March 2012 Grocery Challenge

Kylieminoag

Good morning challengers!

Hope you have a fabulous day and something nice happens for everyone.

Toasted fruit teacake (mould carefully removed!) with whoopsied Brie toasted on top for breakfast this morning - what decadence!

Big hugs for those who would like one.
x
K

elsiepac

JIL wrote: »

I am so impressed at their 49p salad bags.

I bought my first 49p bag of salad from there on Weds - it will be used in my sandwiches today, tomorrow and however long it lasts! I was so pleased to find it (nearly missed it!) so I hope it's good! I'm still an A1d! n00b!

JIL wrote: »

I had some yoghurt for afters (another ald1 favourite, the bio one with strawberries and whole grain @ 89p)

I also bought my first ever yoghurts from there on Weds, but I wanted low fat ones, so I got a pack of 6 low fat ones for 89p. I haven't tried one yet but I hope they are good! Have you tried them? As a comparison, WW yoghurts are £1.50 for 4 in Mr T and Act1v!a are £1.84 for 4! These are my two faves. So if the A1d! ones are good it will mean a good big saving for me when I get roughly 1 pack a week.

LC

Barbeduk

kylieminoag, you'd fit in well in this house!!:rotfl:

Smallest child is off sick from school so it's a bonus day at home for me :T. Going to have a massive clean and do some baking. Have to go to sm when dh comes home from work but only for a few bits and as it'll be so busy I definitely won't want to browse.

Have a good weekend everyone.:D

ragz_2

Yesterday spent £13.52 in co-op in the morning, £9.86 in the evening (reduced meats mostly) and £3.44 in waitrose (mostly reduced, very good!).

I am more than happy to keep track of my own total and not be on the list, I haven't really been paying attention to what's going on though so I am aiming for £400 this month again please.

cashewy

Hi all,

A day late but can I join in too? Need to cut grocery spend and keep control of our budget as on less money due to OH retirement (bless im, he's earned it )

Inspired while lurking on here I had a look at our Feb receipts and we'd spent £197.25 including £22.38 in a few luncheon vouchers and three Mr S £5 coupons as they tried to lure us back. When they stopped we went back to our more usual routine of Aldy or Liddle first and the rest at Azda or Mr M.

Will try for £180 for March, got a few more LVs could use if it gets tough near the end - this is for us two and includes pet food, toiletries, household stuff and the odd bottle of vino

Happy to update in sig, good luck everyone.

elsiepac

Hello all,

Having a minor panic attack as I commited the cardinal sin yesterday of nipping to the shop on the way back from my friends house to get some decaf coffee, and got a load of whoopsied meat (really good stuff too, it was all things for sandwiches, three different types of sliced ham and 1 lovely lot of corned beef from the deli. None of them expire till 3 Mar, so have kept the corned beef out for s/w for lunch today and tomorrow and the rest are already frozen). They were all either Jamie Ol!ver or Tesco Finest and all under half price. However, spent £5.05 just on them alone! Although there are about 10-12 portions to be fair!

Also got some HD ice cream on offer for after tea and the coffee (thankfully Mr T own brand decaf was on offer at £1.50!), also some flavoured water which I'd planned to get 45p, and some unplanned fresh H0v!s granary bread 55p (perfect for my sarnies, then I'll make my own again. Checked and mum has a dough hook thing as some lkind person mentioned before, so I'll try that next time!). Total spend in Mr T of £9.19, split between stores and Week 1 budget.

then stopped in A1d! as it's 2 mins down the road and I drive right by it. Wanted something easy for tea as was shattered yesterday. £7.73 later... :eek: Got the lemon sole goujons, lime and chilli flavour. NOT impressed with those at all, very watery and tasted a bit weird. Also Garlic mushrooms 85p - these were YUMMY YUM YUM IN MY TUM!!! :rotfl: so that was my junk food tea. Also got some different types of chocolate in there. Big mistake. Got those choceur wafers, the dark choc ones - £1.49 for pack of 10, under 100 cals per bar. OH. MY. GOODNESS. Soooooooooo DELICIOUS. I've found a new addiction.

again, spends in A1d! were split between Week 1 and stores.

So a further Week 1 spend of £9.07, taking me hugely over budget by £5.47.

and a further Stores/Stock shop of £7.85 - sailing close to the wind, but still should come in slightly under by month end.

Annoyingly I was set to come in at over £10 UNDER budget this month, now it's looking like 49p OVER budget. I will NOT let this happen! :rotfl:

I'm going to make another coffee and rejig the old meal plan!

I'm so annoyed with myself. NEVER SHOP WHEN YOU'RE TIRED AND HUNGRY AND NEXT TO A CHIP SHOP THAT YOU'RE TRYING DESPERATELY NOT TO GO INTO!!!:o:o:o

Mar GC: £37.30/£70
Week 1: £14.47/£9 <-- over by £5.47 :eek:
Week 2: £0/£9
Week 3: £0/£9
Week 4: £0/£9
Week 5: £0/£9
Stores: £22.83/£25

rumblytum

Thanks for such a lovely post kylieminoag:beer:

Well, I didn't really record everything properly in Feb, so can't post a final total, but I suspect I came in under, and it's inspired me to try harder!

This is my aim for March: £260.00, which is for two adults, one teenager, and includes food, cleaning stuff, take aways, food snacks when out, toiletries and alcohol. It may not be doable, but I won't know until I start recording everything!

I always take far too long doing my menu plan - looking at recipes is a great pleasure, as is cooking, but I do get side tracked, and then fed up with how long it's taking. So, I've done a sort of skeleton plan as follows to speed things up a bit:


Mon: cereal/porridge, soup, leftovers
Tue: cereal/porridge, sandwich, vege
Wed: cereal/porridge, salad, chicken, make snacks
Thu: cereal/porridge, salad, pasta
Fri: cereal/porridge, sandwich, pork, make smoothie
Sat: pancakes/grill, wrap, bean/lentil, make cake/flapjack
Sun: toast, make soup, beef/batch, make biscuits/dessert

We shall see how it goes!

So today, I've defrosted some sausages for saus/beans/mash tonight, and will make a smoothie from some frozen strawbs

Have a good day

rumbly x

tessie_bear

hi....i got a bag of the 49p salad in aldi and thought it was very nice...very crisp and fresh will be buying again...also a bit random but lidl mushy peas are very good i noticed them on the shelf as the had a % off 17p i think and was surprised how good they were...as good as our chippy any way

just finished making dh birthday cake which looks ok...peeled some veg for tea and about to put the marinade on the chicken we are having....got washing up to the kitchen window so need to get on with that

have a great weekend
tess

Dragoncry

Morning all

Second NSD for me. I seriously have to go through my freezers (have 2) and sort out a meal plan for the next few weeks. They are over flowing and it will keep me from spending too much. I am going to get some SC bags made ready to just throw in when time is limited (everything ready for 1 meal in the SC in one bag and frozen).

Also will be baking in the next few days ...stuff for packed lunches for my 2 daughters and OH for work. Includes bread in the BM. So will be very busy this weekend

Must not spend anymore money in Appr*ved F**ds ....I think I am addicted and have no more storage room !:o

Have a lovely day
DC xx

quintwins

hi all, i've already spent about £35 of my budget a day early, i did then gave £1 of stuff to my mum, got lots of lovely reduced things and used £13 of vouchers so really pretty good, my budget for this month is £400 i'm hoping to come in well under that.

problem is we're doing slimming world and i can't decide what to do for lunch we're doing red and green days and i want pork chops for dinner so it's green day i have lifted ready made spag bol from the freezer for lunch but no idea what to put with it i only have white pasta, i have wholemeal pitta bread but it has more syns than my fav crisps lol.

dinner is chinese pork chops (yellow stickered to 52p) with salad, kids are having sausage rolls and spagetti as thats what they want.