February 2013 Grocery Challenge

kalojac

£400 for me please this month

tessie_bear

the button is back...thank goodness

rowsew

Still dragging through January, and now I've added up the necessaries purchased this weekend to get us through till Thurs (payday), I will be more generous and go for £200 in Feb, please.
I think prices have gone up so much in the last few months, it's even harder to make the ends meet. Or maybe I was too optimistic and forgot how long January was! Wish Hubby's salary went up as quick as the diesel and food prices do.
What really worries me is that I have meal planned a whole month of meals for both December and January, (actually carries on till 2nd week of Feb), I have planned using store cupboard/leftovers/frozen ingredients, and any shopping I have done (Aldi, Lidl) has been food required for the planner. But still didn't quite have enough to last us the month - ran out of fruit, spuds, milk (we need a cow), green veg. All the fresh stuff is getting really pricey now, and my allotment is bare, so nothing I can top up with. Fortunately the chickens started laying again this week, so thats's one less thing I had to buy. Still, rather worrying.

Florenceem

NSD here.
Lovely hot HM LO fruit cake + custard for breakfast. Free biscuits with cuppa - elevenses.
Lunch - slice of toasted HM bread, poached egg + apple.
Admit - had some Maltez..... - got them from Mr As.. - 50p a box!



I had a HM muffin with a cuppa mid afternoon.
Dinner tonight -



Can you tell - having problems with Photobucket! Why did they change it - I could use the old version.

meg72

Florenceem wrote: »

I too grew up with nothing - born during the end of rationing - lived in a prefab. Dad wouldn't let Mum work so one small wage came in - just 2 children. I remember Mum buying veg cheap off the woman who lived in prefab opposite. This woman had an allotment so sold surplus to Mum.

Me too, born the week the war ended and remember rationing but dont remember being too bothered about it. Money was very tight
it always seemed to be a case of what you could afford rather than what was available.

Have strong memories of collecting waste paper, bottles, rags on an old pram. Waiting for what seemed like hours outside a local cake factory to buy reduced and mis-shapes for a few pence and going to the local greengrocery for 1p specks (bruised and past its best fruit an veg.

Mum always sent us kids because we got a better deal :rotfl:

Roadside

Florenceem wrote: »

I cook for an army - 2 of us here. I am so used to cooking in bulk after bringing up 6 children and being a host family to foreign students. I freeze all the spare meals.

Thank you, made me use the brain for once, I have spent a lovely couple of hours in the kitchen this afternoon cooking for an army, Pork and Fennel Stew for tonight's dinner with the last knockings of last Sunday's roast, Gammon joint cooked in Orange Juice ready for lots of lovely meals and lunches, a huge Sausage and Barlotti Bean Casserole and best of all because I had the oven on a lovely batch of Mincemeat (Christmas leftovers) Flapjacks, had to hide the Flapjacks after I found OH stuffing his third one in his cakehole. :rotfl:

pinkypig

Florenceem wrote: »

I make my own bread - 40p a time - 1 slice fills me up. Re milk - we use skimmed - 4 pints for £1 at Mr As.. I started the GC with stocks - freezers heaving with HM meals and even stocks of dried foods under the stairs + tins in the garage.

:rotfl:

So glad that I am not the only one to keep my bulk foods buys in unconventional places! I have 9 kg of egg noodles in a box in the spare bedroom wardrobe:o

Lovethenight

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

I'm really proud of what we achieved in January. I joined countless GCs in the past and never made it to the end of the month. This is the first time I've ever graduated, and to do so under budget was the icing on the cake :j

We've made two simple changes so far - the meal plan for the week goes on the notice board in the kitchen so we both know what the plan is. This has helped stopped OH popping down to the shops to buy in whatever he fancied for tea that night even though the cupboards were bulging.

The second change was putting two envelopes in the tea and coffee cupboard - one for grocery receipts and one for petrol. Now if OH does go shopping, I know exactly how much has been spent instead of having to guess.

Well done Pavlov!
I also make sure I put the meal plan on the fridge so that everyone can see what's for dinner and it reminds me in the morning if I need to take anything out of the freezer for that night's dinner.

Keeping the receipts in one place has also helped me no end - I have a hardback A4 book that I write all my meal plans, freezer and cupboard inventory in and I have 2 envelopes glued into the back cover - one for this month's receipts and one for last month's receipts. It helps me to see at a glance how much I've spent and what I've bought to update the inventory.

Lolkat

I'm trying to decide if I should save the money left from January's GC or spend it stocking the cupboards up a bit.

As part of the January GC I did a stock-take and threw away a fair bit of some very old food. I'm hesitating to replace it, just to forget it exists again.

I menu planned this morning from today until Saturday 9th Feb. I go away then for a week. DH said he'd live on soup, bread and cheese for the week. (It's what he used to live on before we got married and is perfectly happy with it). He's going to take a trip to Costc@ on Saturday to buy the cheese and a few other bits.

I've priced up the shopping list for my menus and added a few things to make it to £50 to use my £7 off voucher. That's still part of my January spending, and leaves a little to add to my savings.

I think that means my GC spending in February through till the 16th will be the cost of the cheese. I know DH can be a bit of a mouse, but I don't think even he can eat £100 of cheese in a week.

Lovethenight

Florenceem wrote: »

Working out the cost of meals really makes sense.

Yes - it's going to be an interesting exercise for me - I don't tend to use recipes much and the first thing I've noticed is that I make variable portions of things! :rotfl:

I've pretty much run everything down now in the freezer and cupboards (last menu plan posted on the January thread). I still have the store cupboard essentials like flour, sugar, stock cubes etc. but need to go shopping from scratch in Feb for all the basics like milk, eggs, butter, veg, meat etc.

I'm going to plan out a menu for the first week of Feb and see how much the meals will cost...