Grocery Challenge - February 2012

adysmum

Spent £18.79 in Asd@ today, but £15 was on a new thick duvet for my eldest and a warm aleepsuit for my youngest so not technically grocery but will leave it just now. Quite proud of myself actually as I only bought milk, bread and some sweets for the boys for after lunch as a treat. A couple of months ago I would have picked up loads - thanx everyone!

Have updated sig so had allocated £75pw but only at £45 with nothing else to get.

Helen quite happy to just have my budget on my signature, you can remove me from the front hon - you do quite enough already! x

rumblytum

tigerfeet2006 wrote: »

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.

Hi Tigerfeet,

I just have to say:

What an incredibly helpful post. Thank you so very much. :T

I have never thought of adapting my meal planning to suit what I might (or might not) be able to manage - stupid as that sounds! I have meal planned over and over again, and tried to force myself to conform, but end up wasting food when I can't manage.

I was given a chest freezer recently, so spent some of the weekend batch cooking a whole load of stuff, and doubled up quantities when I made a sausage and bean cass last night. I'm so glad I'm going in the right direction, and will pay much more attention to what I'm asking of myself when I do my meal plan at the weekend.

I'm so glad I joined this thread.

Tonight I collect my daughter from school, and have a 45 minute break with her in the car, when we eat our 'tea', and then take her on elsewhere, and we don't get home until 9.30. I usually buy a ready made supermarket salad for us both, which I realise is expensive and silly. I can see that I can make my own salads, and prepare the night before and leave it in my car all day (wouldn't want to lug it up to London and back), but does anyone have any other suggestions? It needs to be reasonably sized - it's our main meal of the day, although cold.

rumbly x

TheThriftyScrumpers

Hi All

Please could TheThriftyScrumpers budget for £350 during Feb 12. Many many thanks to all who run the thread.

Helen - I don't mind being a number or not having a list at the start of the thread. Whatever is easiest for you and saves you the most work

I think I may be reaching the lowest amount I can spend each month for our family. I did really well with whoopsies during Jan but I won't always have that so I think I will stick at £350 for a while and see how it pans out. This is a saving of at least £100 per month in comparison to pre gc days so I am quite happy.

Dragoncry

Another NSD for me here.

Helen what about giving a number to everyone and keeping their name next to it on the front page, then we can each keep up with running totals in our sigs? This would be a bit of work at first to change over but after that you would just need to give new people a number and add their names to the list.

Anyway have a good day and keep warm and thanks to the people keeping this running :A
DC xx

franby64

Hi - sorry I'm late!

Thank you to Zippy, Rosieben and Helenjelly for running the thread and please could you put me down for £380 for Feb.

Good luck!

ragz_2

After coming under by nearly £6 for January I am confident I can manage under £400 for February too please. Spent £2 odd in village shop yesterday on pop and crisps for DD's party. NSD today. Going away for the weekend so none of that will be counted so NSD grocery wise for the next few days I expect.

sistercas

just back from a HUGE shop at a local cheaper store . spent £94.30 but hopefully got enough meat,drinks ,puds, soups for the month and loads of fruit and yoghurts for the week
also spent £7.90 in HB
so 27% of my feb budget spent

i still need milk , eggs, bread, cat food and guinea pig feed which i will pick up tomorrow

OS_QS

Well, I stupidly nipped into M&S on the way home from work and spent £6.68 on a block of cheddar and 2x cottage cheese.

Whats worse - I didnt think anything of it, until I remembered about logging it in here today. Now I'm thinking - did I really need cheese?!
Once I get into the mindset of thinking that thought BEFORE I spend the money, then we're onto a winner

Especially when it now leaves me with £113.32 for the month.

Freezer suprise (with cheese!) for dinner tonight

Coxy11

Hi folks,

Small spend in MrT today on milk, fruit, bread and kitkats. Was after some of the 27 pack of penguins for £2 but the gannits had got there before me and the whole shelf was empty (you know who you are.........)

Hopefully won't need to get anything tomorrow, then will shop on Saturday for some party nibbles for DS1's birthday on Sunday.

Keep up the good work people

MissOrganised1972

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

Fine by me