September 2013 Grocery Challenge

iammumtoone

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Do you mean a 20kg bag, usually from farm shops. Store them in the dark in their paper sack, somewhere cold but frost free. The right variety can store for several months (new pots don't store well). If they start to go soft you can always part roast them and then freeze them for later or you could make mash and freeze that. I agree they are a lot cheaper bought by the sack.

No 20kg would last us a year lol. It was 5kg from Mr T, unfortunately they come in those horrible plastic bags. I do remember my parents buying those sacks of potatoes and my mother having to go down to the shed every night to get out what we needed for tea.

meg72

zafiro1984 wrote: »

Do you mean a 20kg bag, usually from farm shops. Store them in the dark in their paper sack, somewhere cold but frost free. The right variety can store for several months (new pots don't store well). If they start to go soft you can always part roast them and then freeze them for later or you could make mash and freeze that. I agree they are a lot cheaper bought by the sack.

I agree, cool and dark is the way to go
I keep mine in an outside meter cupboard as I find anywhere inside is just to warm.
I can keep mine for weeks like this.

kayester

i just get 2k potatoes weekly.

today been a bad day, went to the play area to meet my cousin and daughter.
we had a carvery and a pudding along with drinks ect came to £18.70 i still should be ok until end of month gunna do a freezer check in next 2 days.

iammumtoone

kayester wrote: »

i just get 2k potatoes weekly.

today been a bad day, went to the play area to meet my cousin and daughter.
we had a carvery and a pudding along with drinks ect came to £18.70 i still should be ok until end of month gunna do a freezer check in next 2 days.

Do you get through 2KG in a week? I normally get that size but still found I was throwing loads away, only got the bigger size as it was YS so only a few pence more

Ouch to the meal, but you have to enjoy yourself once in a while.

When I find myself in a situation like that, I get son a meal and just have a bowl of chips whilst making up some excuse about already taken meat out of freezer/something in slow cooker etc. :rotfl:

kayester

iammumtoone wrote: »

Do you get through 2KG in a week? I normally get that size but still found I was throwing loads away, only got the bigger size as it was YS so only a few pence more

Ouch to the meal, but you have to enjoy yourself once in a while.

When I find myself in a situation like that, I get son a meal and just have a bowl of chips whilst making up some excuse about already taken meat out of freezer/something in slow cooker etc. :rotfl:

yeah i usually throw away too, which is why ive joined this thread to try save on wasting lol. i may buy more in bulk next month and see how we get on.
well it was a lovely meal and we dont go out often.
haha thats not a bad idea, but the carvery smelt so good! they gave me 2 yorkshire puds too

russetred

"We have £9 something left in budget but also found some old vouchers worth £7 from various surveys, so may treat us to a Mr T's Big Night in Takeaway special this Saturday as its the last one in together for a while in amongst all the camps!"

Sachtith, Can I suggest if you like Indian to go for 1 x korma, 1 x jalfrezi and 2 x veg spring rolls along with 7 other cheap items eg an onion, a mushroom, a flump etc. Make sure you have 10 DIFFERENT items and no others in that shop. The BNI would cost you £6 but you will get back a PP (price promise) for £4. Cheap and cheery night in!:D

Sequeena

£10 spent in lidl, guess I won't overspend this week!

XSpender

I had planned not to spend another penny but DH wanted a kebab last night, and felt rough this morning after having it as he did when he had one earlier in the month. I hope this puts him off as they are not good for him when he is starting to kick start a more healthy lifestyle and had said he wanted to lose three lb this week.

Because I didnt put the oven on for the planned pasta bake I didnt put my planned lunch in for today either which was a jacket potato so had to buy one at work for £1.50 as no GF bread in either:mad:

We also needed to buy some fish food for our new fishes.

£8.79 to add to my total so £333.05 now with 2 days to go including what's left of today.

I am busy planning next month at the moment. It will be a 5 week month and I have ummed and ahhhd over if I should do a big shop on Friday and then try to stick to weekly top ups or just do bigger shops each week or 2 weeks. As we are short on a lot of storecupboard stuff and d/w tablets etc I have finally decided to do a big shop on Friday, visit the butchers on Saturday and then do small shops each week after that for fresh fruit and dairy and the odd bit of meat as and when needed.

I am still undecided on my budget as I want to improve on this months average spend of £83/week. The previous month I did have a bit of a use up month and achieved an average of £72/week. This is for 2 adults (1 GF), a 3 year old with a large appetite who eats most of his meals at nursery/DMIL's, a small dog and 5 fish.

We are cutting out almost all shop bought snacks this month, doing the majority of our big shop at aldi, mr t value range or the local butcher, reducing the number of takeaways to 1 or 0;), making my own GF bread and snacks as even YS they still are expensive and I have meal planned for a month including some new recipes to stop us getting bored.

I dont have any idea really how much a particular meal costs us when I am meal planning so I have put my shopping list on a spreadsheet (what a geek:o) and will add the prices to it when I have finished my shopping on Sunday. This way I can calculate how much a particular meal costs so I can mix them up across the week and spread the cost or see how I can reduce the cost of recipes as some of the usual cheapie recipes or stretching tactics are not as cost effective on a GF diet and 90% of our family meals are made GF or I would have to make 2 seperate ones and risk the possibility of cross contamination if preparing them at the same time.

flyinggiraffe_2

Spent an extra £6.38 on some bits reduced in marks. Got 8 millionaire shortbreads which will be fab for munching during the quiz, 12 bread rolls for 30 pence, and some crisps.

All update signature to reflect this. I should stay in budget this month, but probably only due to spending more on my eating out budget.

sachatith

russetred wrote: »

Sachtith, Can I suggest if you like Indian to go for 1 x korma, 1 x jalfrezi and 2 x veg spring rolls along with 7 other cheap items eg an onion, a mushroom, a flump etc. Make sure you have 10 DIFFERENT items and no others in that shop. The BNI would cost you £6 but you will get back a PP (price promise) for £4. Cheap and cheery night in!:D

Russetred not really sure what you mean? We were just going to get their box for two which is on offer at the moment for £5.00 (cheaper than BNI!) not sure where the other bits and pieces come into it? Sorry my brain is still suffering from cold!

I am tempted to get their BNI 2 pizzas, garlic bread and wedges for £6.00 (lasts us two days!) and see if my body is still rejecting dairy....:p:o