September 2013 Grocery Challenge

Cambs85

Right, last big spend of my first month on GC. I have £8.54 left out of £250. Pretty pleased with that, though think it will prob be gone by end of month (30th). Got all meals in though, so hopefully will be ok :-)

chickadee

Just a quick update from me. Been to Al*I today for mainly fresh food and cat food. Spent £41.46 which takes me to £203.08 in total, well within my £250 target for the month. This was my first month so it was always a bit of a guess what I would aim for. Maybe next month I'll bring it down a bit.

Lesson for the month: powdered milk is ok in drinks and for cereals and porridge.

Shortie

Mr T shop today that was much more than I expected even though nothig was bought outside of the list.. So today saw £102.42 in Mr T and also £5.66 in Sainsbobs :eek:

There were bigger itema in the shop but seeing I increased the budget this month, it's a worrying start

Shortie

Okay so I've just been over the receipt (Mr Shortie did the Mr T shop) and I was forgetting he got a huuuuuge block of cheese which should easily last us a whole month plus more and he bought in extra sausages so instead of 2 packs (2 dinners worth) we have 4 packs so 4 dinners worth

Stil.... I would normally now only have £80 left and we only got the refreshed budget on Friday

lynnejk

Another NSD yesterday and a trip to Al*i today for milk, stuff for pack-ups and fruit - and I have amended my totals.

Had a bit of a luxury today with full-on all HM roast beef, yorkie, roast pots and steamed veggies followed by HM apple crumble and custard - What diet ?:rotfl:

Does anyone freeze left-over roast pots and if so what can you do with them ? or am I best to stick to popping them in the chip-pan the next day or so ? Also can I freeze curried potato ?

Start back to Uni tomorrow so bit apprehensive as to how it will all go. :eek: Going to have to get really organised so I don't start resorting to ready meals and blow the budget due to lack of time/planning.

Good luck for the last week of the month everyone

L.

CH27

I'm aiming for a NSD today. I need to save my cash until the end of the week to buy fresh stuff for son to take to uni on sunday.

kayester

8.88 spent not doing so well but its all a learning curve for me.

however have made a complaint to asda and got £7.00 voucher for my next shop which will be in october

kayester

Can I have some advice please.
as you can tell im not very good with best before dates ect.

I have an old el paso enchiladas kit in the cuboard. the best before date is 13/09/13 which was ten days ago. shall I use or throw away.

tessie_bear

kay id have a look and a sniff of it and use it...im sure it will be fine re frozen roast pots i have never had much sucess freezing potatoes and would just rehash them the next day from the fridge

i am doing ok went to lidl for some of the half price milk and ended up spending £22 which is why i stopped going for the saturday offers a while ago..too much spent

planning a trip to aldi to get some more of the super 6 before they change...£5 off £40 on thursday in the mirror...might be of use to peeps as far as i know

roast chicken for tea and some frozen veg from the freezer as want to defrost it oct half term
take care tess

meg72

kayester wrote: »

Can I have some advice please.
as you can tell im not very good with best before dates ect.

I have an old el paso enchiladas kit in the cuboard. the best before date is 13/09/13 which was ten days ago. shall I use or throw away.

Use it. Kay I am wondering if perhaps you get confused with use by and best before dates. Use by dates usually apply to dairy, cooked meats etc, and the manufacturers err on the side of caution, I find with most things that you usually have a few days after the given date. If it looks and smells OK use it.

Best before dates, again the manufacturers leave a lot of leeway and these will be fine weeks even months after the given date.

I tend to ignore all dates and go by sight and smell, afterall when I started housekeeping we didnt have dates to worry about.