June 2013 Grocery Challenge

lbnblbnb

K9sandFelines wrote: »

I feel bad now for being upset about my dog. Hope you and your OH are ok.

Thanks and don't feel bad; I have lost much loved pets, I know how much it can hurt. Thinking of you too.
I am finding it hard to focus, but back to the meal plan!

Nicky_Noo_Na

Lots more spends to add - £1 in the week for some YS bread to tide us over and pretzels to take to a friends house. Weekly shop today = £17.07 in Mr A and £19.86 in Mr T. Averaging £40 a week but need to try and get 5 weeks out the £160 budget this month - its gonna be tight! Although about £5 of spends today were toilet roll/kitchen roll/cleaning stuff so won't need them again this month. Treat of fajitas and cider tonight but then cheap and cheerful dinners the rest of the week.

P.S. I looked in 3 different co-ops for this brilliant offer on toilet rolls but it wasn't to be. Ended up with Mr Ts springforce instead, 9 for £2 - hoping they are better than value!

Elimum

NickJW

- how do you find the 'No Waste meal planner cookbook'? I looked online but couldn't find any reviews. It sounds like it would suit me. I always buy things for one recipe, then am searching around for another new recipe to make sure I never have waste from the leftovers!,..but are the meals interesting? It's quite a good price on Amazon, so might give it a go regardless.

As I said, the actual recipes are not to my taste, but I have a family a bit particular about food (I'm allergic to fish and my husband doesn't like red meat) so most of the 20 4-meal plans in the book are not suitable to us. The interesting part is the introduction of the concept, that is briefly summarized on the amazon page. The recipes are nothing new (Southern fried chicken with corn cobs, Poached salmon with hm mayo, etc...) and I don't think I would buy it, honestly, but if you can find it at your library or borrow it somewhere else, it's worth a look.

Today I spent £6.60 at the market for a top up of fruit&veg.

Shortie

Sorry to hear the news lbnblbnb

Today saw a £22-pennies at an indoor market on loads of fruit, veg, huge bag of chapati flour, huge bottle of soy and of vinegar, tonnes of garlic and ginger, and chillis, sweet peppers and cider vinegar to make chilli jam. I got far more than I meant to but it is all stuff we will make good use of and it was very good value...

We still have to do a Mr T run (and Mr S as it's enroute for value tea bags) and have £43 in Mr T vouchers and a bit over £6 in cash. We have lots of meal bits in at the mo but still need top up things to get us to 20th. Hope we don't go too far over!

lovefullshelves

Cat food day, oh joy. Mr jolly has £62.04 of my pennies, but thats another month of crunchies. And F-Foods is next door so got some loo roll, bread and biccies(I do hate taking son food shopping, it can be expensive!) Now off to finish(hopefully) this months shopping online:)
lbnblbnb, other norfolk lass:D, warmest wishes winging your way, I like the meals to show love thing, I do that:)

lbnblbnb

Thanks for the good wishes, very good of you all.
Stores checked, carrots peeled, celeriac revived by cutting off the bad bits, rotten lemon thrown away - I had taken my eye off the ball rather! Meal plan is as follows:
Days flexible
Carrot, courgette, lemon and Parmesan pasta
Enchiladas
Cabbage risotto - nicer than it sounds
Hummus, pittas, salads
Curry using up carrots, potatoes, mint and coriander

Other bits: celeriac soup, something using buttermilk as I have two cartons - maybe pancakes? I have quite a few sausages in the freezer and frozen HM pizza bases and sauce.
I might have to go to shopping for a few bits but really not much. I have a £3 off £20 voucher for the co-op so will go there.

she_who_can_not_cook

Ciaerda wrote: »

Hi everyone, it is another nsd today so that makes 3 in a row, will need to go shopping tomorrow so that I don't have to go to the shops over the weekend plus I have got a couple of vouchers to use, it is supposed to be nice and sunny as well so fingers crossed for that - it always seems nicer if the sun is shining.

Looking at other peoples posts looks like few of you have chest freezers are these extra freezers. I have a fridge freezer which isn't too bad but you can't really get loads in there and I was thinking maybe getting a chest freezer and having it in the shed outside. Then at least I could really stock up when meat is on offer etc, would love to hear your opinions.

Thank you and have a great day

I love my chest freezer but i like to rotate the upright every month or so one time i came home with two reduced whole chicken s only to find two in the chest one lol

meg72

Was rather disappointed in my local market on Friday, fruit and salad stuff well up in price on last week, sign the Sun is out I suppose. Only bought grapes 2 x1.00 and a huge white cabbage for 50p. and a melon for 50p so 3.00 at the market. Called in Asda and actually found for once they were cheaper than the market.
for nectarines, pineapple same price 1.00 but about twice the size, and Kiwi so 3.00 in Asda. total 6.00. Going to make up fruit salad for the freezer. and coleslaw with the cabbage, opps also bought 2 carrots but cant remember how much.

Florenceem

tinycrush wrote: »

Can I ask some advice?
I put on my SOA that I planned to budget £40 a week (£160 a month) on groceries for 3 of us, myself, OH and 18yr old daughter, and was told that this was unlikely to be realistic or true.
But, that is the budget I want to aim for... am I being unrealistic?
I intend to make from scratch, eat a lot of soups, use my storecupboard and freezer, and grow own salad and some veggies.

That is certainly enough money as you are cooking from scratch and have stocks in.

Tenyearstogo

I spent £68.81 in tesco today.

I've nearly used my budget for the month but I have been stocking up my new freezer and building my stockpile. I've got nearly £180 of things in my stockpile and lots of meat in my freezer.

I'm definitely going to bust this month.