September 2013 Grocery Challenge

Taranaman

Spending is at £287 and a bit. Hope to hold out with some mini shops for milk and veg for another 6 days, but to be honest am expecting to go over. Is it just me but after the half way mark of £150 I just couldn't be ar$€d to count the pennies. Setting a target of 10% lower for October.

K9sandFelines

meg72 wrote: »

Declaring for September at 40.00, my lowest
this year. This is down to using my local shop for reduced items. On Saturday I got
lettuce, tomatos,mushrooms, cucumber and celery all at 25p pack. On Sunday apples. oranges and corn on the cob at 30p pack. Total 1.85.
Am hoping to do the same for October and November and run the freezers down.

Can i ask what you did with the Mr T onion offer please? I have just got some before the offer ended and unsure what to do with them, other than chop and freeze. I do use alot of onions normally but not on this scale. I don't like beef flavoured soups, so don't think i would like french onion, and the only other recipe i can see is onion tart or onion bhajis ... and there's onion chutney possibly.
Thanks

41.44 spend at Mr Ts, hopefully last spend now til Saturday before Mr A pass runs out, i had a £3 off MR T voucher for today's shop, so effectively free delivery. Not sure whether to take out another delivery pass for £8 as it's come in quite handy, particularly for bottled water.

iammumtoone

This weeks spends came to an over budget 40.85

means total for month 143.35/140

My month doesn't end until 29th September but I shouldn't spend anymore, the only things I would need to buy are milk and bread ( I now have dried milk for when we run out and a spare loaf of bread in the freezer) anything else we will have to do without.

Looking forward to my first full month on the challenge in October. It has really helped me to keep track of my spends and I want to say thanks to everyone on this thread for all the great ideas and motivation to stick to a the budget

Florenceem

Took advantage of the baking ingredients on offer at Ald. I save £1 a week for times when I want to do a large shop - today was that day. I have a well stocked baking cupboard now - spent £12.83 of my GC money. The other £20 was from my saved shopping money. £1 saved a week really does help when an offer or reductions are about and your GC cash is low.
I made a Spinach quiche for dinner - we had it with roast sweet potato + brocolli/carrots. I have some LO HM Shortcrust Pastry in the fridge. Also baked some Cinnamon & Sultana Muffins.

katholicos

I've really lost the plot with grocery spending for the last few months. We have lots in and i should be making better use of the contents of the pantry and cupboards. Been in a bit of a rut really and we haven't sat down for a family meal for quite some time as everyone is off doing their own thing, but i want us to get back to that as much as we can.

It is my hope that as i once again settle back into frequenting OS, that the OS/thrifty switch in my brain might get flicked on once more!

meg72

K9sandFelines wrote: »

Can i ask what you did with the Mr T onion offer please? I have just got some before the offer ended and unsure what to do with them, other than chop and freeze. I do use alot of onions normally but not on this scale. I don't like beef flavoured soups, so don't think i would like french onion, and the only other recipe i can see is onion tart or onion bhajis ... and there's onion chutney possibly.
Thanks

41.44 spend at Mr Ts, hopefully last spend now til Saturday before Mr A pass runs out, i had a £3 off MR T voucher for today's shop, so effectively free delivery. Not sure whether to take out another delivery pass for £8 as it's come in quite handy, particularly for bottled water.

I dried most of the onions to use for stews later in year, I also chopped and froze some but it takes up too much freezer space. I made some bacon,potato and onion pies and used some for quiche,
I made battered onion rings. I love fried onions but its such a faff for one so I made up a batch and froze in portions.
some to have with sausage and mash and some to top a cheesy baked potato.

iammumtoone

meg72 wrote: »

I dried most of the onions to use for stews later in year, I also chopped and froze some but it takes up too much freezer space. I made some bacon,potato and onion pies and used some for quiche,
I made battered onion rings. I love fried onions but its such a faff for one so I made up a batch and froze in portions.
some to have with sausage and mash and some to top a cheesy baked potato.

How do you do your own dried onions please? and how do you store then afterwards, do they keep long? Thanks

I have some onions that are getting past their best but for the price of them, I can't spare the freezer space to store them frozen.

Bluegreen143

K9sandFelines wrote: »

Can i ask what you did with the Mr T onion offer please? I have just got some before the offer ended and unsure what to do with them, other than chop and freeze. I do use alot of onions normally but not on this scale. I don't like beef flavoured soups, so don't think i would like french onion, and the only other recipe i can see is onion tart or onion bhajis ... and there's onion chutney possibly.
Thanks

41.44 spend at Mr Ts, hopefully last spend now til Saturday before Mr A pass runs out, i had a £3 off MR T voucher for today's shop, so effectively free delivery. Not sure whether to take out another delivery pass for £8 as it's come in quite handy, particularly for bottled water.

You can make a veggie French onion soup with veg stock and some white wine or cider (do need the booze but the cheapest will do) instead of beef flavoured, is also yummy. Found that out as a vegetarian as French onion is my fave flavour

Alternatively, cook up in some veggie stock, whizz and add cream/milk and maybe some thyme for a cream of onion soup.

Onion chutney does use a lot, or I think you can make up your own curry paste and freeze, think I saw this on the mortgage free in 3 blog but can't remember where.

HTH x

Bluegreen143

Did a small Mr M shop on Sunday, bringing total to £181.97, and bought a tub of creme fraiche last night for £1.16.

Finishing up September now, so declaring at £183.13 / £185 - very pleased with this as it was a five week month

I'll keep an eye on this thread in case of recipes, but will post in October from today - going to reduce my target back to £175 I think, as it's a four week month again. Or maybe I could go slightly lower, as I've been doing really well the last few months?

K9sandFelines

meg72 wrote: »

I dried most of the onions to use for stews later in year, I also chopped and froze some but it takes up too much freezer space. I made some bacon,potato and onion pies and used some for quiche,
I made battered onion rings. I love fried onions but its such a faff for one so I made up a batch and froze in portions.
some to have with sausage and mash and some to top a cheesy baked potato.

Since asking you that question, i have found a load of things on BBC Good Food, alot of repeats but have bookmarked a few things. It's time like these i wish i had a fancy food processor, so i don't have to stand doing a manual chop. Might have to use DD's goggles :rotfl: