June 2012 Grocery Challenge

xxlouisexx56

Another £44 pound spent this weekend.

But I made a huge lasagne and cottage pie, so their is 12 potential dinners in the freezer for the kids my toddler has already wolfed down a portion of each. That makes me a happy mummy :j

Going to go though the cupboards and meal plan for the rest of the week. Shouldn't have to buy too much I don't think.

jumblejack

Got the beef n bean curry on now.

I'm right chuffed with the sauce for a quick mid week dinner.

It is a jar of Tesco everyday value curry sauce, 440g at 15p:j
The ingredients are brill. Nothing nasty:
Water
Tomatoe pur!e
Onion
Maize starch
Sugar

Curry powder:
Turmeric
Coriander
Rice flour
Fenugreek
Cumin seeds
Mustard seeds
Ginger
Salt
Black pepper
Paprika
Nutmeg
Chilli
Fennel seeds

Sultanas
Veg oil
Whey powder
Salt
Lactic acid
Onion powder garlic powder
Coconut
Chilli powder
Turmeric

Not bad for 15p (which includes a good sized jar to reuse for HM jams)!:T


It looks, tastes and smells exactly like my much loved comfort food: chip shop curry.

The beef was whoopsied to £2 for a huge pack. Not my best bargain but still good value
I used 2 jars of curry sauce (30p total)
1 tin of kidney beans (18p)
1 tin of chick peas (20p)
2 huge onions (about 7p)
The 2 last carrots in my fridge diced (about 6p)

It will make 2 family meals, so portion cost is about 35p a portion.

Not a dinner party recipe but perfectly fine for a family meal:

Bluegreen143

Looks like a great curry jumblejack!

Meant to say yesterday that as well as making HM pizzas, I made five portions of soup and a loaf of bread for this week's lunches :A.

But, most excitingly, I made my first-ever batch of twink's hobnobs! Had one at 11am today at work and they are AMAZING. OH was also very impressed as hobnobs are his favourite biccie. So even if that recipe was all I got out of these forums I'd be happy! :rotfl:

rosie383

I solemnly pledge to rejoin the GC next month.
I have been so bad lately, not meal planning very much and just spending almost every day. I still do take my grocery budget of £250 for the month, but get an extra maybe £20 per month from making cakes, and that just goes too.
I spend too much at the start of the month, and end up with hardly anything for the end. Eg, I now have £10 in my purse and not a lot in the cupboards and freezer.
Going to have to do a serious meal plan for the rest of the week and try to manage with what I have. At least I have some fruit for the next few days, enough bread for school lunches and 5kg of spuds.
Gonna have to get creative with spuds I think. Oh, I have fish fingers too, but we have all had them twice in the past couple of days as it was about the only protein in the house!
Found 3 sausages in the freezer, so may try to make toad-in-the-hole! I'm thinking that if I split the sausages lengthways and then cook, they will go a wee bit further.

Feel free to administer a kick up the proverbial please!!!

purplesheila

Hello

Not posted for about a week and sorry to hear everyone’s sad news.

Cleggie – I gotmy first dog last year. My OH always wanted one and he persuaded me that a Dog was a really good family pet. We purchased a Labrador. I was also concerned of cost but in true moneysaving style you can do it. I buy a large bag of dry food from SM. And a supply of dog worming and flee stuff off an online pet suppliers (in bulk) to get the best price.

I must say I love having her and I now do so much walking. Much better than a Gym membership. Fridays weather was so bad I stayed in all day till 7pm, then decided to bite the bullet and take the dog out as she was climbing the walls – well I had a lovely walk, I was soaked to the skin but you know what when I got in I had a hot shower and felt much better for going out.

I have had mostly NSD as I try to do food shopping once a week; however this week I have failed

I did a MR M shop as that is local and I really didn't fancy driving a 10 mile round trip to ALD!, but left out ALD! stuff as I knew I was passing later in the week - well ran out of some stuff Sat AM so called in at MR M again. Then later as I was passing at ALD! and called in!

Spent weekly budget and over which I will update now on my tag line ... hopefully a better week next week. On the plus side next week we are having freezer teas, so hopefully won’t spend as much and plan to go back to doing one shop!!

Barbeduk

Hi all, not been posting much but have been trying to keep checking in.

Made pizza with the kids on Saturday, haven't made a proper one for ages and wow it was gorgeous and so cheap! They both said it was the nicest pizza they'd ever had. Bit hungover yesterday so we had an easy food day, thank goodness for the freezer. Luckily got my act together in the afternoon and made flapjack for the packed lunches.

We were supposed to have chilli tonight but I have come home from work completely forgetting to stop in at the Asian SM for spices, doh.:o

Did manage a quick Mr M for basics, fruit, bread flour etc. added to a few other shops done last week, the total is now £265.53. Really chuffed as I'd increased the budget this month from its usual £260 due to a weekend away with friends.

Just in case anyone needs any motivation, I joined GC for the first time in Feb and reckon I've saved at least £960 over 5 months on shopping. Added to this, we've saved at least £360 by always having packed lunches. Not bad eh?:D

purplesheila

I was catching upwith posts earlier and someone said that they didn’t think they could feed afamily of 4 for £50 a week. I can’t find the post now but I think that if Itook all non food items and pet food from my budget, my family would eat for£50 a week, (only putting this down for inspiration) I think I will change my spreadsheetfor next month and total up food, toiletries and cleaning separate.

Tonight’sTea

Left Over Pork Roast= £1.81, Frozen Chips £1, 2 Tins of Baked Beans £1

TOTAL £3.81 for a family of 4

jumblejack

Mini JJs Herby Cheese Bread

Just made a batch of JJs Herby Cheese Bread.

Instead of the usual 6 wedges, I made the batch into 2 small rounds and divided them both into 6 which gave me a dozen buffet sized portions.

One half I topped in sesame seeds, the other half in poppy seeds.

They seem ok but I got distracted.
They ought to have been taken out a good 2 or 3 mins before :

little_miss_moneysaver_3

Hello all!

Haven't read since Thursday I think so loads to catch up on.
Hugs to all those having a rough time. And congrats on the new job sb88

My July started on Friday with who I now called Sainscrap home delivery. Had a voucher £10 off £50. Well they delivered rubbish, two green furry chorizos, 6 bashed up tins of veg/beans, punnet of rotting tomatoes and the loads of onion (loose, not bagged so were hand picked) were black and dried/shrivelled up. Cue one angry complaint. Unfortunately it would not allow me to attach the photos to my complaint. I was livid, felt a bit rough anyway add pregnancy hormones = not good. Anyway got the bits refunded and a £10 online voucher which I hope I can buy clothes or CDs with. Wouldn't by fresh stuff again, not when so much was rubbish. Well they were lucky that the mouldy stuff wasnt on my meal planner for Friday otherwise heads may have rolled lol. Anyway I've learnt my lesson there!
Got some lovely fruit and veg from the market and remaining couple of bits from Mr T. We don't have an a!di, lid! Or Mr M in our town.

Have my meal plan for the week. Will tot up my spends so far inc my AF order and set a target for July. It'll be a higher than June to reflect the stock up from AF. Have cooked a whole chicken this morning, was supposed to have roast dinner yday, but didn't get around to having our brunch till gone 3pm so didn't fancy dinner, just had a sandwich in the evening. Got chicken curry on for tomorrow so will freeze the rest of the chicken and have a roast next weekend. Got steak for tea, part of an offer in Sainscrap with pots and veg. Made the curry paste from Memory Girls blog. Smells divine so hopefully tomorrows curry will be lush! Just needed OH to get a couple of the spices for it so will add that onto my total when he's home. Making sticky toffee pudding too, mix from AF so not from scratch but works out cheap enough. Not sure it'll do OH the 6 portions suggested!

So my plan
Tuesday - chicken and butternut squash curry with rice and (AF) naan bread.
Wednesday -tuna pasta (sister and her two kids come for tea), chocolate angel delight
Thursday at MIL for tea
Friday - may be seeing FIL awaiting for OH to confirm. If not will be fish from the freezer with pots of some kind and veg
Saturday - spag Bol (Bol from freezer, spot the meat of course)
Sunday - roast chicken with the chicken I roasted today

Trying not to have a pudding every day as OH is getting too used to them. He doesn't consider fruit as a pudding! Got some strawberries ripening in the garden. Had the first couple over the weekend. They were so delicious, I doubt they'd last until after tea if we picked them!

Thank you as always for all the tips and recipes. Will be looking out for the July thread and try to read every day.

Bye for now
LMM

Kitchenbunny

I'm reporting in with a final spend of my June budget of £21.83, taking my total to an incredible £174.13 - £25.87 under budget! For me, this is very unusual and I'm going to stick to it. I've had a look at July and it looks like my budget for next month is going to be the same - £200. We had a couple of weeks where we didn't do very much and were eating up some things from the freezer so have had a very frugal time of it indeed. I figure if I give myself the same budget for July I can see what is a good idea of the final figures before attempting to lower it (if I can without compromising too much).

Thanks to everyone for the support. I'll see everyone in the July thread when it starts and I'll pop on here for recipes and whatnot in the meantime. Tea tonight is just a curry (from a jar in the cupboard) as I can't be bothered - have NOT had a great day at all.

Anyway, here's to July.

K xx