Grocery Challenge - February 2012

Mortmain_Dreamer

I thought I had posted this morning, but can't find it (computer gremlins!). Apologies if I'm repeating myself, but I would love to join. My budget for February is £200 to feed two adults, a boy who eats more than his dad and a toddler. I've already spent a lot of this, as did a big shop yesterday so will tally up. Getting fruit and basic veg delivered tomorrow as we've no markets or greengrocers near our tiny village. So that just leaves us with milk to buy for the rest of the month, fingers crossed we make it as we have three birthdays to pay for in February!

Fiasco55

Just had dinner of yellow stickered M & $ quick fry steak with onions on a half priced baguette. I thought I still had an onion in the fridge but no...so 69p for XL pack out of Lidl.

elsiepac

Hi everyone :hello:

I did my "stock" shop for the month today, plus my Week 1 shop:

Stock shop came to £24.24/£25 (tons of value tinned toms and passata as run out! Also, tins of beans, bread mixes, coffee, cheese, balsamic vinegar and harissa [expensive but I LOVE it and a little goes a long way).

WEEK 1 shop came to £11.89/£14 (basically fresh fruit and veg, snack bars, reduced rolls, milk)

Total so far comes to £36.13/£98

Off to update sig as such and then make myself some wedges to go with my Lentil Ragu (instead of a jacket...thanks for inspiration there Florenceem!

Thanks also to MissOrganised1972 and freyasmum for the chicken satay recipe and the braided lemon bread recipe. The lemon bread looks gorgeous, just not sure if I'll ever make it!!! The chicken satay I'm already considering how I can change around my meal plan this month to accomodate it!!!

Oh, and helen jelly, like the others, I am more than happy to become a number...:p

Take care all and thanks for getting me addicted to yet another thread on MSE! May post pic of tea later! Ooo, just remembered a bit of broccoli festering in the fridge, hope it'll still be ok, that can be my veg for tonight! :j

LC

Crowdpleaser

Have a spend of £9.85 to declare. DP had to buy milk from the corner shop so that was £1.29. I nipped to Mr T on way home for a packet mix for DP to make a sausage casserole tomorrow (he'd never make it otherwise lol). Also picked up 2 tins of condensed soup to use in a pie tomorrow, 2 tins for a pound so all good. Also bought some nture valley bars, as I suffer with ibs these are the only cereal bars I can tolerate and they are usually £2.39 a box, Mr T got them 2 for £3 so a good buy for me, got 4 boxes. Oh and a creme egg fell into the basket as well!

Happy to be a number too!

xxx

sistercas

helen_jelly wrote: »

Budgets noted to post 195 - I'll update the front page later

I was having a little think [DH says thats always dangerous lol] I have to write down everyones name and then their budget and then go to my first post and change/add everyone on, the writing part takes ages!! so I was trying to think how to make it quicker/easier and the only way I could come up with is to give everyone a number instead of your name i.e. Helenjelly £250 would change to 75 £250 - saves lots of time when I'm writing loads of names down - can anyone see any probs with that or is it a carp way of doing it or if you prefer to keep your name then that is soo ok with me

Thanks

Helen x

what about having a list of willing participantsfor the GC without the budget listed? we could record our own personal budgets in our sigs (alot of us do anyway) and update throughout the month . we could still post how we are doing and what bargains / recipes we have found just as we do now.
that would save Helen alot of work as she could copy and paste the list in then just tweak the list to add new people and we could see in peoples sigs how they are doing with the challenge

JIL

Sister Cas I agree with you, I was thinking along the same lines myself.
I do look at the front pages but mostly for the recipes which the people who keep this thread going do a brilliant job of keeping up to date. It must be hard when some of us are weekly, some monthly, some yearly and we change amounts and frequency.
I do not mind being a number but what the best outcome for all would be is the easiest way for HelenJelly who must spend a lot of time and effort keeping up especially as more new people join and others leave.

Mumtothree3

Just had my shopping delivered, I spent £181.68, for three and adults and three kids. Aiming for that to last us two weeks.

So as this is my first month, I'll aim for £350 for the whole of Feb

tigerfeet2006

rumblytum wrote: »

:T Thank you x

I too suffer from severe depresion, that is up and down day in day out. I try to take each day as it comes. What I do do is plan 7 main meals a week. I don't assign particular meals to a day but choose as I go depending on how I am feeling. I usually try to have 3 to 4 slow cooker meals on the plan as I find them excellent if I am having a bad day. I just bung everything in and let it get on with it so I don't have to think about it later in the day. I sometimes even prepare it in the dish the night before and then just pop it in the fridge and then it just goes into the SC the next day.

I usually also do a simple meal like an omlette, baked potato, HM soup and bread for one day a week.

When I do a meal I always try and make extra to put a portion in the freezer so if I am really having a bad day then I can hoik some HM ready meals out of the freezer to micro for dinner.

I am starting to add 1 meal a week that is new to us so I can expand my repatoire. What I do is I choose a recipe that I think everyone will like and I write out the ingrediants in the order that they need to go into the recipe and then I read and reread the method and then write it out so I can understand it and it makes sense to me. I have a folder that I have all my recipes in and I can go through them each week and pull out the ones I want to use for the week and I can play around with them until I have mix I want.

Souk08

NickJW wrote: »

On that note - does anyone know if Lidl or Aldi have any nice instant Colombian blend coffees which are cheaper than £3 a jar? Contemplating a visit to one of them if there are to try them out.

Nic, L1dl have Colombian instant for £1.99 a jar. Hope this helps.

Did a good stock up shop at L1dl today so grocery spend is now up to £26.90. Got plenty in though and away for the week from Monday.

Kitchenbunny

Right, hopefully I can have an NSD tomorrow! Reporting in with another spend - £6.14 today on stuff for sandwiches and enough orange juice to last DH a couple of weeks. We went to Mum's tonight for tea and she cooked for us so I got a night off cooking. Always nice, and it was good to see her. Tomorrow's sandwiches are filled with last night's curry mixed with mayo to make a similar version to coronation chicken with some lettuce and if I get up in time tomorrow I'll quickly knock up some popcorn to go with me.

I want to say thank you to you guys - everyone here - the support and welcome has been wonderful and gives me strength to carry on saving money on groceries! Thank you!

KB xx