April 2013 Grocery Challenge

goldopals

Updating spends: $20 on groceries (including chocolate for end of turn treat for the kids)

Meal Plan for this week:
Monday: porridge, HM sausage stirfry, HM lasagna
Tuesday: porridge, HM sausage stirfry, HM lemongrass chicken stirfry
Wednesday: porridge, HM lasagna, HM chicken curry sandwich
Thursday: porridge, HM quiche, HM chicken curry with rice
Friday: porridge, YS meat pie (good old Aussie classic), whatever mum cooks

My freezer is full of HM ready meals; it is easier for me to cook after a busy day of work. I do not like to cook meals with multiple parts (meat, veg, potatoes) and prefer stirfries where it is served in one lot.

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

NickJW - that turkey sounds gross! Hope SAINSBURYS do the decent thing hehe!

Well I'm officially a dingbat, because I did forget to get the beef shin out of the freezer yesterday :doh: Therefore tonight we will have chicken and chorizo pasta from the index. Casserole tomorrow instead.

I did some fundraising on Saturday, bagpacking in Sainsbury with the Scouts. Amazed at how many carrier bags we got through in the 2.5 hours. Over 100 on my checkout alone. I think we should definitely start charging like they do in Wales, and I hear today in N.Ireland they are starting something similar. We could pay the country's deficit off in no time :rotfl:

Still have 6 children here (3 of DDs friends slept over last night) so just waiting for them to be picked up then off for a brisk walk with the dog.

Have a good day all.
Coxy

[Deleted User]

Hi, ive just been shopping and overspent on this months budget by £3.26, which isnt too bad. I wanted to use all my coupons and also some of the offers run out today and tomorrow at Mr.T, so i took advantage of it today whilst i had the time to sort them out. The shoping would have come to £21.54, but i combined a clothing voucher and used my social spends money for those, but took the £5 off £40 shop off my food allowance. So saved £14.40 :j It took a lot of working out to do though. But worth it.

Sligo

Morning all! I've had to change my budget this month. Pushing my 5 week month out to next month so I'm changing my budget for this month to €600.

This weekends shop brings my spend up to €276.96/€600 so far. It's on target, the freezer has a small surplus in it and the hens are laying so there'll be baking done to use up the eggs! Looking good!

rowsew

Running in late (got another cold, bleurgh) to say please put me down for £215 for April. I was £24 over for March, but I still persist. If I can stay within budget it would be great, but the way food prices are moving up (again) I'm not sure if it will happen. If it warms up I will be able to start planting on the lotty, which will help a bit, but we've only got kale left up there for now. God help us all if it starts raining like last year.

xxlouisexx56

Yesterday was a NsD for GC.

Took DD1 to the cinema and bought sweets popcorn and fizzy drinks it was a nice treat! Then we had McDonald's and bought McDonald's home for DP and DD2.

Today I need to go to morrisons tonight to get rolls for our picnic tomorrow.
We are going to peppa pig world for dd2's birthday tomorrow. We need snacks for weds too although we will eat a couple of meals out, taking one picnic and snacks will cut down some costs

sweetpea26

Afternoon all

took youngest giant son to shop last night to pick up some snacks as promised ....cost me £6.76 !

Trip to MrTea's

spent £46.53 and for that I bought

reduced lamb shoulder
reduced Finest burgers
reduced Lean Mince x3
reduced Chicken x 5
reduced Gammon Steaks giant size pack of 2's.... x4

Strong White flower on offer 3 for 2 so bought 6 packs @ 80p which worked out at each costing 40p

Large pack mushrooms
loose carrots
bag value onions
bag red onions
bag of tomatoes
bag val peppers
3 kg of Bananas
2 seeded loaves
3 lt milk SS
Jordans cereal on offer at £2
Tesco cereal for son

oh and a pack of 4 fresh cream eclairs reduced to 59p :)

All in all a good shop as I rarely shop there as I find it very expensive.

All the best and keep going.

bargainbetty

Hello all,

Been off work for a little bit, so had time to sort out the cupboards, fridge and freezer. I have 20 HM ready meals to work my way through, so intend to be a good girl and use up the stash before buying more meat (unless it's a really good bargain).

With any luck, I can keep this month down to as little as possible! I'm saving hard for a mortgage overpayment, and possibly a holiday this summer too!

Hoping everyone is doing as well as they can with the gifts they've got...
BBx

[Deleted User]

My total since the 1st April is £44, which is within budget (£180) for the month. However, I have plenty of food in the cupboards and freezer so I'm hoping to come out under budget in the end.

It is interesting to find that I'm finding more ways to save by 'making it myself'. I thought I was already doing pretty well in that area, but we have recently been enjoying home-made pizza using watered down tomato puree - just enough to make it easy to spread on the base, before adding cheese and a little bacon or leftover smoked sausage.

One thing I would like to find out is how to make simple but enjoyable curries, using just mild or medium curry powder - rather than jars or more complicated blends.

Billie-jo

budgeteer wrote: »

One thing I would like to find out is how to make simple but enjoyable curries, using just mild or medium curry powder - rather than jars or more complicated blends.

I have a very old cookery book that was MIL first published in 1952 and they have a 'Simple Beef Curry' in it -

1lb uncooked steak (I used skirt beef)
2oz fat
2 onions sliced
1 DSP curry powder
1 DSP curry paste
1 DSP flour
1/2 pint stock
1TBSP grated coconut

Fry the onions, curry powder, curry paste and the flour then add the meat and cook for few minutes. Stir in the stock then add the coconut. Cover and cook slowly until meat is tender 1-2 hours. I have also added some chopped peppers, mushrooms, garlic and added a squirt of tomato puree. I also add more curry powder but that's personal taste and either a chopped up apple or some sultanas . I was surprised on how tasty it was with it not having many spice ingredients in.