August 2012 Grocery Challenge

spongy

Perhaps I was a little ambitious in July. I aimed to reduce my £300 monthly spend to £150. I came in at £259.11. Way over target!

Still I've shaved £40 off my grocery bill and have decided to just try and shave off £20 each month.

My new August grocery challenge is now a more realistic £240 for me DS and DD (age 9 and 11) includes food, toiletries, cleaning products, soft drinks only.

Top tips picked up:

Cheap recipes from this site and others on internet - red lentil pate (yum yum) salmon pasta and HM pizza. All went down well.

Veg soup made out of anything left over in the fridge - threw mild curry powder in to give it a lift - tasty.

Cutting expensive washing powder to make it go further - Equal amounts of ariel and any no frills brand and a bag of soda cystals.

Menu planning/stock taking

Lessons learned:

Dont go shopping and forget that you've left all the fresh juice in the car boot when it's 30 degrees outside! Discovered it a few days later :mad: Actually i threw the kids juice out and bought new for them but with mine I took the risk, chilled it and drank it and still here to tell the tale. (Checked it smelt and tasted ok obviously!)

August:

How do i shave the next £20 (hopefully more?) off when kids home and picnics galore. Will try shopping in Mr L for a start.

Please post your picnic food ideas - needs to be cheap, tasty and portable oh yes and nutritious!

Soworried

Just some snack tips to keep the costs down with the kids being off school.
Ice lollies, buy a mould at the £1 shop and use the MrT 29p lemon or orange juice. It is a great snack and takes the kids a while to eat it so they are not eating other things.
Print off the greens vouchers to make free desserts. The voucher is in the printable voucher thread.
Buy prawn crackers at the chinese supermarket, £2.99 for 2 kilos. It makes a bag size for around 2p. Much cheaper than crisps.
I hope this helps. x

A no shopping day here today. My son is having a sleep over tonight so dinner plans have changed. We will now be having cheese burgers, and banana milkshake. All out of the freezer and home made.

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

Spongy - can you do any home baking and maybe include the children in this (if you have the patience lol) ? I was completely new to baking before I joined the GC but I've found it's really cheap and quick (although you have to invest in flour etc to start with). There's lots of recipes on front of this thread for cookies, pasties etc.

Welcome to all the Newbies .

I spent a bit yesterday so will add to signature. Made a cake for my friend for lunch and I'm hoping it will be OK. It's the first time I've made one with a hand mixer - I found this in my cupboard when I recently cleaned them out and had completely forgotten it was there (because I never used it lol). Before this, I've just mixed the cakes by hand.

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending

Soworried wrote: »

Just some snack tips to keep the costs down with the kids being off school.
Ice lollies, buy a mould at the £1 shop and use the MrT 29p lemon or orange juice. It is a great snack and takes the kids a while to eat it so they are not eating other things.
Print off the greens vouchers to make free desserts. The voucher is in the printable voucher thread.
Buy prawn crackers at the chinese supermarket, £2.99 for 2 kilos. It makes a bag size for around 2p. Much cheaper than crisps.
I hope this helps. x

A no shopping day here today. My son is having a sleep over tonight so dinner plans have changed. We will now be having cheese burgers, and banana milkshake. All out of the freezer and home made.

Oh yes - we do that too but sometimes just use squash .

Soworried

Mrs_Addicted_to_Spending wrote: »

Oh yes - we do that too but sometimes just use squash .

I meant the squash. Sorry, we call it juice.

SaraSage

Weekly shop done yesterday, spent £22.70! Forgot leeks & sunflower oil, might have to get the leeks this week as they're part of my meal plan!

XSpender

Thank you for the birthday wishes:)

My 'Spend £10 on Groceries This Week' personal challenge has hit the buffers before I even started!!

DMIL is currently looking after our 2 dogs on a semi permanant basis but we still pay for the food and she asked me to get some yesterday. I also needed some lady items so a total of £21 spent in Mr S but bought enough dog food to last until next payday.

I was going to buy some nice chips as a treat as we only had the scrag ends of a pack of oven chips but forgot. DH had had the same idea and he also wanted some sorbet for afters. Que a trip to M&S at the end of our street (sort of) where the chips and sorbet were in the dine for a tenner deal. We got a gammon joint, chips, sorbet and 2 bottles of elderflower fizz for DH. I am only adding £9 to the total though as when DH went to get a little trolley for DS to sit in someone had put theirs back and left the £1 in:)

I had also forgot to add some bathroom cleaner we got at homebase. Will have been cheaper elsewhere but I find it very difficult to go to Mr S with DH and leave with only the one thing I went in for so worth the pain of paying a little extra.

I had intended to make mac n cheese for tea tonight adding broccolli and crispy bacon but DH snaffled the bacon last night so it's jackets and salad instead.

I have been buying the big cups of hot water at work for 10p and adding my own tea bag and have really noticed a difference in what I have spent. I actually seem to be drinking less cups as well so only 30p spent in the last 3 working days when usually I would have spent £3 easily:D

I am still setting myself a target of £10 for my 'weekly shop' on Saturday and I am intending to come under this as so far I just need eggs, blue milk for DS, GF bread and fruit. DH says he is going off bread so I am hoping the half a loaf in the freezer will suffice for him and DS.

KatyReed+5

Hey everyone, hope you're all having a MSE day.

After the recent split i have today recieved some Healthy start vouchers which i can use for milk fruit and veg, i have got £37.20 worth, now do i count this as extra on top of my GC, or should i deduct it so my GC is the same?

Katy, X

jumblejack

KatyReed+5 wrote: »

Hey everyone, hope you're all having a MSE day.

After the recent split i have today recieved some Healthy start vouchers which i can use for milk fruit and veg, i have got £37.20 worth, now do i count this as extra on top of my GC, or should i deduct it so my GC is the same?

Katy, X

It's entirely up to you. Id probably be tempted to use that as a seperate stocking up on grocery bargains budget!
I'm glad you are having a bit of help. :T

DebtFree2012

Hi all

I will be spending tonight on a few things to make some soup from to help with losing weight aided by purchasing a SC (£12 from Tesco so pleased).

Planning on getting veg and something spicy to perk it up. I've posted on the SC thread for ideas.

xx