Grocery Challenge - February 2012

Herbyme

Made the SC sweet chilli sausage casserole for tea, everyone really liked it tho DS2 said no chilli next time (used about 1/4 of recipe amount...)

Have been exploring buying coffee beans in bulk as DH is an addict and about £2.50 a bag seems the cheapest for fairtrade. I now find it goes from about £10 a kg to £20+. Does anyone know if the £20+ stuff actually tastes any nicer than the £10 a kg stuff? I am not a huge coffee connoisseur so I wouldn't know and can't afford to experiment in bulk, and none of the big bags are available in small bags IYSWIM!

Still breaking our teeth on the Nigella b/f bars, those who have made them before, tell me if the mix looks pretty dry before baking? Not sure if it was my recipe adapting that made it too dry or if my cond milk was too gloopy as it was sweetened (never used it before)

Well done all on some amazing whoopsies! Went into M%S on the way home to look for some, only came out with 6 bottles of wine - they have 25% off - one had a shelf label of £6.99 and went through at £10.99 - gulp! They kindly gave me the whole £4 back, without taking off the 25% discount they'd kindly given me, wasn't that nice?!

valerie57

Bargainloverbec wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Please can I join you with my first Grocery Challenge? Just had a MASSIVE reality check and really need to to cut back on our grocery shopping. I thought we were spending about £350 a month and I've just added up all the receipts from January and it was nearer £550!!

Anyway the good thing is that Mr BLB is up for the challenge too (he's a joint culprit as he works next to a large supermarket and has a naughty habit of popping in at lunchtime). We've so far spent £214 of our £400 budget for the month - this includes nappies and cleaning stuff.

Wish me luck!

Good luck Bargainloverbec. The support and advice on this thread is fantastic.

Kylieminoag wrote: »

I have completely messed up:mad::mad::mad:..... Last week I was doing so well:T that I decided we could treat ourselves to fish and chips for tea (£19.50) completely forgetting that before I started this challenge in January I had committed to doing a dinner party (7 courses and 5 different wines for 9 foodies:eek:) this week. I am going to go seriously over if I'm not careful! Fortunately I have most of the wine on the shelf.

We're well stocked and the freezer inventory looks healthy but now have only £17 to feed 5 adults for the rest of February. (13 days to go :mad:) Lets hope there's plenty of left overs from the dinner party :rotfl::rotfl:

Will keep you posted on progress.... hope you are doing better than me.:beer:

x
K

K I think I need a lie down at the thought of doing that dinner party. Good luck x

I have spent some time doing a shopping list for tomorrow. It will take me to the end of the month other than milk. It is very long (44 items) and is going to be quite expensive as I have decided to really treat OH this weekend. He has been working so hard and has been away from home all week. I am going to do him his favourite roast beef and yorkshires on Sunday.
Tonight I am enjoying a mug of hot chocolate - PG gave me the idea. Best wishes and good luck everyone.

Florenceem

trulymadlyhannah wrote: »

I laughed so much DH asked what was up

First time I've hunted for reduced stuff as I don't seem to see any during the day, walked into town especially to look, glad I found some so I didn't waste my 2 mile walk!

Found:
2 x 1.5kg Stew packs for 22p each
1 x Pack of 4 Jumbo Sausage rolls - 29p
1 x Pack of 2 meat and potato pies - 29p
1 x Pack of 2 Large Cornish Pasties -29p
2 x Snack pot mini cocktail sausages 0.09p

I also bought so carrots and onions on the 30p offer, 3 types of cheese and some valentines cake and ice cube moulds (arn't sure they are essential, DH says we should keep them, but I might take them back yet! Spent £11.39.

Had 13 NSD days this month thanks to the snow and really proud to say for the first time ever I am freezing extra potions, and making things stretch. Normally a jar of korma sauce for 4 would be eaten in one sitting, but my 1yo and 2yo hardly any so me and DH would eat the rest! Now I water it down slightly and eat the next day, there is still plenty and it feels like we have "free" meal.

Good luck with your budgets

I use half a jar of curry sauce and add some water plus curry powder. Then I freeze the rest - in the jar. I get six portions of curry out of a jar.

Florenceem

For dinner today we had roast potatoes/roast parsnip/carrots/sprouts/onion with cheese and onion pastie. I made the pastie - cheap and I like to know what is in my food.
Very filling meal - when I was feeding hungry boys with hollow legs - used to fill them up with a meal like this followed by a pudding. Now Mr F and I are full just with dinner - sign of old age.

Fiasco55

Spent £9.37 today in M & $. Picked up 20p Brandy Sauce (Aug 12) and 20p mincemeat (Sept 12). Also got milk, lunch, strawberrys and a few other things for tonight.

For dinner I ended up with pork chops with creme fraiche, onion, garlic and celery with baked potatos. Very tasty and mum liked it too.

Lovethenight

elsiepac wrote: »

Hi all

Just a small spend of 77p to report today - this was for milk, YS carrots, YS sugar snap peas and YS baby corn. I used £2.50 from my N3ctar card - it was in Mr S. Not the cheapest veg in the world, but I did go there specifically for whoopsies and the corn and snap peas I see as treat veg, (I paid 99p and 69p today), so it was very appreciated! Plus, none of it was going over at all, really fresh!

Well done on so many bargains! Just one silly question though - please can you tell me what YS stands for? (Sorry - still a bit new to all the abbreviations:))
Thanks!

DundeeDoll

Lovethenight wrote: »

Please can you tell me what YS stands for? (Sorry - still a bit new to all the abbreviations:))
Thanks!

Is there a list of acronyms anywhere? Would be very useful for us neewbies (although i 'joined' 2008 only started using site last month)

JayJay14

YS - yellow sticker, whoopsied, reduced to clear.

Lovethenight

JayJay14 wrote: »

YS - yellow sticker, whoopsied, reduced to clear.

Ahh- :doh:Of course! Sounds obvious now!!:o

[Deleted User]

Well I went to Asd*s and Morris*ns yesterday and I'm all shopped out for the rest of the month:D I think I was pleased with Asd*s as I rarely shop there as its about 5 miles from where I live.Had some good bargains I think some of which I passed onto DD. I really don't need two bottles of golden syrup, so she had one for the boys,I also managed to get her some potato's and biscuits for the tribe (the boys seem to go through a packet of biscuits in 5 minutes flat.I thought the 4 sauce mixes for a quid were good value as well There were some Campbells soup on offer at 50p a litre which I may use in the SC as a sauce/stock Bought DD a kilo of fusselli pasta for a pound as well Butter for her was £2.00 for half a kilo which is cheaper than she normally pays.I treated us to some stuff they were promoting which was pancakes,fat free natural yoghurt pineapple bits and a smal bottle of squeezy honey as I tried the mix from the stand and it was delicious.The yoghurt was really nice so I bought a big pot of it for a pound..

Morri*ons was not too bad, and I managed to get three boxes of the Yorkshire tea 1.99 a box One for DD one for me and one to put away in our Holiday box for August. I buy odds and ends over the year so when we go away to our S/Catering holiday cottage I have quite a lot of basic stuff to take with us .It soon mounts up and helps to cut down on buying stuff when we get there.I thought that their carrots ,swede and red onions were good value and also they have lasagne sheets at half price.They seem to reduce stuff quite early and the reductions are worth having.
Morris*ns is also a shop I don't often go to as its a bit out of the way from me But I was pleased I went there as I think for what I paid out all told yesterday I bagged a good few bargains.I spent altogether £28. 12 which for me is quite a bit but I did manage to get a good few bits for DD to help her out, and last night I worked out that I shouldn't need to buy anything else for the rest of the month.Oh, I did get DD a nice piece of beef for this Sunday's dinner at Morris*ns at just over £9.00 and it looks very lean and will easily feed 7 of us next Sunday.It was interesting trying out a couple of different supermarkets for a change and I was suprised at how some of the stuff was a lot more reasonable than Tesc*s or Sainsbobs (even though I had a 5 mile round trip )I still think I saved some cash with my buys. All in all a good shopping experience, and I was satified with my bargain buys.I thin I may do this again mid-month as I bagged a good few bits for DD plus a few bargains for myself.The only thing I didn't like in the Asd* shop was it was blooming freezing, and when I asked one of the assistants she said that management are always turning the heating down or often off to save money, so next time I go I will 'layer up' a bit.OK so there were no nectar or Tesc* points but at the end of the day looking through the bills I think I have saved well over £15.00 buy just going to two different shops .I will still use the other shops but will have a be more selective with my shopping .I like Aldi's for their veggie bargains and their super six is well worth looking at.Lidl is too far from where I live and so I havn't used them at all. Interesting experiment though