January 2014 Grocery Challenge

Ladyluck1

Spent £8.20 today in lidl, though £3 of that was a nose and ear trimmer for DH! Haha
We had egg, homemade chips and beans for dinner tonight

dingdongsaving

Feeling good! I try and have 1 grocery spend day a week (always Saturday or Sunday) and really love a month that comes together with 4 weeks in a row like that. December's unexpected visitors and invites meant that we "popped" into the shop far more than usual, so it's nice to be back on track. Only 1 spend day so far and the meal plan's still on track to get us to Saturday or Sunday depending when I fancy a shop (frittata planned for Saturday evening if I decide not to go until Sunday).

BMG

Managed a NSD:j


Dinner changed and I had HM chilli cheese fries whilst OH had HM steak and Kidney pie


Tomorrow won't be a NSD because I need to go out and buy a mouse trap!!:(

Suzexxx

Evening all

Bit disappointed with myself today, had a NSD planned but ended up buying lunch after my work meeting. First day at work in over a year after maternity leave and i'm already in old habits. So that will be £1.60 on a sausage roll :O

Tomorrow could possibly be a NSD, but i do need to go into town and buy some packaging for my Ebay parcels from Wilko.

Thursday i'll need to do a small top up shop for the weekend and we're off our for a family meal in the evening so it won't be a very frugal day.

Suze

marris

went to get some spices. want to try to make homemade curry. got some YS and a very cheap milk. Tesco organic whole milk 2pints £0,05 so got 3.put them in the freezer.will update sig.

mags50_2

Another NSD for me
Bread and jam for dinner and hubby treated us to fish and chips for tea

2childmum

Had to nip out today to buy gerbil food and spent £8.38 on a few half price bits which were on the list for Thursday.

The chicken curry was rather nice - the original recipe is here -http://www.netmums.com/family-food/family-recipes/a-z-of-family-recipes/easy-chicken-curry but I changed it a bit. It says to use 2-3 chicken breasts and i had a pack of 4 so I decided to pad it out to make 2 dinners (8 portions) . Instead of the mushrooms I chopped up 3 medium sweet pots - I had had to buy a pack for the fish pie topping as Mr T didn't have loose ones, so I was looking for an opportunity to use them up. I added 2 tins of toms and doubled most of everything else. i didn't really have enough curry paste so it wasn't very spicy. I served it with brown rice and used up half a tin of sweetcorn, a small bit of broccoli and frozen peas to go with it. It cooked in the slow cooker on high for 5 1/2 hours, and I have another whole meal for the freezer!

For those interested in meal planning net mums has a section about it here -http://www.netmums.com/family-food/meal-planner. The website has some good recipes, but I haven't really had a good read through them all. I am trying to go through recipes I have already downloaded or cut out of magazines this month, then each month this year I am going to try a few new recipes from books I have on my shelf, alongside my own folder of recipes I've collected since i was married (that's 23 years worth!)

tasha42

Could I please join this year we are trying to pull us out of credit card debit and food could be a massive saving for us I have worked out last month we spent £400 for two adults, 1 child and 2 dogs I am trying to stick to £300 or less this month if I could do £300 please see how I get on hoping to slash it again feb

XSpender

Went to Aldee tonight for the first time in months and spent £22 and got tons. I forgot just how much cheaper it is:D. That's me converted back then;)

I also managed to list the indoor freezer and fresh bits that need using up so will have a look at meal plan to see if I can jiggle anything about. Will do the garage freezer at the weekend and when we have eaten a bit more will turn it off as it's not very full.

My GC began on the 30th and is now at £67 and I won't need to shop for another week unless we need a small fruit top up.

sharronej

BlueMoo wrote: »

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.

That's a great post BlueMoo - I'll be pinching that meal plan if you don't mind! My problem with meal planning is that I'm so contrary I never fancy what I've planned! I tend to do a variation by having a printout on my freezer of meals we could have with the ingredients I have in this way I don't feel too trapped by my own plans - ridiculous really lol