October 2013 Grocery Challenge

laura_hoggle

Ugh we've been bad again!!!

Spent £40.03 in Sainsburys yesterday, although could have been worse - had friends round for dinner and to stay last night and cooked a veggie version of a Jack Monroe Moroccan tagine type thing, was very cheap and went down really well. I also bought things for a nice cooked brekkie this morning, probably spent 4 times more on breakfast than dinner cost!

I was good though and didn't buy wine as I normally would, as I had a couple of bottles of pink bubbly hanging around that went down nicely! DH bought some beer though, and we stocked up on lunch food for the week.

We are away for a few days next weekend as it is DHs birthday, we are going out for a couple of meals but that will come from a different budget. We will be staying at the in laws, so hopefully won't need to buy food for a few days! Hoping I can manage to stretch what's left of the budget until the end of the month too - our month will end on the 28th October, as that's when I get paid and money goes into the joint account on the 29th! Fingers crossed!

Bookworm42

Well, it's definitely time to start planning lots of warming stews. Think I'll do a lamb hotpot this week.
Spends since I last updated (all at Mr T):
10/10 - £2.25
11/10 - £11.15 (mostly beer for DH)
12/10 - £9.02
13/10 - £5.80
No NSDs this week. I'm just under budget for the month but know I should be doing better. Just off to check freezer/cupboards. Will do menu & shopping list ready for big shop tomorrow.
Have a good week everyone. Enjoyed catching up on posts today.

K9sandFelines

K9sandFelines wrote: »

Just had a Mr T delivery, stocked up on packed lunch offers that were ending and washing up liquid, conditioner and washing liquid that should last a good month or two, so won't need to order anything from the Cloud 9 lady. Colour shampoo and conditioner for me and DD (also on offer) and fridge bits. This came to £52.26

Also got few bits yesterday too. My cousin came to visit and needed some bits for her and her girls for tea. So, with the best off intentions, my purchase of fizzy water stretched to bread, 2 for £2 grapes, sandwich meat, eggs and can't remember what else. Receipt upstairs so will add that later or tomorrow; whenever i'm next about and can remember the spend.

Should only need bread, sandwich meat and milk to top up. Bought 12 pints last time as we went through it all in one go, this time it's hardly been touched. So i am going to have to start drinking it of a night, do some desserts with it, and egg custards etc, otherwise it will be wasted, and i've already had to chuck a 4pack of yoghurt as it was dated end of Sep, and didn't want to chance eating it to use up ... a few days out and i would have done, no problem..
Off to update sig.

£7.87 to report for the Mr M spend.

MissRikkiC

Hi All hope youve had a good weekend.

K9 well done on the job

Updated my sig to show spends from the last week or so.

Been stocking up on Cathedral City cheese this week as Mr M's by me has a 500g block for £2.85 so i now have 4 which should see me through until Christmas.

Had a baking day today, so 2 Victoria Sponges and 12 scones later the fridge is full!

Can any one advise me how to make my scones rise?

I made 2 batches of cheese scones last week and then these fruit scones today and nothing. They taste great but i want them bigger!!

Looking to the recipe index for meal plannning inspiration whilst i try and ignore all the cakes in the fridge incase i eat them all :rotfl:
RC

WantToBeSE

I am really pleased with my meal tonight. An easy peasy Fish pie, and enough leftovers to make fish cakes.

If anyone is interested, for the fish pie i just used half a pack of frozen fish pie mix (it has smoked haddock, salmon and cod in it, in chunks) and some frozen prawns.

Chuck them in a pyrex bowl (still frozen, no need to defrost) with some (i use 2) frozen cubes of spinach, a few grated carrots, some frozen peas, some dried chilli flakes and garlic, a few cherry tomatoes quartered and some lemon juice.

Mix all around.

Top that with mashed potato, sprinkle with cheese anf put in a preheated oven (200) for 40 mins.
Serve with a huge dollop of ketchup

I took the basic idea (no creamy sauce needed) from a Jamie Oliver recipe, but then adjusted it to suit my taste/needs.
My kids dont really like fish pie, but they ALWAYS eat this one.

If you have leftovers, then store in the fridge overnight, make sure the chunks of fish are flaked, mix altogether, and shape into patties. Hey presto, fishcakes!

The whole thing (both dishes) cost me about £5 for 3 of us. Bargain!

Florenceem

MissRicckiC -
Don't roll them out too much - leave nice and chunky.

Florenceem

NSD here again.
No eggs in so change of menu tonight .
We had HM wedges + barbecue beans + bacon + sausage + mushrooms for dinner.

2childmum

So much for my plan to not spend any more money until tomorrow. I have found a recipe for apple cinnamon and walnut cake but it needed a 9" tin and I don't have one - but I managed to borrow one on Wednesday to give back this morning. All set to make the cake, and managed to knock the last of my eggs on the floor, and use the last of the cinnamon in another cake, forgetting I was supposed to be baking the large one. So had to send DH out for eggs and cinnamon - he bought the rather expensive cinnamon so that came to £3.18. Then the bread in the bread maker was a disastor and not fit for guests, and I had run out of walnuts, so off went DH to the shops again - another £3.89. The cake was delicious though, so now I need to decide whether it is worth buying a 9" cake tin, really just for that one recipe!

I have also remembered that I have Jury Service in November - I need to start arranging who is having the kids after school, what we will eat, seeing if DH can take any time off to sort out kids going to music lessons etc - I think I will have to start cooking double dinners this month for the freezer. I usually cook one double one each week, but eat one out of the freezer. but now I will need to leave them all in the freezer so that will cost more this month too.

Have managed to blanch two loads of apples from the tree to freeze, and am freezing half of each cake I bake too - i don't usually bake this much but I refuse to throw away apples which I can chop up and use.

Meal plan for this week -
Mon - roasted pork chops with roast pots out of the freezer. Broccoli and cauliflower cheese - the cauli was left over from yesterday and the broccoli looked past it's best so I cooked that and it's sitting in the fridge waiting for the sauce.
Tues - I'm going to try the lentil and butter bean casserole
Weds - beef in red wine in the slow cooker - the wine is the cheap stuff from Lidl which DH hated.
Thurs - chicken and veg pie, This could be interesting. I made a chicken and veg meal a few weeks ago that was less than delicious so I tried processing it into a soup, but it was quite thick and I thought it would make more of a proper meal so I froze it. Going to try and cover it in pastry and see what happens!
Fri - hoping to make 2 smoked fish crumbles, depending on whether I can buy the smoked fish a bit cheaper than last week
Sat - DH and kids are going to Pizza Hut cos I'm at a music day all day and I can't eat Pizza so this is a treat for them. I'll have something out of the freezer
Sun - DH to cook sticky marmalade chicken, with rice and veg.

Off to Mr T tomorrow - I was hoping it wouldn't be too large a shop but the list looks ominously long

Forgot to say congrats to K9 - fantastic news :T

Cambs85

Been a bit busy this week so not been updating. However, have tonight updated my thread. Shocking figures given we are half way thru the month. Pleased with my NSDs though!

moneytree1

Hi could you put me down for £200 for this month need to get on top of all spending