May 2013 Grocery Challenge

GreenFairy

I'm upping mine to €300 for the month. My mam's in hospital so I'm acting as my dad's carer and he's staying with us. He's got a limited diet so budget reflects this. Have done a huge shop already and got just about everything I need for the month aside from perishables. Will root out receipts and add to sig at some point...

rogue999

£13 spend at Sains today for some top up bits including emergency tea bags! Had a lamb hotpot for tea - was meant to be enough for 2 days but everyone was hungry and we snaffled most of it - whoops.

Welsh_Poppy

I visited a farm shop which was fab and got a few bits for the month mainly meat for OH £28.75.Then Morries £15.00 but should be more than enough for over 2 weeks or longer:-)

Florenceen...gift cards are great:-)

Florenceem

Last day of my first week of May GC. Must do better.
Yesterday's dinner - TITH plus roast pots/parsnips, cabbage/swede + green beans and gravy.

Today's dinner - pasties - FF plus roast pots/parsnips + roasted beetroot/red onion and sunburst tomatoes.

Plus I made Coconut & Cherry Muffins.

lizalloareds

spends from yesterday and today
£2.37 Lidl
£2.20 Mr T
49p Aldi
£3 farmers market
£1 iceland

sig updated

GreenFairy

Found five minutes to root out receipts and do some totting up. €187.46 spent in one ginormous shopping trip to the cooperative and the supermarket. That's all of our dried goods, canned goods, milk, baking supplies (inc parchment) and cleaning supplies for the month, plus fruit and veg for the week, a few frozen things and some bits for my dad.

It's the first time I've tried this huge monthly shop (and spent time over the last month preparing for it - so many lists!) but as hubs is now paid by the month, it makes sense.

Bluegreen143

WantToBeSE wrote: »

Hi Florenceem.
We never buy takeaways, our last was over 2 years ago now.
Snack foods are the problem in this house, for sure. My 2 boys eat a LOT. They will happily eat breakfast (porridge and toast, with fruit), Lunch (at school), then come home and munch on snacks (normally bisuits, a packet of crisps, fruit, jelly) and then eat a huge big meal for dinner.
Both of them are very active though, and have no weight problems or health problems.
I really dont think its fair to restrict their intake, as they are growing, healthy lads...but they are costing me a fortune!!

Can you post up your mealplan and we can see if there's any obvious ways you could save cash?

Re snacks, Flo's ideas were all really good, and when she mentioned HM veg soup I had a thought - could you not make up a big pot each week and give them a cup when they come home from school with a slice of HM bread (my HM brown bread only costs 5p a slice and white is even cheaper). This with maybe some fruit or a value/HM biscuit ought to fill them up til dinnertime?

There's no reason an afterschool snack needs to be crisps & biscuits as opposed to a 'mini meal', as imho crisps aren't actually that filling for how much they cost, and you could still get some in for treats but once they're gone, they're gone until the next shop. Obviously only you know if your boys would go for this though.

EDIT I don't have kids so I'm just guessing with this and I can't stop my OH eating crisps so I can't really talk! But I only buy him a 6 pack a week and if he eats them all, tough.

Bluegreen143

So many spends! Had friends over Friday night and spent £30ish and then a further £40 today. Exact totals in sig.

Made roasted tomato and goats cheese quiche and had with leftover salady bits.





Mealplan for this week:

• Sun 28 – roasted tomato & goats cheese quiche with leftover salady bits
  
• Mon 29th – OH having pizza; I’m out
  
• Tues 30th – we have a wedding caterer tasting so are out in the evening again
  
• Wed 1st – mac & cheese with broccoli and salad
  
• Thurs 2nd – chilli con carne with rice
  
• Fri 3rd – spicy chicken wings with corn on the cob and salad
  
• Sat 4th – penne arrabiata

patentgirl

Morning everyone doing quite well so far had 5 NSDs since last Monday so monthly shop paid off so far just going into week 3 only spent £7 apart from £142 main shop got £51 left in pot should be ok but will need to some baking this week shoul have enough supplies for that.

Bluegreen that quiche looks yummy

Flat_Eric

I spent far too much on grocery shops in April - too many visits to the shops on the way to and from work and I'm sure if I added them all up, I would be quite upset at just how much I had spent.

I haven't set a budget yet but I need to get organised - something I seem to have difficultly in doing - I need to get back to meal planning etc and try to stick to having one shop a week rather than visiting the shop daily and spending quids.