March 2012 Grocery Challenge

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

Thanks Rumblytum for the casserole ideas :T - I will try it tomorrow.

DundeeDoll

Frugalina, those smokies look fab. Which farmers' market?
Didn't go to Lidl today so £20 intact. Down to last 3 slices of brown bread but found some bread flour in the cupboard of requirements. Still have 8 pts milk left so would be nice to hold of SM till say Tuesday. Got MC bill today. If you take out DD2's accommodation (uni, we pay directly on our MC and get the points) was about £500 so very happy about that. Hoping for even lower next month (and no accommodation bill hooray)

Barbeduk

Yey, Saturday evening and England and Wales have both won! Must be time for a drink!:beer:

Second attempt at this post, just managed to delete it.:mad:

Popped to 1id1 for their w/e offers and spent £20.54 but bought: 2 packs of pork, 3 packs of quorn, bacon, yogurt, 4 pints milk, 20 eggs, large sweet potato, cucumber, carrots, jam, choco rice, ice creams, 7up, 3 bars chocolate and tom ketchup. There may have been a small element of pester power there!:o

Then dh wanted snacks and beer for watching rugby so big thanks to the person who posted a couple of pages back about making hummous. Got the jar of tahini out of back of fridge (last used dec), tin of chick peas, some garlic, and sun dried toms with some of their oil, whizzed it all up and it was yum. All washed down with some spiced cider also bought before xmas!

Tea for kids was hotdogs and we're having quorn and spinach curry later.

Have a lovely sunday everyone.:D

rising_from_the_ashes

Barbeduk wrote: »

Yey, Saturday evening and England and Wales have both won! Must be time for a drink!:beer:

mmmmm least said about it the better ........ think there might be some drinking up here too but it's prob more of the "drowning our sorrows" type:(

meg72

tessie_bear wrote: »

hi...we are off to lidl in a bit to get some carots to make a cake with.....might get some meat if there is anything left...going to make some scones later for a mothers day cream tea...will try and get some clotted cream but im not sure if they sell it
planning a hm kfc chicken lunch tomorrow so need to get the chicken out of the freezer....also need to buy something for puddings next week....quite fancy making a crumble so need to get some fruit probably apples

have a nice weekend
tess

Like the idea of your Mothers day cream tea,Tess.
Re the crumble,I really fancied one last week, but I amusing up and didnt want to go and buy any fruit. I used an OD tin of rhubarb and OD tin of peaches and it was really nice.

cat_smith

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

mmmmm least said about it the better ........ think there might be some drinking up here too but it's prob more of the "drowning our sorrows" type:(

Yeah. Wish I could. Think I'll fly instead

FrugalLina

cat_smith wrote: »

Frugalina. Where is this market? All our 'Farmers Market' stuff is vacuum packed and not very inspiring.

and DundeeDoll

It was here in Fife and only a very small market. To be honest, it was a bit like those Continental Fairs they have in the larger towns, I recognised some of the stalls. There was some lovely produce, but some of it was very expensive. Arran cheeses, flavoured oils (£7/£8 a bottle!) beautiful jams and chutneys, some lovely baking, huuuge olives, some sweets and a chocolates. All well outside my price range. There were some meat stalls, but I don't eat meat, so I didn't check prices. The vegetables were great though (and the smokies)!

I do wonder it it was good value really because, in order to get a few vegetables (saving approx £2) I spent £3.35 on the bus, paid for a Big Issue £3.00 and the smokie was £2.80. Hmmmm.... not really good OS shopping!

DundeeDoll

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

mmmmm least said about it the better ........ think there might be some drinking up here too but it's prob more of the "drowning our sorrows" type:(

Wooden spoon noooooooooooo

ModestyB

Spent £5.24 in HB, £16.90 in Mr S and £32.96 in Ald! Total spend of £55.10 added to budget. I never seem to see any bargains lately. Probably cos I'm not looking for stuff I don't need.

elsiepac

Hi everyone

Not had any GC spends for a few days, however yesterday I STUPIDLY spent £6 in M&S on ready meal for tea for a treat and a couple of bits that I really could have done without. Gah.

Today I bought 3x milk substitutes as they are on offer in Mr T for £1. I got one Kara, the coconut based one, and 2 Alpro, the almond based one. They are both MUCH nicer than real milk which I've never been a fan of anyway. I haven't bought as much because the coconut one is REALLY creamy and I don't like my coffer too creamy, so I'm still on the first carton I bought on the 11 March! So I think these 3 will see me through now hopefully. One of them is Week 4 budget and the other 2 are Week 5. The M&S spend was Week 4 so I only have a couple of squid left for this week. However, am trying to live from cupboards/freezer as much as poss.

Lunch tomorrow for Mother's day - I'm cooking for her and dad. I have some nice M&S olives to nibble that were £1.99. I am making a pesto, pea and green bean risotto for lunch, all storecupboard, and I'll put in the last of my frozen whoopsied roast chicken which is 200g to bulk it out a but more. I bought a lovely bake at home olive ciabatta for £1 to go with it. And then for pudding I have a (bought, sorry!) pineapple updside down cake. OK, Just realised custard would have been good with that. Oh well, too late! That was expensive, £2.50 but I have nothing except a bit of flour in, so would have cost more for ingredients to make similar I reckon. I also got a bottle of Cava for £7. Most of this was from other budgets I had set aside, although also spent more than intended.

Sigh, I have very littlemoney for the rest of the month till payday on 30th and that's the day I fly to SA anyway! :rotfl:

Still, I have 4x HM meals in the freezer, beans galore, pasta galore, and rice galore and 5 cartons passata plus chopped toms in the cupboards and frozen veggies and 18 bread rolls in the freezer. So apart from a bit of fresh fruit and veg I will be fine grocery wise. Just have no spending money left! :rotfl:

LC

Mar GC: £61.30/£70
Week 1: £14.47/£9 <-- over by £5.47 :eek:
Week 2: £8.40/£9
Week 3: £6.60/£9
Week 4: £7/£9
Week 5: £2/£9
Stores: £22.83/£25