January 2013 Grocery Challenge

quintwins

£1.32 spent in asda of 15 bananas and a punnet of grapes both reduced

pinchingpenny

Hi, happy Monday!
I got a few bargains this week,
I normally trek to Mr. A for my fruit but I found some YS bananas in Mr. T which were cheaper. Best before today but they still look really green so I think they will sort me out for the next week plus I have 3 oranges left from my last shop at Mr. A!
Also got some YS watercress which I'll have in sandwiches today and tomorrow, thinking of using the rest in a watercress soup as it's bound to go off quite quickly. Also got some mushrooms and cherry toms, best before tomorrow but I think they will last a little bit longer. If not, I'll do some pasta sauce with them!

Still have a couple of potatoes and onions in the cupboard so I hope I will be sorted on the fruit/veg front for the week.
Made the most of my SSM coupons- used £1 off lenor which was already half price at £1.68 then 2 x £1 off always of which the double packs were 2 for £4.

Am pleased to report the bread baking was much better this weekend! Turns out all I had to do was leave it to rise overnight (had done max 4 hours previously) It made loads so I have sliced some up for the freezer. Shame to freeze lovely bread but I would never get through it unless I majorly overate!

redbooties

I've spent £15.70 on some blood oranges and a veg box from Riverford, and £93.14 in S but some of that spend was for a birthday cake.
I have to do a small shop tomorrow in Mr T to get some pizza express pizzas and dough balls which I believe are half price at the moment. Its my best friends birthday and her favourite restaurant is pizza express but seeing as neither one of us can afford to eat there at the moment especially with 5 children, I thought I'd opt for a cheaper option.

KatyReed+5

A few spends today,

Household

2 x Roasting tins - Reduced to 37p each in wilc0s.
1 x Bubble bath - 72p
2 x Shower gel - 2 for £1.10.
1 x washing up-liquid 50% extra free - 70p

Eating out

3 x sweets for kids as they were good 39p each.

1 x Mini eggs for me, love them, £1.

Put up for christmas.

1 x Christmas activity set - 50p.

Total £5.93 off to update sig now.

Not too bad day, went to play at a friends and she fed us lunch, so saved on a meal there, X

positivelypurple

Hello everyone,

Gosh, the thread is moving along so quickly! I popped to the supermarket this afternoon and spent £9 - mainly on things for packed lunches for the rest of the week.

My total is now £92/£370 - think we are fully stocked up until at least Saturday

m155piggy

Yay another NSD here as long as I don't count the £1.60 car parking when I had to take DS2 to his emergency dentist appt this afternoon. Poor thing had to have a tooth removed and a filling redone and is suffering a bit now from shock - it's his birthday tomorrow and it's not like him to sit quietly and refuse ice-cream!

rising_from_the_ashes

So .... 2nd shop = £27.09 at Mr T - a few basics but also a few store cupboard items were running low & they should last a while.

Total now @ £53.01 - need to slow down!

Kitchenbunny

Quickly diving on to post a spend today of £10.95 (seems to get less and less for my money, hmm) - only a partial shop done today due to running out of time this morning. I'll pick up the rest tomorrow and hopefully that'll only be another £10. That takes my annual total so far to: £25.28. I'll update my sig now. Meal plans are being tweaked to make them cheaper and tastier, and I'm going to work hard on getting costs down this month and using what's in the freezer. Make room, make room!

KB xx

smelkel87

Here to add more spends of £22.49 at Mr A, should have been £28.01 but had to apg vouchers i got from my mum as she wont use it. did shopping yesterday for this week so hoping for 7 nsds this week, to add to my 5 from last week. Just hope i can do as well when im bk at work!! xx

Mrs_T_M

princess84 wrote: »

NSD for me yesterday :j And easy tea fish fingers and beans. Today however I have made cottage pie in the slow cooker this morning, just the mash to do later, but i only have a handful of grated cheese left and i am tempted to go out for more....should i? Or just use what we have? Suppose thats the whole point of this challenge! I do have breadcrumbs i could maybe mix in i just thought.....We need some bread too but i am going to wait til 7.30/8 to get reductions from the coop. Loving reading everyones updates! So inspiring!

Nooooo! Don't go out for more! Just use what you have, or just top the mash with it instead of mixing it in. Top it and stick it under the grill for a few minutes to let it get slightly browned and nice and bubbly.

When we have mash, I sometimes boil a bit of cauliflower with the potatoes and mash that in with it. Lowers the carb count and uses up that darned cauliflower that I can never figure out what to do with as I hate the stuff! I'll eat it with potatoes though.

Typically, I'll mix in some soft cheese (about 1/4-1/2 of a small tub), a bit of butter, milk, fresh chives (from the windowsill), and some garlic granules.

flubberyzing wrote: »

WOW! A £20 a month budget?! How do you do it!? :eek::beer: Fair play to you though! Would love to know your secret!

The £20 is actually only for January.

Next month we will probably go back up to our usual £50/month budget. Then again, that is for myself, DH and two tiny bunnies. It covers everything, including toiletries and food for the bunnies.

I'm originally from the US and had an even tighter budget there, about $30/month total for everything. I miss being able to use my stacks of coupons and vouchers though.

I meal plan the heck out of my days, stick tight to a list, and comparison shop. I also batch cook sometimes and freeze lunches for myself. Also, my slow cookers are some of of my best friends.

I still have 5 packs of butternut squash soup (ick) and 6 packs of lighter mushroom bisque to eat. We also have quite a few varieties of dried beans in our pantry. I replace some meats with mushrooms or a rice/lentil combination, depending on the texture needed. We eat a few vegetarian meals with stuff from the freezer and beans when money is tight (like this month), but on lots of things that call for meat, I'll lessen the amount by 1/4 if I can get away with it. Example: my recipe for chilli mac calls for 1 pound of mince. I typically only use 1/2 or 3/4 of a pound instead. Instant savings. Instead of using a whole chicken for my chicken pot pie or chicken and dumplings, I use 1-2 breasts or pieces, whichever I have.

I save mushroom stems to make soup out of, veg peelings, onion skins, chicken bones, etc to make broth/stock out of instead of using my very special to me Kallo cubes. They're gluten free and I have to be careful that I don't get any barley into my system. Barley in = very sick and lethargic for 3-4 days afterwards!

Here is my meal plan for the rest of this month, and listed below is all I'll need to buy to complete it:

8/Jan (Tue) - bbq pulled pork sandwiches with corn and potato wedges
9/Jan (Wed) - chicken pot pie
10/Jan (Thurs) - chicken marsala over pasta and a salad
11/Jan (Fri) - jambalaya
12/Jan (Sat) - chilli with beans

13/Jan (Sun) - toad in the hole with mash, sweet corn and onion gravy
14/Jan (Mon) - egg fried rice
15/Jan (Tue) - sesame chicken over rice
16/Jan (Wed) - chilli mac with tomatoes, mushrooms and beans
17/Jan (Thurs) - salmon and rice with steamed broccoli
18/Jan (Fri) - spaghetti with meat sauce
19/Jan (Sat) - pizza

20/Jan (Sun) - bean burger
21/Jan (Mon) - eggs, sausages, baked beans and cheese - maybe hm bread
22/Jan (Tue) - tuna pasta
23/Jan (Wed) - chicken and dumplings
24/Jan (Thurs) - pizza
25/Jan (Fri) - chicken and noodle soup with veggies
26/Jan (Sat) - spam and cheese, baked beans, and eggs on toast

27/Jan (Sun) - cottage pie
28/Jan (Mon) - beans and rice
29/Jan (Tue) - my birthday - being taken out by DH
30/Jan (Wed) - clean out the pantry chilli
31/Jan (Thurs) - lentil minestrone soup
1/Feb (Fri) - pineapple chicken
2/Feb (Sat) - toad in the hole with mash, sweet corn, and onion gravy

Needed:
Black pepper - £0.18
Frozen sausages (20 count) £1
4 tins baked beans - £1.04 (will these things please stop going up?! Sheesh!)
1 pack spaghetti pasta - £0.24
1 pack spiral pasta - £0.30
1 kg frozen mince (beef and pork) - £2.75
1 kg chicken portions (leg quarters) - £1.59
1 kg bag long grain white rice - £0.30
1 tin double concentrate tomato pur!e - £0.29
2 tins chopped tomatoes - £0.62
1 pack of eggs - £1.35 for 15
2 4 pt bottles milk - £2

Leaving a grand total of 6p in my budget! :rotfl:

I'm nearly out of sliced sweet peppers. Was hoping that they would go on special before we needed more, because I'm not paying £1.50 for 3 peppers. Last time I bought peppers, they were £0.69/3. I bought 10 packs...

I'm hoping to start blogging about my budget, losing weight, and how I do it (with recipes!) again soon. I'm being too lazy at the moment unfortunately.

Thanks for reading my crazy long rambling post!