October 2013 Grocery Challenge

minicooper272

Currently have £30 of my £80 budget left this month. I think I've gone wrong somewhere, I borrowed a few pounds here and there from my food money purse, but somehow seem to have more left than I feel I should.

Only spent £12 over the weekend on bread and lunch bits. I will need to pick up another loaf of bread this week, but now I need to think about running the cupboards down before I go away in a couple of weeks (long weekend). Hopefully I'll finish the month with about £10-15 left over, which will be fabulous!

I say this every month, but I really need to run down my freezer - it's overflowing with about 3 months worth of food. Though I have been making some headway on my herb and spice box!

meg72

Was really pleased to hear it was a miserable drizzly day as I have slept most of it. Was up most of last night cooking, no I am not planning a party, I stupidly turned off my chest freezer and the whole damn lot defrosted.

Have saved most of it as it was mainly YS joints, chops and mince
but didn't enjoy a marathon batch cook throughout the night.

That will teach me to remember to plug the freezer back in when I have unplugged it to use my glue gun for crafting.

MissRikkiC

Soo full from dinner - and scones.

Made yet another batch tonight, used half a teaspoon of baking powder, made them quite thick too and bought a new cutter as i was using a cup before... still no rise Maybe i am working the dough too much in the bowl when adding the eggs and milk.... Looks like every night this week (And possibly breakfasts) will be scones. It doesnt help that yesterday i spotted a tub of Clotted cream with a date on of the 18th Oct and some clever soul YS'd them to 25p! Now alls i want is proper scones with tea!

Florenceem

MissRikkiC wrote: »

Soo full from dinner - and scones.

Made yet another batch tonight, used half a teaspoon of baking powder, made them quite thick too and bought a new cutter as i was using a cup before... still no rise Maybe i am working the dough too much in the bowl when adding the eggs and milk.... Looks like every night this week (And possibly breakfasts) will be scones. It doesnt help that yesterday i spotted a tub of Clotted cream with a date on of the 18th Oct and some clever soul YS'd them to 25p! Now alls i want is proper scones with tea!

You don't want to work scone dough very much.

Florenceem

Spend of £2.95 today. I needed eggs + milk + .......
Mr F got 2 bags of carrots - 1.2kg Carrots for 30p each in Mr A today. So 51 carrots to get through - 60p.
We had HM Black Pudding - In The Hole + roast potatoes + roasted celery, carrot, beetroot, onion, mushroom + gravy for dinner.

MrsCautious

Congratulations K9 I hope you love your new job

Well I'm up to nearly £180 this month now. It sounds an awful lot to me when I have been spending around/under £200 each month for ages, but I have upped my budget, have £34 in nectar points and a fair amount of food in. I stuck to a meal plan really well last week.

For the rest of the week, I'm planning on the following:

Tues -- defrosted pre-cooked savoury mince with pasta and garlic bread.

Weds -- cod with curry spices, rice and veg.

Thurs -- beef casserole with mash and veg (need to buy garlic and potatoes)

Fri -- mushroom soup and toast, just me, children at friend's

Sat -- chicken kievs/garlic chicken in breadcrumbs with salad and baked potatoes (frozen processed chicken -- was on offer)

Sun -- fish pie with salmon, cod and prawns, all from freezer.

I spent £4.11 today on bottles of Robinson's squash on offer in the Co-op at £1.25 each -- which is still dear when you think the 99p Store has bigger bottles and Sains Basics is 70-odd pence but thought we'd go for a dearer brand for a change, bought Caramel digestives for £1 and Fox's crunch for 65p. Bought fresh apples, strawberries, bananas, milk, dog treats and Hovis granary bread in Sains and this didn't cost me anything as used points from Nectar card to pay it off. Thought I should, touch wood having more points left will keep me under budget this month, I would say 'going over is not an option' but don't want to tempt fate.

Peggybabcot

Coxy11 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Budgets updated to here

Welcome to marris and moneytree1

Since I last posted I have had spends in C**p of £16.72 (which included 4 packs of ys lean steak mince) and Sainsbobs of £15.61. I have another Oc*do delivery coming this evening as I was really pleased with the quality of my previous order.

My 18yo nephew is now staying with us half the week (Sunday-Weds) as he is at college in London, so I have had to rethink our meals. If I'm honest, it's slightly easier cooking for 6 rather than 5 (how DO you cut a pie into 5 equal pieces :rotfl:)

Have a good day everyone


Coxy

If you think of a pie as a clock with 60 minutes and you want 5 portions you need to cut it every 12 minutes so 12 minutes past, 24 minutes past, 36 minutes past etc (60 minutes divided by 5 = 12) Just divide 60 minutes by the number of portions to work out how many "minutes" each potion is. Hope that makes sense x

lynnejk

Sorry not been on for a few days but this part-time ? course seems to be filling up my spare time :rotfl:and it's taken me ages to troll through all the posts and catch up.

meg72 wrote: »

That will teach me to remember to plug the freezer back in when I have unplugged it to use my glue gun for crafting.

I have my freezer plugged into a multi-socket so can just plug other stuff in as and when - just a suggestion !

MissRikkiC wrote: »

Soo full from dinner - and scones.still no rise Maybe i am working the dough too much in the bowl when adding the eggs and milk.... !

I put dry ingredients in bowl and stand it in the sink in a little cold water and add wet ingredients with a knife until just come together and make a ball. Tip out and gently flatten with my hand then cut out. Usually rise ok. Good luck

Seems to be working so far this month on eating out of the freezer as much as poss and DH hasn't complained yet !:rotfl:Also noticed how empty the fridge looks HAHA

I live in the frozen north and didn't realise how expensive stuff here. We don't have a local market - only 'Farmers Markets' once a month that are really expensive - so have to use SMs. I eat loads of fruit and was really shocked last week.

I went to Newcastle for some work and visited the market. I bought 2x raspberries, 2x blueberries, 2x dates and some scallions (know they're not fruit but looked great) for £ 4.05. I reckon the same would have cost me at least £10 here.

So spent £ 4.05 market and £ 9.83 Al*i this week and so under target so far this month:j and more NSDs. Have updated my signature

Hope you all have a cheap week
L.

K9sandFelines

Thanks to whoever posted the Overnight Brioche buns recipe. I did the mix last night in breadmaker, and just popped them in the oven this mornjng ... with sugar and cinnamon on. They are beautiful. I'm going to try chocolate chip ones next time. Yum yum!!!

Hoping for a NSD. About time and all, only three so far, which means I've spent on the other twelve !!!

mrs-moneypenny

those roasted veggies in your photo look scrummy Florenceem.

did hm leek and potato soup last night

tonight it will prob be carrot and sweet pot soup as ive got a govs meeting and DH has fitness stuff so well be eating late
will feed boys earlier.

DSN yesterday and hoping for same today
must update sig with weekend spends