April 2012 Grocery Challenge

MunniMuncha

meg72 wrote: »

Thank you for that i will ask my daughter to get me some if she is going.Wonder why fresh is so expensive it grows so easy, when mine gets going i usually give loads away.I think its the same with runner beans, they grow like weeds but the price is always high in the SM.

I love my home grown as its free, the Rhubarb, raspberrys strawberyys and gooseberrys came from a disused allotment years ago and my beans are from seeds given to me and I save seeds every year.It gives me a real buzz to think that I have free food.

Oooh wish I lived near you Meg, I am as hopeless at growing stuff as I am at cooking it:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

meg72

thriftwizard wrote: »

Reporting a miserable failure for March; overspent by about £100 in the end, having drastically "misunderestimated" the lodger's hollow legs! Upping my estimate/target for April as I have two more mouths to feed for half of it (actually 5 more for several days) so will go for £450 (that's for 7 most of the time, 9 some of it & 12 for a few days) before trying to whittle it back down again in May.

Wow thats a lot of mouths to feed you must feel you are running a Cafe sometimes,but i bet its fun.

jumblejack

Another OS day, meal wise.

We had home made pizza for dinner (going to try Jamie Oliver recipe as suggested a few pages back next time though!) and home made (whoopsy) veggie soup for tea. Kids a bit peckish again as soup leaves you empty after a couple of hours so now they are tucking into a stir fry (7p whoopsy last night in the groceries section) which is fortified with 1p Harry hill cashews as I've added no meat, whoopsied lemon juiced and sesame oil etc. Cost me pennies for the entire day's meals.

Can't believe we've had no meat ALL WEEK!!! Yay me:T

Got some whopping chops defrosting for tomorrow though now (whoopsied of course!). Will use up last of whoopsied broccoli, spring greens & carrots along with the last of my sprouting spuds which will be roasted into loveliness. Looking forward to it now though.

Will use up the three (remainder of the whoopsied ones last night) Bramley apples that are left in the fruit bowl with a few new stems of rhubarb in a crumble too for tomorrow's pud!!!!

Mmmmmm.

Dearest thing tomorrow will be the chops which were an expensive whoopsy at £2:eek:

Edit:

Get well soon to those feeling poorly

Gorgeestwo

Small spend of £1.95 at the local shop today on some bread and juice, have a feeling the next couple of weeks are going to be lots of (hopefully) smaller spends, as with the kids off and DH off for about 10 days, I'm not going to be any good at sticking to any sort of meal plan :mad:
Just once it would be nice to have an uneventful month where I could actually stick to a plan :rotfl:

meg72

MunniMuncha wrote: »

Oooh wish I lived near you Meg, I am as hopeless at growing stuff as I am at cooking it:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Aww Bless wish you did too, I would love to find an OS friend and shopping Pal,my friend died last year and I do miss sharing.

I have been grieving for a couple of years, first for my Son and then my friend and havent been going out much. I decided it was time I made an effort to get out more and maybe find a friend.I went to a
Pensioners Tea and chat afternoon at my local church and Oh Dear
I came away quite depressed and I must admit annoyed at all the wingeing and moaning I met. These were ladies of the same age as me and some on a lot more pension,I am on basic and pension credit but to hear the moans of cant afford this and that just left me gobsmacked. One lady told me she could not spend less than
£60 a week for food, just her,and could not afford to put her heating on. With the heating allowance, the extra £120 from the power companies and two cold weather payments , it pays for at least half my heating for the whole year.

I wont be going back there again, they could do so much to help themselves but seem to relish moaning and its just not for me. I am
really hoping someone will arrange an Old Style Meet for Telford so I can possibly meet like minded people.

craigywv

meg72 wrote: »

Aww Bless wish you did too, I would love to find an OS friend and shopping Pal,my friend died last year and I do miss sharing.

I have been grieving for a couple of years, first for my Son and then my friend and havent been going out much. I decided it was time I made an effort to get out more and maybe find a friend.I went to a
Pensioners Tea and chat afternoon at my local church and Oh Dear
I came away quite depressed and I must admit annoyed at all the wingeing and moaning I met. These were ladies of the same age as me and some on a lot more pension,I am on basic and pension credit but to hear the moans of cant afford this and that just left me gobsmacked. One lady told me she could not spend less than
£60 a week for food, just her,and could not afford to put her heating on. With the heating allowance, the extra £120 from the power companies and two cold weather payments , it pays for at least half my heating for the whole year.

I wont be going back there again, they could do so much to help themselves but seem to relish moaning and its just not for me. I am
really hoping someone will arrange an Old Style Meet for Telford so I can possibly meet like minded people.

I think your great!!! my granny used to say the same thing bless her she passed away in 2000, she went to bingo once a week and budgeted to do this,. she said the ones in bingo complained they cant survive on the money they got a week but most of them went to bingo 6 nights a week twice a day!!!my granny had 6 kids and over 30 grand kids and we all got easter eggs , christmas presents etc she made sure we all got.i think a lot of people expect to live for nothing. i personally know a woman between her and her husband, they have never worked a day in their lives well legally anyway, they both get top rate for dla(drink related) and are on every benifit known to man, but you see according to them there ENTITELED to that!!! i hate that word.so i think its people like yourself that make a refreshing change to hear that it takes budgeting to get through life not ENTITLEMENT , sorry i shall get off my soap box now after that rant.

MunniMuncha

meg72 wrote: »

Aww Bless wish you did too, I would love to find an OS friend and shopping Pal,my friend died last year and I do miss sharing.

I have been grieving for a couple of years, first for my Son and then my friend and havent been going out much. I decided it was time I made an effort to get out more and maybe find a friend.I went to a
Pensioners Tea and chat afternoon at my local church and Oh Dear
I came away quite depressed and I must admit annoyed at all the wingeing and moaning I met. These were ladies of the same age as me and some on a lot more pension,I am on basic and pension credit but to hear the moans of cant afford this and that just left me gobsmacked. One lady told me she could not spend less than
£60 a week for food, just her,and could not afford to put her heating on. With the heating allowance, the extra £120 from the power companies and two cold weather payments , it pays for at least half my heating for the whole year.

I wont be going back there again, they could do so much to help themselves but seem to relish moaning and its just not for me. I am
really hoping someone will arrange an Old Style Meet for Telford so I can possibly meet like minded people.

Aw Meg so sorry to hear about your recent bereavements - it must be really hard for you. Sending you loads of ((hugs))

I do wonder when I am shopping whether people are MSE'ers or not. Maybe we should all wear a badge saying something like

'I AM AN MSE'er - HOW MUCH HAVE YOU SAVED TODAY?' :rotfl::rotfl:

Maybe you could be arrange an Old Style Meet in Telford - not sure how you go about it though, but could be something to think about.

Take care Meg

S-I_am

cleggie wrote: »

Does anyone have any ideas what i can substitute white wine with in a recipe??

Cookery books recommend vermouth as a substitution. I haven't tried it, instead I tend to use extra stock. Also, as others have said, if we have any white wine that is starting to oxidise, then I freeze it and use that in risotto.

As a substitution for red wine - I'm a white wine girl so we hardly ever had a bottle of red open - I use Marsala.

Hope that helps.

I've had a busy few days spending money It's all essential stuff but as we all know these things have a habit of mounting up. So that's £44.70 already.
Sx

MunniMuncha

Just had an email from AF and delivery is £1.99 on all orders over £30 and up to 50kg - need to order by 5th April, so not much time to get your orders in.

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

Meg72 - I think some people just like moaning - it's like a hobby to them :rotfl:. But like you, I find it really annoying when there are so many people worse off. Hopefully you will soon meet some other people - are there any clubs you could join near you?

I hope those who are not well feel better soon :grouphug:.

This week I've spent £81.22 for the 4 of us, slightly over budget which shows what happens when I can't get to Lid! :eek:. Going there tomorrow though so hopefully next week's spend will be lower .