May 2012 Grocery Challenge

Long_tall_sally

Declaring at £506 for May. I had thought it was going really well but with hindsight I can see that it clearly wasn't!

sb88_2

Just totaled up my grocery spend for May, I didn't set a budget this month, I came in a bit late, but I've set a budget for June at £130.

May Grocery Spend : £226?!?!!? I am not even sure how I managed that

June starts for me on the 1st. I really need some luck, and some help! I'm hoping for a drastic reduction. Really need to get back to my OS ways.

jumblejack

What a lovely afternoon.

Seeds planted but not yet watered as there is full sun on all the raised beds. Will do so after dusk.

I'm VERY muddy n overheated now.

Put pretty much every seed in that I could from my seed collection. I know it's hit n miss but better that than nothing

I saw a few ladybirds and a lot of bees which made me very happy (I am easily pleased!).

I'm also overjoyed to find that my currants (I don't know what kind they are yet as I planted last year and forgotten what they are!) and mt raspberries are pretty out of control. What hardy tough plants!! :j. I have never watered them and the beds at the bottom of the garden are like a jungle. Loads of bees on the raspberry blossoms so I'm really thrilled.

I haven't ventured into the bottom of the garden so I was very surprised
I bought a few more sticks of rhubarb in.
My parsley is wild n thriving too. Will have to google ways of using it up as I hardly use it!
The cultivated strawberries are struggling through lack of watering so I must keep on top of that. Potatoes look like they are doing ok. (a lot are from old potatoes that were left in!)
Fruit trees are abysmal. Hardly any blossom this spring. I cut them all back HARD last year as they are all dwarf varieties that were taking over the top of the garden. Oh well.
The alpine strawberries? Are doing terrifically well though. They were from a couple of plants that I brought home on a woodland walk. They are the size of your little fingernail if not smaller and taste slightly like vanilla (in my opinion). I guess cos they are a wild variety they can thrive on my sad neglect.
The hazelnut bush is HUGE now too. We had a bumper crop last year for the first time. I discovered I am developing an allergy to them though. Typical!
All in all, the garden isn't in as bad a shape as I thought.

Here's to getting for free garden produce in the not too distant future :beer:

I better go and get something to drink now.... *reaches for the water jug*

Edit:

I'm sorry to come on yet again but I had to share this:

I was determined to use up some parsley and there's no time like the present.
I knew the kids would come in hungry so I just cooked a lot of garlic in a lot of melted butter and added my finely chopped parsley. I mixed it into a pan of cooked and drained spaghetti and voila!

Dead easy, dead cheap and dead tasty!:j
I'm dead chuffed:T

MrsCD

Rosyq-
You've probably found it by now, but just in case - Click on the top of this page where is says 'Old Style Money Saving',and you'll see the June thread at the top of the page

I'm heading over there now . I start my new month tomorrow.

sonastin

Florenceem is a bad influence! I've been trying to be clever with saving all the oven-cooking for doing in one go but I definitely overreached today! Did chicken in the slow cooker today (too scared of not cooking it right if I roast it!) but still wanted to do roast spuds in the oven. So marinaded some chicken tikka from the takeaway secret book and stuck some bread dough in the BM to make some rolls. And roasted some carrots too. Chicken tikka, spuds and carrots did OK but the bread went in just before I was dishing everything else up. In the rush of getting the dinner plated up, I forgot about the bread until the oven timer dinged. Must have set it a bit too long because the bread was decidedly, erm, sunburnt! Now if I hadn't gotten used to the flo-scolds from this forum, I'd have left the bread out of the oven until after dinner and cooked it when I could keep an eye on it!

Lesson for today: must try harder ;-)

System

MrsCD wrote: »

Rosyq-
You've probably found it by now, but just in case - Click on the top of this page where is says 'Old Style Money Saving',and you'll see the June thread at the top of the page

I'm heading over there now . I start my new month tomorrow.

Hiya, thanks for that, I hadn't found it but I can go and look now

Florenceem

sonastin wrote: »

Florenceem is a bad influence! I've been trying to be clever with saving all the oven-cooking for doing in one go but I definitely overreached today! Did chicken in the slow cooker today (too scared of not cooking it right if I roast it!) but still wanted to do roast spuds in the oven. So marinaded some chicken tikka from the takeaway secret book and stuck some bread dough in the BM to make some rolls. And roasted some carrots too. Chicken tikka, spuds and carrots did OK but the bread went in just before I was dishing everything else up. In the rush of getting the dinner plated up, I forgot about the bread until the oven timer dinged. Must have set it a bit too long because the bread was decidedly, erm, sunburnt! Now if I hadn't gotten used to the flo-scolds from this forum, I'd have left the bread out of the oven until after dinner and cooked it when I could keep an eye on it!

Lesson for today: must try harder ;-)

Organisation lessons for you my dear. :rotfl:

jumblejack

Good morning!:)
Another beautiful day.
Dinner will probably be an ommelette or quiche type of thing with a cold cous cous salad. Reason being I want my potatoes to last to the weekend and I have eggs and lots of parsley in the garden that I am wanted to experiment on. Got a few wilting salad onions too for the couscous.
(I'm trying hard to make things last now instead of dashing to the shops on the mere one item that is running low.):A

Have a wonderful day everyone.
I'll be out sprucing the garden a bit more after the kids lessons are done.
I keep reminding myself that I'd like folk to be entertained in the garden at some point this summer!

[Deleted User]

morning all, i have gone over my budget - i am so annoyed with myself. I went to the pub and spent £20, i only had to get to today arrrrrrggggghhhhh. Well it was a very tight budget so im not going to be too harsh. Hope everyone enjoys the sun

tessie_bear

hi....thankyou for the help with the aldi super 6 i am going to go and have a look but i dont think i will get there today...did my meal plan for 4 days i couldnt be bothered to suss out any more but that is a start
we have a ys pie for tea today wouldnt normally buy a pie but i thought as it is so hot it will be a quick tea and the pie was ys to 99p so that sweetened the deal a bit...i will be on later moaning it was nasty and should have done my own

take care tess