January 2014 Grocery Challenge

Ladyluck1

Updated signature with spends this week.
Spent £20 but I've been trying to eat clean (not that hubby and DS want to!) so lots of fruit and veggies bought.
New to pop to lidl for oranges for the juicer today too
I've done a freezer inventory too and I've got loads, 30 for the next, not quite, 2 weeks should be enough!

FrugalLina

Oh wow, that looks delicious, thanks so much - and I have all the ingredients here. I will do that this afternoon when I have the oven on for other things.

Yummy - CAKE!!

Edited to add: I have the original Cranks recipe book too.
Edited to add again: I have enough for cake and strudel - woo-hoo!

XSpender

Morning all

Went to mr s last night with DH and ended up spending £32:eek: £10 meal deal, w@rburtons thins for DH to try, crisps, coffee on offer, 2kg basmati, gf cereal, a treat for the dog a treat for DS and 8 YS gf rolls and 4 ys gf hot x buns which will do my lunches for 2 weeks and breakfasts for 1:)

I was a bit grumpy when I got home with how much we had spent as I am now over my budget of £130 by £29 and my month runs to the 31st. I shouldn't be grumpy really as I set a monthly budget for a 5 week month at what I had been spending a week:eek: my average this month is £53/week:D

I had planned to use up the freezer more which I haven't done, DH has had 2 takeaways and we have had 2 £10 meal deals and I have bought a couple of offers including 60 M&S sausages. Mainly though I have bought what we needed and started shopping at aldee again.

I have £51 in my purse and half a tank of diesel so I am going to see if I can make this last until the end of the month. I will need fruit, ham and salad on Tuesday and a similar shop the week after. I will also allow a little bit of money for a meal deal or similar next weekend.

DS (3.5) are baking some goodies this morning and Tonight DH is making hairy bikers chicken pilau, can't wait:)

2childmum

Quick nip to Lidl for the oranges and bacon - and bought rolls as DD to have bacon rolls when she gets back from orchestra as she has been asking for them all week. I think I'll defrost some pastry and make a quiche with some to the bacon. Actually I think I'll make some pastry now and make a quiche cos otherwise all the bacon might get used up in rolls and there won't be any left. Also bought 1kg frozen raspberries - just about managed to squeeze them in the fridge.

Lidl has been rearranged to make room for a fresh bakery section - thankfully empty at the moment or I might have gone a bit mad! This means I couldn't find anything which is a bit of a worry. The parking is only for an hour and it's on a camera so you can't even go over a bit and hope no-one notices. It's fine if I only go in for some bits but when I did a full shop there last time I was right on the hour's limit even though I knew where most things were. You need to leave at least 10 mins to pay,not helped by the fact that most of the conveyer belts are broken and you have to move everything by hands, and then a bit of time to pack, so if I have to search for everything I may go over the time. Will definitely be checking out the Aldi this week.

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Just spent £4.54 in Sainsbobs on sunbites (2 x 6pk for £2), 6 pints milk and weekly sweets for the children.

I'm now up to £343.76/£450 and our GC runs until 31st. Should (should) be okay but really need to focus now. DH and I had a kebab takeaway last night, so naughty, but so goooooood! This is our only takeaway so far this month and it was £10. Children had hm pizzas (indentical to Soworried's only smaller) as DH and I went to see a play and I needed to feed them early.

Lunch today will be toasted bacon and cheese/egg and ham muffins. Cottage pie with veggies tonight. Tomorrow will be roast pork, roasties and veg.

I will go to Ts later and get fresh veg for the next few days. Might get the remainder of items for our meal plan too - that way I can get a few NSDs in

I see the February GC is up so off there now to start adding budgets Have a good day all.

Coxy

Faete

Just back from my weekly shop at Aldi and Asda - spent £54.75. Only one more shop this month so I should be well within my budget!

(Which is just as well as my car just about needs two new tyres :mad:)

Going to have a baking afternoon - Paul Hollywood's scones and Lorraine Pascale's Lemon Yogurt Pound Cake - not tried the cake before but it's supposed to be only 159 calories a slice - got to be worth a go!

http://www.eattravellive.com/recipes/lemon-pound-cake/

Fae xx

Upsy_Staffordshire

OH was off yesterday and doesn't have another day off until next Friday so we decided we'd better do the weekly shop yesterday while we had time.

OH wanted to go to Makro. We only went for toilet rolls and coke but their coke was a lot dearer than Farmfoods so didn't bother with that but ended up spending £34.41! We did manage to stock up on big packs of things though which will last for ages. We got 3 lots of shake n vac stuff, 48 toilet rolls, absolutely huge packs of thyme and oregano, 2 packs of bbq ribs which were delicious last time we tried them, and 2 reduced packs of honey roast sausages (18 in each pack).

We went to Farmfoods to get some medium sized bottles of coke for OH for work but it looked extremely busy so OH said he will refill his last bottle with Ald coke (which is great because it's much cheaper) and we left to go to Ald! Only spent £7.77 in Ald, which is probably the cheapest weekly shop we've ever had and is down to me writing a list of essentials and sticking exactly to it, apart from adding a bottle of coke so that we have enough for OH to take to work.

I'm so glad I joined this thread because I didn't used to write lists for grocery shopping but after seeing how much they help everyone on here I thought I ought to try it and it's really helped to keep my spends down because I'm making sure I only buy things that we need or have run out of. I'm so glad I've started doing meal plans too because they also help so much, unfortunately I've struggled to do one for next week because OH is working funny shift times, but when his shifts hopefully get a bit more predictable, I will definitely be properly meal planning again.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

tallullahbelle

Hello... can I join please? Really need to cut back and GC seems the best way of cutting back. I initially wanted to set budget of £400 but realise this is going to be unrealistic so will set budget at £500. There are 6 of us plus various pets and usually feed the in laws on a Sunday too... £500 is such a lot but does include all toiletries, pet food etc. I need to start high and cut back- even at £500 I will be saving. So... here goes! Thanks to all for recipes, tips and inspiration.

WantAnOrange

I've got £53.33 (to be exact) left til the end of the month, thought it sounded pretty good but have been invited to a meal out Monday night for my Nan's birthday and I can't really not go out for my Nan's birthday can I?! It's still fruit that's the killer, my lot go through so much of it.

Hope you are all on track, I have only dipped in and out of this thread but this is the longest I've ever kept track of my food spending so it's really helping.

happytails

Not had chance to read back but spent £3.60 yesterday so declaring my new total.

£230.13/£400

Sarah x