September 2012 Grocery Challenge

she_who_can_not_cook

liz-paul wrote: »

OH got a load of apples from his mums garden and e even peeled, cored, chopped and stewed them :eek: Had a lovely apple crumble last night and will freeze the rest as 2 or 3 portions.

Also had a roast chicken last night and I'm going to make stock from the carcass. This is only my second time making stock and I'm wondering if it is good value? I made a lamb stock 2 weeks ago and it needed ages on the hob - just wondered if I used a lot of electric...?

....

i crockpot mine and put all the limp veg in it

meg72

jumblejack wrote: »

Great tips regarding the courgettes!

I will store that one away in my noggin for future reference:T

Thanks for the B&M heads up Craig too! I might nip down today just in case ours are doing it too.

I'm making cordials again today. My kitchen looked like there had been a murder last night when I was vigorously destemming my elderberries. This wasn't helped by my hysterical screaming when I discovered that the tickling sensation on my chest, then my neck, then my chin was in actual fact, not stray hairs from my ponytail but was A BIG SPIDER!:eek:

The berries are now being strained ready for making a syrup later today:

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OMG I would have died on the spot.

liz-paul

I made the stock and it is delicious!! Much better than the lamb one.

tessie_bear

hi...spend in the coop today and farmfoods and aldi...going to make a chicken pie for tea and roast some beef for tomorrow ....might make fried rice with the leftovers the next day and possibly sarnies as it is quite a large piece

might do a plum crumble for pudding served with ice cream...yum yum

take care tess

Lulabelle06

Went to Asda this morning and spent £50.32. Got all food for week though including a few extra treats for my puppy who is having the snip today. Bless him! I'm on pins until 2pm when I can call and check he's ok. Ridiculous isnt it!! I also have probably enough meat for next week but will need to buy some extra fish. Co-op seem to have some reasonable offers this week and as my mum works there I will send her in with her discount card and my money hehe. Meanwhile we have had a good idea re sweets for xmas (sorry I know its september but we are christmas crazy!) My mum bought 4 tins of sweets (2 celebrations 1 roses and 1 quality street) we seperated all tins and sorted into flavours. We said what we do and dont like. Split them between the 3 tins and then put the ones no one in my family likes (Twixs!!) into the 4th and mum will use them at Halloween for the little darlings trick or treating. Just hope they like hard toffees and coconuts haha! Just a quick note-Roses seemed to have the most even spread of flavours. In Quality street we had 4 soft caramel cups and over 10 coconuts!

Re meal planning, I do the meal plan and on a friday night we have 'treat dinner' and OH chooses that one. This week is gammon.

pajama

Signature updated with my spends done at the end of last week and this morning.

Aldi £47.18
Tesco £45.26
Sainsbury's £10.39

My money doesn't go as far nowadays. No food is ever wasted in my house and everything I buy always gets eaten. So I know I'm not wasting money on unnecessary purchases but still struggle to reduce my shopping bill. Maybe one day I'll get the hang of this malarky. Hate to think what my grocery bill would be if I wasn't trying!

Hope your all doing better than me x

jumblejack

Cordial finished now
One carrier bag made well over 2 litres:



We had a lovely dinner too at 12. It was whoopsied beef fro. Ages ago that I had cooked in bulk and sliced for the freezer along with other bits that needed using up:



We will have a light tea now but have a big pud at 7pm as I have more Bramleys to use up

Billie-jo

Finally managed to clear one shelf in the outside freezer just three more to go then I can defrost it properly.

Have been given a price list from a wholesale butchers that a local restaurant uses and am looking forwards to re-stocking the freezer from there in the not to distant future. However will have to have a think how am going to justify this with the grocery budget. Have been thinking that every time I use some of the meat I pay £2 or £3 from the grocery budget but put it up ready for the second order of meat and not add the full cost to the budget in one go IYKWIM. Anyone got any thought on this and if it would work?

No spends to add at the moment although DH kept saying we wanted bread, he doesn’t class homemade bread as bread for sandwiches!!! It’s nothing to do with the taste of the bread as he likes it its just that I usually make a round shape loaf and he doesn’t think it’s the ‘right’ shape for sandwiches!!!!:wall:

[Deleted User]

Billie-jo wrote: »

Have been thinking that every time I use some of the meat I pay £2 or £3 from the grocery budget but put it up ready for the second order of meat and not add the full cost to the budget in one go IYKWIM. Anyone got any thought on this and if it would work?!:wall:

I do something similar, its a variation of the second purse - i call it "buy back" and use it when i do not need a particular item at that moment, but think its a good price to justify stocking. I put a price sticker on it and when i use it, i count the amount on the sticker into my grocery budget. I also add a bit on top, e.g., i bought some 5lt bottles of washing up liquid, that were 99p, but put a price of £3.75 on it, not sure why i do that, but it helps to further bring down spends.

sneakyspender

Hello all, great ms tips as always. Spent £6.50 yesterday on stock cube.and pre-dinner nibbles (dhs birthday).Other than that haven't bought anything since wednesday and plan to shop again on thursday so realy pleased. MIL came down this W/E and has bought loads of beans and salad, any bright ideas for using them (I have no space in my freezer).Still got loads of apples so will go blackberry picking with dcs after school tommorow