May 2012 Grocery Challenge

Spending_Vs_Saving

Congrats to IQueen & NickJW on both quitting the smoking habit! Just think of all those pounds that will be adding up to spend on something more important

Just a couple of small spends to add to my signature.....

45p on a bar of chocolate yesterday... although i think the wrapper has a try it free advert on it... may actually give that a go if i can find it in the bottom of my cluttered handbag.

and £2.18 today on some YS chicken wings and ready meals. Not the healthiest of things but at least its not cakes, biscuits or my biggest downfall sweets and chocolate:EasterBun.

PennyGrabber

Aldahbra wrote: »

Ohh I thought NSD was when you spent no money at all. Next month I might try having GNSD (Grocery NSD) and NSD just out of interest.

I'm here to report a £90.12 MT spend. Another big one.

I bought the book that someone recommended, sorry can't find the post again - Low cost living by Jonathan Harrision for my kindle yesterday £4.08 but I'm not adding that to the grocery budget. Don't really know which budget it is going to come out of then. Have only just started it but looks good so far.

If a nsd was no spends at all, I'd very rarely have one!!

I was looking at the kindle bestsellers last night, and about number 10 was the takeaway secret for 99p, which is also a good read apparently.

debbym wrote: »

Still picking up the pieces after a disasterous April. This has meant raiding the freezer for all the things lurking at the bottom since I don't know when

After a search for inspiration made this sausage casserole - would have been under £1 a head if I had had to buy the ingredients from scratch:)

I wondered where you'd been. Hope last month hasn't left you guys too dejected. You can come back from this, you just have to be really frugal to catch up!

I make a sausage casserole in a different way, which is my son's fave meal ever. It's a sausage cass packet mix, about 39p, a pack of sausages (always in my freezer from ys!), a tin of baked beans (25p), served with pasta. So, feeds the three of us, with leftovers for (guessing the sausages to be £1 and the pasta to be 20p) the grand total of £1.84, for a dinner and my lunch the next day.

Cool_Nanna wrote: »

I made some parsley sauce today for the first time.
I just made a basic white sauce and added some dried parsley, it was a bit thick but edible. I am getting a bit worried as I have already spent £180 out of this months budget of £250 and still have 2 weeks before payday.

I always look out for ys fresh parsley, then when I get it home I chop it up with scissors and freeze it, just in a freezer bag. Then when I make my parsley sauce, I just tip out the amount I want, no hassle. HTH

abitofhelp

Evening all, i have some hm ready meals in the feezer ie leftovers. I am going to be frugal and use them up next week. That should clear a bit of space for me, i will not be buying any biscuits at the weekend i will be making them instead. I normally have a baking session on Sunday afternoon so i shall making a few extra.

Florenceem

Copy and paste photo url on to post by clicking on postcard yellow icon above where you write message.

I didn't resize the photo not sure how on photobucket - I use Flickr.

debbym

£5 for 5 days challenge thread is making interesting reading! If I could stick closer to this I would be very proud of myself, sadly it can't be done across the board for my family due to my sons autism and therefore food he can't eat due to "sensory issues". However one of the posts included a link to a Live Below the Line cookbook - might be useful to some GCer's.

angelatgraceland

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My New panny and my laundry gloop! Thanks Florenceem!

Must reset the date on my camera though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aldahbra

angelatgraceland wrote: »

Also made 10 litres of laundry gloop which cost me 75p! Productive couple of hours!

What is laundry gloop?

jedi82 wrote: »

Oh my goodness!!!!! Just made the chocolate sponge with my 6yo and 2yo - how easy and how scrumptious!!!! Thank you JJ this is going to be the best 'standby' pud ever :T

jedi x

Me too, I also made chocolate custard and served with ice cream DS(9yo) said it is the best pudding he has ever had!! Thanks JJ :T

PennyGrabber wrote: »

If a nsd was no spends at all, I'd very rarely have one!!

No neither do I, thought I was doing terribly. Having said that I have spent nothing at all today

miffy257

Hi there seriously fed up as have nearly spent all my budget and have 3 weeks to go. Have loads of meat and basics but will need milk and fresh fruit and veg. Will definitely go over this month. I think I will start writing down everything I spend just to see if we are wasting money somewhere.

mummyyof5

As I thought more spends to report today..£3.60 on salad from market and £12.40 in MrTs...did get 30 eggs in this and realised we were almost out of cereal so 4 boxes bought..£16.00 to add..Salad and meats for tea tomorrow we call it 'bits'.

tatabubbly

Had a few spends over the last few days in Mr.T's. Which is contributing to me not having any NSDs!

Tomorrow won't be much better, have a friend coming around for dinner and wine so I'll have to see what I can dig out to feed her. I'm sure I have loads in the cupboards, I just have to have a really really good dig in them!

After that I have a veggie lasagna to make for a 30th birthday party so that will have to come out of the budget as I'm making it to save the birthday girl hassle! I just need fresh veggies for it though, I have lentils and herbs, pasta sheets and tomatoes so I should be able to make a good start on it!

Since this is the first grocery challange I've ever really kept to it really really makes me think before I spend any money at all!
So delighted with myself that I'm a little over a third of the month and I haven't splurged yet!