October 2012 Grocery Challenge

XSpender

NSD today but after an unexpected visit from friends I have only just put my Christmas cake in the oven! Looks like I wil be late to bed tonight as it takes 4 hours+ to bake:eek:

DH is sleeping off the after effects of their visit so I have rustled up a couple of things for our lunches tomorrow as I haven't had chance to make the soup I had planned for this week. DH is away until Wednesday and I have college stuff to do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then I am away all day Thursday so I need to work out what meals we need. It's going to be a funny week food wise this week.

I must make sure I use the contents of my veg box.

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Budgets done to here

Had glazed roasted gammon, roasties, and veg for dinner today. Also knocked up a bread and butter pudding with the leftover bread DH brought back from scout camp

Paprika chicken tomorrow - must remember to get the chicken out of the freezer - in fact I may do that now just in case

Coxy

Bluegreen143

I would like to warn everyone in advance that this will be a massive post as I've done lots of GC-related things today :rotfl:

Shopping
I was out for dinner last night (separate budget), OH spent £5.50 on pizza, some bread and a bottle of coke. Today I got Mr A shopping delivered - £54.78 including delivery at £4:

Meat - whole free range corn fed chicken & 1kg of organic mince, both on offer and mostly destined for the freezer
Fruit & veg - bag of salad, spinach, broccoli, butternut squash, chillies, green beans, courgettes, apples, bananas, asparagus, plums still have carrots, onions, potatoes & peppers left from last week so still overbuying a little
Dairy etc - 4 pints milk, soured cream, 'best for baking', spreadable butter, 6 FR eggs
Misc - crisps, 4 bottles of pepsi, salsa, SP lasagne sheets, SP pasta, coffee, SP passata, tinned chickpeas, tinned pinto beans, heinz tomato soup x2, pot noodle, crushed chillies, coco pops
Household - antibacterial spray, food bags, SP dish brush, bin bags, cat food & litter
Toiletries - hair gel for OH

Batch cooking

Spent pretty much ALL of today cooking. Made tortilla wraps for the first time as we're having fajitas tomorrow - think they turned out OK :



Also made a loaf of brown bread, two litres of concentrated chicken stock and 7 jars of mincemeat for Christmas hampers (the first thing I've made this year :j). You can see them below, along with the tub of shredded chicken I saved from the bones after making the stock:



Finally (and very exhaustedly!) I made a vegetable lasagne for dinner - we've eaten half of it and will freeze the other half (never done this before so hope it turns out OK!):

Mortgage_Reduction_Novice

Just £5.40 on fruit and veg at the market this weekend.

Nicki_Sue

I'm back to update you.... I have completely fallen off the challenge (grr!).
That said the house is all done (we moved at the weekend and love the new house! Only a couple more boxes to go!).
November will be a big one for me but i need advice in advance. I've been asked to review Jenny Craig for two weeks from 1st November (maybe longer) as part of a work thing. This means that for a minimum of 2 weeks all of my meals and snacks, excluding fruit / veg and milk are paid for.
How the devil do I work out a sensible budget then for the November challenge? Any ideas? We usually go for £400 for a month (for of us including all toiletries, nappies etc).
Any advice much appreciated.

adelight

bluegreen those photos are making me drool

Hi everyone! I'm back to the GC... Well, I'll be back officially in November. Right now I'm starting from bare cupboards so having to buy lots of basics.
I'm getting a prepay Mr A card from work which gives me a 5% discount. Not much but every little helps and it's valid yonks so I'm not tied when the deals are duff. If you have any reward scheme type things at your works look into them. Hardly anyone bothers with ours but to me it seems great - 5% off Mr A and Mr S and soon love2shop vouchers 7.5% off :j

For flour, herbs, pulses etc Which one supermarket do people reckon is the cheapest/best right now?

Pernicious

fjell wrote: »

I have a bad habit of eating large quantities of baked goods if I'm feeling down, and a couple of months ago I ate a whole box of flapjacks in one go. Feeling bad about this, I explained my lack of self control to my flatmate, who replied 'well, look on the bright side, at least it's not cocaine...'

This is very true :rotfl:

Thanks for all the tips re takeaways, I've been trying to be good & not buy so many quick & easy processed foods as I am trying to lose a few pounds & if it's not in the house, then surely I can't eat it...but clearly this logic is flawed as I can just go to https://www.dominos.........etc!

Did what should be our last shop at Mr T's until payday, & managed to somehow spend a whopping £26.45 & the trolley was nowhere near full! :eek: So currently we have spent £178.95 on food this month, if I could cut out the takeaways we'd be comfortably under budget.

I think I will aim for £150 again next month & hope for a bit more willpower when it comes to takeaways!

[Deleted User]

Damn, with 5 days to go I have failed.

Spent £5.84 when me and DM went out for theatre show tonight, and need to pop to the shops to grab a few more staples tomorrow - we keep running out somehow.

However I will keep totting up the spends.....see how far over budget we really do come. And will look forward to starting the Nov budget

xx_Jo_xx

Hi everyone,

Small spend for me yesterday... my aunt invited us for tea when I popped in to ask her to babysit DS Monday and Tuesday... So I had to nip to Mr A to pick up a couple of extra desserts that she asked for.

£2.50 spend

We are going there for tea tonight again I love my family, and her cooking is great...

[Deleted User]

another £9.53 spend in local Nisa this morning. sig updated. Dont think we'll want much more now so spends will be minimal, thank goodness!!