February 2014 Grocery Challenge

mrs-moneypenny

im in again
going for £400 in Feb

declaring £363.07 for january an underspend of £36.97 yay

meg72

As the challenge I have set myself is to either stay the same or beat the budget I had last year I am going to have a very easy time this February. Last feb I spent £100 but that was because I stocked up on 10 jars, 300grms of my favourite coffee £35, I still have 5 jars.

I have most things in already and will only need milk eggs fruit and veg
so am thinking 50 will do me for this month.

Soworried

Well done Mrs money penny :j

I'm just working out our meals for the next week
Sunday- Beef Asian casserole
Monday- Omelettes or jacket potatoes with gammon
Tuesday- Gammon, egg and chips
Wednesday- Pork and stuffing with 3 veg mash and yorkshire puddings
Thursday- Turkey curry with turmeric rice :cool:
Friday- HM pizza
Saturday- What ever is left over

I will be buying the pork loin, which is really just like gammon on the Li dl half price weekend deal. I'll buy 4, 2 will make main meals and 2 I'll slice for sandwiches for 2 days and dice to make a quiche for lunch 1 day.
The rest of our lunches will be soup or lo from the night before or freezer.
Breakfasts will be toast, porridge, cornflakes or dried fruit with hm yoghurt.
Snacks will be HM flapjacks, dried fruit, fresh fruit from the super 6 or whatever I can get YS.

I have really overspent the last week since pay day and I'll be having quite a large spend on Saturday also. I'll have to get through on very little for the rest of the week

kayester

advice please. chicken breast in freezer in original packaging. it says freeze and eat within a month. date on it says 21st december, safe to have in next 2 weeks or bin? (some of you may guess im not very confident on freezing and defrosting fresh meat. and how to safely defrost please

mooomin

kayester wrote: »

advice please. chicken breast in freezer in original packaging. it says freeze and eat within a month. date on it says 21st december, safe to have in next 2 weeks or bin? (some of you may guess im not very confident on freezing and defrosting fresh meat. and how to safely defrost please

I would eat that without a second thought

I would defrost by leaving out on the counter overnight and then popping in the fridge in the morning, but I'm sure that's probably not the best way to do it!

kayester

mooomin wrote: »

I would eat that without a second thought

I would defrost by leaving out on the counter overnight and then popping in the fridge in the morning, but I'm sure that's probably not the best way to do it!

brill thankyou very much.
i only moved out of my mums a few years ago (im 24) and my mum was never good at any of this, and we ate rubbish. im trying to bring my children up healthier, so its all a learning curve for me at minute

mooomin

Never underestimate the power of your nose. If you defrost something and it smells wonky, don't eat it. I think that's only happened to me once since I moved out of home - fifteen years ago I must have frozen it when it was already on the turn!

kayester

thankyou, this makes me more confident in looking for bargains to freeze, not sure if ile get a joint of something yet, but breasts and mince i will now buy to freeze, thanks

meg72

kayester wrote: »

advice please. chicken breast in freezer in original packaging. it says freeze and eat within a month. date on it says 21st december, safe to have in next 2 weeks or bin? (some of you may guess im not very confident on freezing and defrosting fresh meat. and how to safely defrost please

It will be safe, things cannot go off in the freezer although it may suffer a bit in quality eventually. To defrost put in fridge over night or early in morning.

kayester

meg72 wrote: »

It will be safe, things cannot go off in the freezer although it may suffer a bit in quality eventually. To defrost put in fridge over night or early in morning.

thanks, hopefully will be eaten in the next 2 weeks, I will fit it into my meal plan