September 2013 Grocery Challenge

sachatith

Hi all!

Busy weekend but my gas is back on - hoorah! Which meant lots of baking and bulk cooking for me ;p

I think I am going to go slightly over budget BUT last month was £277.00 with my aim this month to get to £250.00 - then I made the boo boo with the delivery saver accidentally not being cancelled which meant I had to drop my month to £220.00. After having a look at my account, I'm not sure what has happened but we still have about £40.00 left in, after I take out all bills etc... so I probably could have got away with £250.00 after all! However, I am still going to aim for £220.00 and see how far over I go, so that I can use it as an indicator for next month.

Anywho...

Did my first mini shop at Mr T's, we have a whiteboard in our kitchen so me and OH have been making sure that if we run out of something, or think of something we need we write it up there. That way, saves me writing a shopping list and delving through too much, but also means I am less likely to go to the shop umpteen times because I have forgotten something. And it worked! My shop on Saturday was £14.73 which I was so pleased with! Having said that, we did end up having fish and chips on Friday because we still had no gas and I didn't want everything in the microwave (again!). So that was £12.

Leaving me with a grand total of £9.13 until 27th September - but we actually will only need fresh stuff like bread, veg so I might just do it. If I go a few squid over I don't mind as we will still have managed to cut our shop this month by £50 it's been tight, but not too bad.

One of my best buys in my last big shop (last week) was 1.8k of pork shoulder from Mr T's, half price so about £5.40. Chopped it in half on Sunday, shoved half in the freezer and the other half made a roast for me OH (and some for the dog) yesterday. Still got enough to have some with mash tonight and then will put the rest in a curry for me for next two nights. Not bad for essentially £2.70 worth of pork!

Also made my first ever apple pie with homemade pastry and the apples from the lady down the road so cost me about 20p to make, and then used up some treacle and golden syrup that we had in the cupboard to make a big ginger cake for him for puds and work this week. I love this challenge!

Have a good week

Love x

meg72

sachatith wrote: »

rk!

Also made my first ever apple pie with homemade pastry and the apples from the lady down the road so cost me about 20p to make, and then used up some treacle and golden syrup that we had in the cupboard to make a big ginger cake for him for puds and work this week. I love this challenge!

Have a good week

Love x[/QUOTE

Awww first apple pie with homemade pastry, well done hope its the first of many.

downshifted

Hmm I am beginning to learn that the best was to keep to the budget is to stay away from the shops! That means making sure you do get everything you need when you do go, so you don't have to pop out again and get even more tempted!

Over the weekend I went to Lidl (£29.47 - 3 x stir fry sauces, a FR chicken, frozen fish fillets, milk, stilton, parma ham, vegetables and toileteries) Tesco (£28.45, basa fillets, huge piece of cheddar, garlic paste, soy sauce and coffee) and I forgot the herbal teas so I went to sainsbury and was pempted by some reduced meat (£15.67 - herb teas x 2, reduced lamb joints x 2, rump steak, minced beef x 2 and cashew nuts)

Grand total so far this month £164.80

The good news is that I should only need veg and dairy for the rest of the month. I have made a freezer list and have lots to use up. On the other hand, my brother in law is coming to stay on Thursday so I shall be feeding 3 instead of 2 and you do tend to make more of an effort when someone else is here, so that usually involves spending more.

Watch this space!

K9sandFelines

Needed milk today, so couldn't avoid going to the shops, £3.78 spent in C*-*p on milk, two lots of LMC Rosemary and red onion sausages as the offer ends tomorrow and YS clover lighter 500g for 50p ....does anyone know if this is suitable to freeze? if not i will use up first as i also got one in last week's shop on offer.

Spent £2.25 on eggs and gala apples on offer for a £1.00 in Mr M. Managed to get saver eggs stamped with a 1 (that is meant to indicate FR, as picked up from another thread, the others were stamped with a 3).

Not sure what i am cooking for tea, need to sit down and have a think. Not sure i've any chopped tomatoes in, so depends on that i think today.

Off to update sig

kayester

about to put a full chicken in oven going to make curry and rice along with naan and poppadoms for tea, leftovers will be lunch tomorrow. chicken legs will be given to my dad for sandwiches

Pandora_2

lynnejk wrote: »

I have found can buy peppers and onions when on YS or offers and prep, saut! and freeze in batches for later use - works fine

L.

Ooh!! I'd always wondered about freezing chopped onions and peppers! It's one of those things that I always mean to look up and try and never get around to it!
I know you can buy bags of them ready chopped, which I do sometimes as I don't always want a whole onion, but if I could do it myself that would be so much better as I prefer red onions and hate green peppers which you always seem to get loads of in the pre-prepared bags.

Will give it a go after I next go shopping. Thanks for that! :T

Billie-jo

£1.79 spent this morning. Have updated signature as its now working again.

K9sandFelines

Billie-jo wrote: »

£1.79 spent this morning. Have updated signature as its now working again.

You just reminded me that i forgot to add my NSDs!

MoonJelly

Hello All.
I have been doing this challenge on and off for months. Now my husband has come back from working overseas and I find my budget has gone off. We have decided to buy our meat in bulk from the local farm. My question is this: how do you calculate your monthly food budget when buying in bulk? I am also getting some of our veg from a neighbour who grows his own -again in bulk. Any ideas please?

aliwali

MoonJelly wrote: »

Hello All.
I have been doing this challenge on and off for months. Now my husband has come back from working overseas and I find my budget has gone off. We have decided to buy our meat in bulk from the local farm. My question is this: how do you calculate your monthly food budget when buying in bulk? I am also getting some of our veg from a neighbour who grows his own -again in bulk. Any ideas please?

Hi, how much are you buying? A months worth or more than that. I guess you need to work out how any meals worth of meat you are buying and work it out that way. Alternatively you could work out the £/kg and when you have your meal plan work out how much you have spent on meat and take that off the weekly budget.

We buy in bulk from Costco and a food co-operative and I have a separate budget for that which I wait until there is enough in the pot to do a shop with them.

Hopefully others may have different suggestions that may be easier to work with.