May 2013 Grocery Challenge

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Budgets done to here

Welcome to our new joiners:
loudmouth, colsey, Crowdpleaser, Businessgirl, GemmaN and Souk08

Still plugging away at April's budget. See you all soon.
Coxy

Florenceem

Spend of £7.93 yesterday.
Last day of workmen yesterday - I took a photo of dinner but can't find the camera lead to download it! I can't find my cheque book either - to pay for the work. :eek:
For dinner we had Piri Piri chicken + HM wedges with roast beetroot/red onion and sunburst tomatoes - it was yummy.

pinkypig

No spends to report yet but I will soon have 2 Mirror vouchers for Aldi and I have just got a refund for some damaged goods I have received. The goods were largely rescued and repackaged and I have altered my signature for May and June as I am spreading the cost of some serious bulk buying. Never had such a good start to a challenge:j

PP xx

sistercas

Did my first shop of the month as it starts on the 25th for us

I spent £19"37 in a!di £25.23in sainsbugs and £4 in t3sco £48.60 in total for the week , meal plan is done :j

I've made a cottage pie for tonight's tea and filled it with lots of veg :A

zebredy

Did this before, once or twice, but with me being more of a lurker then a poster after a time, I thought I would give it another go, especially with me being out of work and only OH wages to go on.

My husband has said Monthly £110 is OK for this month and too see how I get on, just food toiletries and cats, ptrol not included in this.

We are eating out once as it was planned ages ago but that is a cheap meal and cinema trip with tickets having been bought weeks ago too and not part of the £110 budge.

Its 2 adults and 4 cats. I know I can stick to this budget if I really really really want to but I do love my food shopping more then any other form of shopping (not sure why that is lol)

So to that end I will be (for myself) splitting the monthly budget by 3 (hubby gets paid ever 4 weeks but this week Sainsburys are doing 10p off a litre if you spend £60 on shopping or more, so doing two weeks shopping this week, as car must be filled too) just for my benefit this is

With enough food in the freezer to last us at least 3 days, 14 cartons of passata (bought loads when it was going cheap at a lidl ages ago, with prices that good I couldn't resist) loads of pasta (again it was cheap, Asda were doing my favourite brown pasta for 33p a packet) and another cupboard half full still to check, we are set for at least a week or so (not counting meat needed for meals).

My main problem is I am not the best at meal planning, often chang my mind about what I eat (must stop doing that), also when it comes to making a meals and freezing left overs for later. I often forget I have done that d'oh. Putting things in containers in the fridge for the next day is fine, and freezing meat to defrost for meals is also fine so will stick with just doing that for now

Meal plan from all day Saturday - all day Friday week after next (as I got tomorrow sorted) is almost finished just want hubby to check it over as he is a bit more fussy about what he eats then me. Fingers crossed I can do this...

Just a quick question - is it weird if I say I hate seeing bear cupboard, I worry if the cupboards get to low on stock we could end up going hungry even though deep down I know that is really not the case.

Sorry for the long first post

Businessgirl

Well today I went to the market and got 2 very large punnets of strawberries for £2...and a bag of about 15 individual cream cheeses for £1. They are already portioned out so hopefully will last longer and not go off, as tubs do in my fridge! I'm VERY pleased with that!

I'm going to have to figure out what to do with all the strawberries as there are only so many strawberries one person can eat! I might freeze them ... hmmmmm.

Tomorrow I'm going to figure out my food plan for next week and plan my shopping list as well! I'm hoping that next week will be a very low spend week!

lbnblbnb

I forgot to get the flipping Aldi voucher! OH is out now, I hope he may have kindly diverted to the paper shop to get one for me...if they have any left...

I have meal planned and made my list. We really don't need much tomorrow, or at least not as much as I expected.

I know it won't be to everyone's taste, call me a hippy if you like (!), but we are going to make nettle soup this weekend. OH made it last year and it was lovely - very fresh and green tasting, a bit like spinach. Recipe is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/30/nettle-recipes-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall

Meal plan (days are flexible)
Vegetable curry
Nettle soup
HM Pizza
Leek risotto
Beetroot salad and tabbouleh
Black bean quesadillas

One night out for OH's birthday and our wedding anniversary.
Good luck all!

Florenceem

NSD here.
For dinner we had roast pork with roast potatoes + roast parsnips + roasted veggies - beetroot/red onion/sunburst tomatoes + gravy.
Need to spend tomorrow - out of potatoes.

Bluegreen143

zebredy wrote: »

Just a quick question - is it weird if I say I hate seeing bear cupboard, I worry if the cupboards get to low on stock we could end up going hungry even though deep down I know that is really not the case.

Welcome and good luck! It's not weird, at least loads of people have been saying the same as you

I have to say I'm the opposite, I love it when there's not much in, especially when the fridge is full I worry things are hiding at the back being wasted and I find it hard to map out how to use everything before it goes off. When the fridge is nearly bare I love the challenge of coming up with something good. Oh and the flat is tiny so no room for too much cupboard stuff, I do get say 4 tins of tomatoes/tuna at a time which would be used up in a couple of weeks, but not more. But I am a bit of a minimalist at heart

(I live in a city walking distance away from shops and we're both young and fit so no worries about not having stuff in for bad weather etc, obviously this minimalist approach wouldn't work for all.)

Spent loads today as we have friends coming over for dinner tomorrow, around £30 :eek::eek: Was going to do a big online shop with some nice treats with it being a shiny new budget but I think I'll keep it as minimal as possible. Struggling to mealplan tonight as I have a bit of a cold and am really tired, so will leave it for tomorrow. Will update sig tomorrow when I can face the receipt...

storytime

My budget for May is £220. Although it is a 5 week month we have a holiday for a week in Italy ( we deserve it as we've been married for 35 years!) and that is definitely not coming out of the grocery budget!I have an Aldi and Mr T voucher so first week in May will be a stock up month and then I think we will be living on salads to try and lose some weight!
Quiche,frittata and cold cheese and lentil loaf on the menu so far.