January 2014 Grocery Challenge

shiningfaery

Well dinner is in the slow cooker. we are have spag bol tonight. Looking forward to it...yummy. Even going to blend some up for my lil guy to see how he enjoys it...:D

So its a NSD here today, and I am off work now til Saturday *Yawn* so lots of cooking to be done.

just_the_two_of_us

Another NSD here and probably another tomorrow.

Hope the weather is better on Thursday as will need more food by then!! Doing a chicken and mushroom supreme with rice tonight as found tin of condensed mushroom soup in the cupboard. Getting a bit tired of mashed potatoes!! so rice will make a nice change.

Everyone is doing so well - but not sure that we'll ever get down to £100 a month for just the two of us. Not sure how you do it Blue moo - but great respect. xx

BlueMoo

Everyone is doing so well - but not sure that we'll ever get down to £100 a
month for just the two of us. Not sure how you do it Blue moo - but great
respect. xx

Thanks very much for that - you're making me blush!

I'm sure you are doing really well just the two of us

*****

It's always interesting to see what other people do, but most important is if you are happy with your budget then that is all that matters.


For example, my budget doesn't include takeaways/meals out, but I know quite a few people include that.

I also only buy British/Free Range meat and eggs for ethical reasons and eat meat everyday, so I'm sure I could trim my budget by buying basics meat/eggs but it's not something I'm willing to do at the moment.

However, I am more than happy to scour YS, buy some basic items (cream cheese/butter for cooking/fresh tomatoes) and also bring my phone if I need a calculator to check whether a 'deal' is truly a deal. Key thing for me is price per gram/ml.

physicsgirl

sausageandonion wrote: »

Hi there, I would really like to know what is a realistic budget to set each week for 2 and a fleeting picky eater who flys in grabs something and flys out! And is it really cheaper to shop at lidl/butchers/locally than to do an online shop with a list?

It's really hard to say how much is "realistic" because it totally depends how you eat! Do you always eat branded food? Are you prepared to shift to Supermarket own brand? Do you eat a lot of meat? Or would you be happy to to have a veggie meal a couple of times a week? What kind of food do you like to eat? Are you a make-everything-from-scratch kind of person or do you have ready meals most nights? Are you including alcohol in your budget?

I've definitely found Aldi is cheaper than Tesco's or Sainsbury's but they might not have everything you need - to go https://www.mysupermarket.co.uk and have a look at a couple of items you buy on a regular basis to see how the price compares at each supermarket.

I would say £70 per week would give you more than enough for 2.5 people (as long as you meal plan and make a list of what you need to buy), but I don't know how much you spend currently/how much you have available to spend, so maybe start there and try to make small changes to bring it down each month?

sausageandonion

Its very impressive! If I could get down to that I would be really happy:j
Do you meal plan? I think maybe my portion sizes are too big.
Any weekly menu plans that people like best?
I'm starting to write up meals for the rest of the week, Ive got all my cleaning and toiletries in and ive stockpiled dog food till the end of the month!
So....if I shop once a week at Lidl what should I buy?
Can anyone share their shopping list?

jammy_dodger

spent £10.58 today so should have enough milk till end of week

i wasnt sidelined by the Mr T £4 off a £30 spend
i did compile a list last night but thought ..No ..I dont need to spend £30

I did get 12 pack coke thats on offer for £3 as i had a £1.35 off couplon that MrT sent me with my last lot of alleged offers so glad i could have one i would use and £1.65 for 12 cans seems an ok deal to me

pasties in the oven today using up left over wobbly veg and a little mince DS can t ake them for the rtain tomorrow for lunch and i can take one to work tonight for my supper

shall update my wee total
JD xx

debtdawg

A bit of a spendy day today, but lots of store cupboardy things I made the most of the littlest mini debtdawg being at pre-school for a couple of hours and headed to Asda, Home Bargains, Lidls and Boots and had an overpriced Costa coffee with my mum (although she paid for that :T )

Children needed their snack money for the week for school, so that was £3.

Firstly Asda for some school trousers and pjs for one of the mini debtdawgs, I picked up some potatoes and bread here to get over the £10 threshold spend to get my car parking back. Total £2.57 for groceries (bread was YS).
Lidls - £6.77 on apples, tomatoes, frozen peas, 6pts milk, greek yoghurt (going to try it with muesli and honey for breakfast as a break from the norm!), 6 eggs, shortbread for the children and a croissant for the teeny terror after he finished pre-school.
Home Bargains - £14.02. Shampoo and conditioner for me, tea tree shampoo for the children, shower gel for me (love the vanilla and macadamia shower burst at 89p), foot treatment socks for my trotters (I leave them on overnight under socks for super soft tootsies), stardrops disinfectant spray and then loads of store cupboard stuff such as 2 jars of ragu, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, curry powder, lentils, soy sauce, a butter chicken pouch (never tried it before but thought it was worth a go at 59p!), naans, coconut milk, dumpling mix. Two heavy bags full, bargains

Boots - £2.85 on two packs of wet-wipes, a chocolate snowman (to get over threshold to use a points coupon) and a children's toothbrush and toothpaste (coupon offer).

Sooooo total spends today £27.86, running total £65.57

Tonight for tea we have a cottage pie, made with .5lb of steak mince from the butchers and bulked up with an onion, 3 diced carrots, 2 diced parsnips, 2/3rd cup red lentils, cup frozen peas, tin of baked beans, water, 1 stock cube and a couple of tablespoons of beef gravy granules to thicken. Topped with a 5 large potato mash and about 60g of cheddar. That has made a very decent sized pie which should serve the 5 of us easily with no extra veggies such as brocolli required, might even have some leftovers, depending on how hungry DH is!

We had a lovely lunch today, DH took his as a packed lunch. I did a packet of Lidl couscous shared between the two of us, some diced cucumber and tomato as a side, some homemade coleslaw (shredded carrot, white cabbage, onion and mayo) and some leftover diced turkey (I unfroze a piece of our Christmas turkey to make our korma last night) mixed with a small jar of curry type mayo that we bought for Christmas but never used. It tasted like coronation chicken and was so nice, it made a great change from sandwiches and I was stuffed after my dish at home!

meg72

kayester wrote: »

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my meal last night, Jamie Olivers mothership roast chicken and all the sides. (lot of gravy but I LOVE it!!)

Looks fantastic, I like a bit of dinner with my gravy as well :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

physicsgirl

sausageandonion wrote: »

Any weekly menu plans that people like best?
I'm starting to write up meals for the rest of the week, Ive got all my cleaning and toiletries in and ive stockpiled dog food till the end of the month!
So....if I shop once a week at Lidl what should I buy?
Can anyone share their shopping list?

I tend to just think of meals I fancy then assign days to them (although I don't always stick to the days!), and write my shopping list based on what I need for those meals. You could always try http://resourcefulcook.com/ which lets you choose meals you fancy then it gives you a shopping list based on those meals?

BlueMoo

I'm afraid I'm in the minority as I do not batch cook or meal plan at all!

You're making me divulge all my secrets!!! :rotfl:

I think to get started I would shop as I normally shop for the first month, and then tally up the spends.
If you don't know your start point, then it's hard to set targets accordingly.

****

However, I do like to ensure I use up leftovers and try to make meat stretch as far as possible (especially with a meat-hungry OH)
I think I wrote a post in the December thread about how to plan a weekly menu ensuring to use meat thriftily and explaining how I change the country of inspiration to ensure that the menu isn't monotonous.

Will have to try and dig this up if at all possible.

******
In terms of a shopping list, it really varies for me as I like to make the most of YS items, and then plan accordingly around that.
In addition, I tend to do 2 big shops really, and top up.

However a weekly list to get you started could look something like this (assuming you would have pasta/rice/stock cubes in your cupboards)

Prices taken from Tesco very briefly or from the top of my head - sure you could do much much better than this with YS and deals.

Whole chicken (£5)
Pack of sausages (£2 for 8)
Cream Cheese 80p
Milk 1.50
Butter 1.25
Bread 1
Potatoes 2.25
Fresh tomatoes 90p
Fresh red onions 40p
Frozen veg - peppers, white onion, carrots, broccoli, peas. Approx £5
Yoghurt £3
Fruit - apples/oranges £4
StirFry veg £1
Eggs 1.5

Total: £29.60


Then your menu plan could go like this:

Sunday
Roast chicken with roast potatoes, veggies and gravy

Monday
(Scrape every last bit of meat off the chicken bones)
Chicken stir fry

Tuesday
Sausages with mashed potatoes, caramelised red onions and peas


Wednesday
Chicken and mushroom/spinach risotto (you can use cream cheese instead of double cream for healthier and cheaper option - in addition cream cheese has a much longer fridge life)

Thursday
Pasta with a tomato and basil sauce with cut up re-fried sausages

Friday
Spanish omelette with patatas bravas and roasted peppers

Saturday
Breakfast - Sausage sandwish using last two sausages

Lunch -Soup (again using any leftovers blended with cream cheese, and also the stock you have made from the chicken bones from Sunday) and some crusty bread.

Supper - Takeaway? Or alternatively a store cupboard meal using up whatever you have in there.


Snacks/Pudding are yoghurt/fruit/toast

You could also bake a cake (eggs are in shopping list, assuming you have flour etc in stores) for treats as well.


Hope this helps - and I will try and find my post about meal planning.