April 2013 Grocery Challenge

getting-sorted-sarah

Just milk for me today and hopefully NSD tomorrow. Have a good evening everyone!

rogue999

£4.88 on a few Coop orange sticker bargains today which were too good to miss. DH just gave me a £5 Morrisons miles voucher so that may be my saviour this month! - determined not to go over, 10 days until my end of month (payday).

Florenceem

NSD here again - will shop tomorrow.
No photo tonight - for dinner we had cornish pastie with HM wedges, mushy peas and baked beans.
TITH tomorrow.

Tales17

Spent a bit more this week than I would normally as I had two £5 vouchers for £40 spends at Mr T, but I topped up on offers and household goods so made the most of it!

Nicki_Sue

Back again
I'm here, I'm not, I'm here.... and what I've been doing hasn't really worked so I'm changing the way I shop altogether. Up until now I've had a weekly online food shop and an organic veg box. Until yesterday I didn't have a chest freezer but managed to get a brilliant big one for £70 delivered and am really pleased with it.
So..... My food budget is £400 per month (including cleaning and nappies etc for a family of four).
I am going to try an online butcher who for £50ish can send me enough meat for approx 24 big meals.
I'm continuing with my veg boxes, alternating between an XL box and L box each week which works out as £72 a month.
This leaves me with £278 a month for bread, milk, cupboard goods, snacks etc. I love cooking / baking and can now batch bake and freeze, and shop around for other bits for packed lunches etc. If I can't do it on that then I'll be going wrong somewhere, especially if I use Approved.
The remaining 6-7 meals will be omelettes, leftovers, YS finds.

This might not seem like the most frugal way to shop with veg boxes and online butchers but I'm guessing it will work for us and will save us money by changing the way we shop so it's more efficient (and I'm fed up of having huge numbers of subs and missing items for online shops!).

We'll see. I'll not have a total for this month as we are half way through and will be fiddling with where and how but will keeping reading as I always do and will start again properly from May 1st. Wish me luck.

craigywv

good luck NIKKI SUE seems a lot of your money goes on fruit and veg ......so did mine , maybe try a bit of growing your own, i did a few yrs ago and havent looked back. i have a tiny garden made raised beds , a million pots buckets anything that can hold soil to grow does. i grow potatoes,lettuce , every herb knownto man lol, red and white onion, scallions,plums, rapberries, blueberries, tomatos, blackcurrants and blackberries, carrots,peas, beans 2 types and more. started by buying multipacks from poundshop , hit or a missits worth a try hth xxx

xx_Jo_xx

Hi all,

Im still lurking around in the background... I am still watching my spending, but between Uni, placement and family, I haven't had a chance to follow the thread or post!

I thought I would share with you an idea that we found...

DS was eyeing up ice lollies for the summer(he is clearly hoping that we get one ) and we found an Annabel Karmel recipe for lollies, using storecupboard ingredients. Thought this might be handy for someone..

Pineapple and Coconut Ice Lollies....

Ingredients:
1x432g tin pineapple in natural juice
85g (3 oz) caster sugar
120ml (4fl oz) coconut milk
1 large lime

I had a smart price tin of pineapple pieces which was 565g and used half a tin of coconut milk (about 200ml). I also had a bottle of Home Baking lime juice in the fridge so used that, instead of an actual lime.

Chuck it all in the blender and whizz.....
Transfer to lolly moulds....

Easy peasy

Guineapigsqueaks

Morning All

Beautiful day here, sun is shining and it's actually quite mild .

Weekly shop spend at Mr T to report, not as bad as I anticipated (as cupboard stocks seemed to be getting low), total £39.96 after using my last £5 off £40 coupon. That has been helpful coupon for me, have used one for last few weekly shops. And £5 Ald* one from M*rror not far away, planning not to miss that one this month!

There were a few good deals to be had, decent bags of gala apples £1, a half price chicken and a really big box of Cheerios for £2 (which should last DS with hollow legs a week at least).

I've noticed my spend reducing a bit I think as I've made some changes, making my own cakes/flapjacks for kids snacks/lunches and refilling drinks bottles rather than always buying cartons, buying carefully to make sure it's a good deal, getting very good at comparing the cost per 100g, etc. rather than actual prices.

Will update signature. I hope everyone has a good day, I've had a slow start, going to sign off now to get some washing through and on the line, do some baking and possibly get the hoover out .

Guineapigsqueaks x

Nicki_Sue

craigywv wrote: »

good luck NIKKI SUE seems a lot of your money goes on fruit and veg ......so did mine , maybe try a bit of growing your own, i did a few yrs ago and havent looked back. i have a tiny garden made raised beds , a million pots buckets anything that can hold soil to grow does. i grow potatoes,lettuce , every herb knownto man lol, red and white onion, scallions,plums, rapberries, blueberries, tomatos, blackcurrants and blackberries, carrots,peas, beans 2 types and more. started by buying multipacks from poundshop , hit or a missits worth a try hth xxx

In theory I absolutely agree with you - I had an 80ft garden previously and cleared some for veg.... And killed the lot.
I tried tubs... yup, killed them.
Herbs.... yup.
I even killed the beanstalk one of my sons brought home from nursery (and the cress).

I grow stunningly hardy weeds though :rotfl:

(We've now moved to a house with a big patio garden and a raised bed with bush-looking things in and have stuck in windcatchers and the like for colour) :T

**I really do enjoy the quality of the fruit and veg boxes and the fact that it supports local trade so don't mind spending that amount - it is all the other bits and top ups that have spiraled out of control**

getting-sorted-sarah

Totally agree Nicki_Sue, I had a go at fruit and veg growing but really the cost of plants plus the amount of time it took made it not cost efficient for me. I don't know if I am in a particularly desirable area for slugs but they ate pretty much everything. I became obsessed with stopping the slugs... surrounding the pots with salt, coffee grounds, hair, egg shells, copper sheeting and slug pellets - they would cheerfully climb over the lot and destroy tomatoes and raspberries alike. I started going out at midnight with a torch to try to kill them, which is when I decided it had all got a bit much! Sigh.