please, that £15 a week, but i am hoping to spend much less as only need fruit and milk,
I have a breadmaker and plenty of ingredients, as well as some part cooked rolls that need using before 15th, I have frozen veggies, bought, blanched and froze lots of whoopsied cauli, sprouts, broccoli, carrots so i've veggies for the month, as well as tinned beans and pulses.
So far i have spent a nice round £0 and i'm not planning on spending anything before saturday when i will be going into town to look at the market fruit to see if it is any cheaper/ quality as the SM's as i usually buy mine from MR M.

Meal plan for this week:
DInners
Monday - HM Pizza with tata wedges
Tuesday - Chicken, gammon and mushroom pie with veggies
Wednesday - Birthday dinner with Daddy
Thursday - LO Chicken pie filler with crusty rolls and veggies
Friday - Baked Potatoes with Beans and cheese
Saturday - HM Chilli and rice
Sunday - Always eat at my parents

Lunches
Monday - Toast and Marmalade
Tuesday - Roasted Veg cous cous
Wednesday - Grilled peppers stuffed with LO cous cous
Thursday - Egg Mayo crusty rolls
Friday - Cheese Rolls
Saturday - Cheesy beans in Pitta Bread
Sunday - Scones and Jam

And for all of this, i need to buy nothing!

Take Care
SS

Florenceem

Saturday was a roast using Chicken left from Christmas. On Sunday I made a stir fry using a handful of Prawns from the freezer plus lots of tired veg - also rinsed out a Worcester Sauce bottle into the Wok. Enough left for one portion - gone in freezer. I made a Liver Casserole yesterday - Lambs Liver reduced price - in the freezer - used the rest of my tired vegetables. I also rinsed out - a Mango Chutney jar + a Brown Sauce bottle and a Hot Chilli Wok Sauce bottle - it was a yummy casserole. I had enough left for two days dinners for the two of us - gone in freezer. Tonight was some Belly Pork - from the freezer - enough over for another dinner for us.

Ches

As you can see from my sig I haven't much left of this weeks budget but to be fair £15 spent was on a new bun tin, £5 credit for my mobile (neither of which I have budget for anywhere else) and £5 for a large box of DW tabs that I didn't need right now but which were on special purchase. Shouldn't need anything else before Friday when I get paid again but even so I am surprised how quickly the cash has gone this week. I really thought that eating out of the freezer/cupboards/Christmas leftovers would give me a cheap week this week but despite not having to buy meat etc I have spent the same amount of money that I expected to have to spend in a normal week.

Wish I got woopsies to help out but nothing reduced more that a few pennies off something reaching its sell by date from the shops here. Today in the C0-0p even really manky round lettuces were 49p when Iceberg ones were £1 and big enough to do 2 meals and very large joints of gammon only had £3 off. Mr S is a 30 mile round trip so too far to go for odds and ends.

Dinner was nice though. I made a quiche with leftover pastry which I had frozen, some chopped leftover Christmas gammon and a sliced tomato, baked potatoes and salad with HM leftover coleslaw.

JillD_2

Took DD1 to Asda as promised for her new clothes. She seems to have grown about 3 inches in the last month and nothing is fitting except some leggings. So got her about 7 tops, a coat, 2 prs leggings, 1 pr shorts (for over the leggings), 1 pr jeggings and new undies, and new jeans for DS. Came to £80. Seemed like :eek: but I suppose I did get quite a bit for that. If I can come in £80 under for the grocery month then that will cancel that out which would be rather good! We also treated ourselves to drink and biccy in cafe to round off the girls shopping expedition - so about £5 from GC money.

Very pleased with myself - dug BM out and made first loaf in ages, only problem is DS (8) still awake at 10.30 cos apparently the smell is making him feel hungry and he couldnt sleep :cool:

Also stuck to the meal plan so that felt good too. Had spaghetti and (veggie) meatballs. For lunch tomorrow I will have the leftover spaghetti with tin of WW tuna in tomato sauce thats been urkng at back of cupboard for months, with salad that needs finishing up.
Have checked meal plan for what I need for tomorrow, which is fishcakes and wedges that can be cooked straight from feezer with oeas and carrots.

Going to do food shop tomorrow, only need fruit veg dairy but also meeting friends for DD2 lunch (lunchbox thingy) and coffee, cafe part should be under a fiver.

Off to bed, wish me luck for school run tomorrow!

Doom_and_Gloom

Mr S spent - £110.51. This was a shop that should have cost us £171.43 :eek: so I am calling that a win as 1/3 off :beer:.
We did a lot of bulk buys. We have enough toilet roll to get us to April (at least), enough vegan marg for 4 months put in freezer (I have 2 months in fridge so 6 months in all), enough cereal for my partner for 6 months, crisps that will last my partner at least 3 months (4+ if lucky) etc. All in all a good shop.
My partner still needs milk - he will be buying enough for the month when he does (freezing most of the milk), we will need to buy fruit and veg through the month as well and a few other items but mostly have all we need for this month.

Chinchillas have enough food to last until mid May and enough hay for 3-4 months so they aren't a worry. They should have enough sand for this month and a few weeks into next month so we should look into buying some more of that this month to make sure we have some in 'just in case'.

Yes we have spent a months percentage of the year already but it should easily even out due to bulk buying now when on offer/use of coupons etc and not buying it later.

Year budget - £1,320.00
Year Spent - £0,110.51
Year left - £1,209.49

SueP19

For those on the ciggy quit.............B**ts has the patches on offer at £6.70 (Niquit*n clear) which is less than half price, if you are saving your ciggy money this really helps, it's cheaper than the doc prescription fee (our doc would only give you 1 pack of patches per prescrip :mad:)

I forgot to add £3.05 spend last night as well

Meal planner has gone array !!! I suppose it will take awhile to get used to it, forgot to check it and tried to remember what we were having

ixia

Morning everyone:)
updating from yesterday £3.10 spent on toilet rolls and rolls.

did get some other bargains in Clintons- wrap. tags, tissue and ribbon all with 70% off- It wil be a saving in the long run as it will do for birthday gifts and next xmas. That is out a different budget though.

Have a good day all!

recovering_spendaholic

Morning everyone! Kids off to school with marginally less fuss than usual and now I am going to spend the day cleaning up and doing the meal plan and inventory that I have been putting off for the last few days.

Last night DD1 went to Tesco for feminine hygiene stuff and rang me from there to see if there was anything we needed, and I directed her to the reduced aisle and asked what was there. She got me 7 600ml tubs of double cream reduced to 17p a carton so I spent an hour last night making butter for the first time! It was great (although messy) and I got 7 lots of butter (didn't weigh but reckon about 4lbs). Luckily I read the instructions off this thread before I started as I didn't know you had to wash the butter to get all traces of the buttermilk out or it goes rancid! Butter all now frozen as I still have some left in the fridge from the lurpak offer in Tesco before Christmas.

Breakfast today was toast and philadelphia for all of us, lunch was packed lunch for 2 DD's - I made hm sandwich filling which tasted lovely - chopped up celery, spring onion, bacon, chicken, sweetcorn and a few cocktail sausages (all l/o) mixed with a bit of extra light mayo and salad cream. I will have chicken and sweecorn soup for lunch, using the last of the sweetcorn and a chicken cube and some noodles. Dinner tonight is l/o curry for DD2, hot turkey and stuffing baguettes for DD1 and me.

NSD today as DD1 has gone to college with my keys so can't go out even if I wanted to!!

Hope it is not to windy where you are - it is better here but the fences are all down!

ClaireT13

Morning everyone

Just popping in to report a 75p spend on bananas for DS lunches for the week. Will probably not be the last today was running low on some basics. Hopefully not too expensive though!

Claire