February 2014 Grocery Challenge

ikesmummy

Well the eggs for the Yorkshire puddings were worth the 85p. My first attempt at uploading a photo so not sure if it will work but dinner was delish. First time trying frozen french beans, will be using them again in the future.

ikesmummy

meg72 wrote: »

Had an enjoyable morning batch cooking, roasted the reduced chicken I bought £2, and made

Roast chicken dinner x2
Chicken curry x 2
Sweet and sour chicken x 2
Chicken and veg casserole x 2.
Pot of chicken and veg soup.

Dinner and lunch sorted for next 4 days and 4 days meals in freezer for net week.

Wow meg72 that was £2 well spent! I never seem to have much luck finding YS bargains and am not great at making my meat strech either, I always make a roast dinner left over pie but not much else - must try harder

GettingOrganised

I went to A1di first thing this morning armed with a shopping list to cover meal plan for just over a week. I usually only plan for 7 evening meals at a time, but I'm trying to extend the time between big shops this month. I guestimated the total to be around £30 and totted up whilst I was shopping. I managed to get everything and had a couple of pounds leftover so I picked up a pack of biscuits and some sweets (these will be used for film nights!) And the total at the till was £29.33.

Very happy with this and should only need to get more bread, milk and fruit before the next shopping trip. Although, next time will be more expensive as I will have used up any frozen meats in stock and I will need washing powder. I should be able to achieve my budget this month.

Pixie_Fairydust

BlueCow1975 wrote: »

I very much still have my L plates on as only started this challenge last month. I only properly plan for main meals. I have found it has helped massively

Thank you so much for your help. I will try to menu plan the evening meals first. Baby steps!

Tiffany_Aching wrote: »

Nothing exciting or magical, I'm afraid!:o Its a bit dull, but I'll give you an idea of what we eat...

Out of the seven of us, I'm the only meat eater in the house, the others are all veggie so that makes things much cheaper.

Thanks, I am a veggie, DS rarely eats meat (the occasional MacD :eek:) Its just nice to hear what other families do. I think the key is to organise myself!

Would you recommend investing in a bread maker? There is only me and DS at home now but I like to take sarnies to work and DS has hollow legs, so toast is a staple for him!

I also think I need to get a slow cooker. I did have a really basic one but it was very small. I guess if I'm going to the trouble of using it I might as well do plenty to freeze!

ikesmummy wrote: »

Drat and double drat just went to make the Yorkshire puddings and am out of eggs :mad::mad: Hubby will get his sugar after all as cant have roast pork without Yorkshire puddings.

And its national Yorkshire pudding day! Your pic is great, even got the steam!

Thanks again to all who posted with their meal plans, its helped.

Pix
xx

CountingPennies

After raiding the cupboards, i think tomorrow i'll bake some deserts for the kids. Looks like i have everything for caramel shortbread so will make some of that and then some muffins. Possibly some scones too

CP xx

[Deleted User]

NSD for me but DH is due home tonight, so will probably have to hit the shops tomorrow. Not sure what time he will be home, or how many of his mates will be arriving with him (hungry), so will do a pot roast in the slow cooker, and extra roasted veg. If its only him them it will be roast veg cous cous for the next couple of days.

franby64

Evening

Now up to £117.91. This is a bit more than I wanted but I've just ordered some 'green' laundry liquid and cleaner from Ethic*l S*perstore which is a bit of an indulgence on my budget but hopefully I can manage it.

I've planned up to the 6th when I can have another A*da delivery - now I'm trying to spend as little as possible until then.

Hope everybody is where they want to be...

marris

spent £5,93 today. mostly fruit & veg. will update the sig

debtdawg

Did the decent Lidl shop yesterday with the £5 Sun voucher, bought toilet rolls, binbags and washing powder, plus a lot of fruit/veggies and store cupboard stuff. Spent £51.23 there, then £5.49 in the butchers and £7.29 in Boots on pull-ups and wetwipes, £3 for snack money for the children for the week so a spendy £67.01 start to the month. Should just need some milk this week now though!

spendinglikemad

Tiffany_Aching wrote: »

Nothing exciting or magical, I'm afraid!:o Its a bit dull, but I'll give you an idea of what we eat...

Out of the seven of us, I'm the only meat eater in the house, the others are all veggie so that makes things much cheaper. I will pick up some meat when it is yellow stickered down to a silly amount and then freeze it in single portions for if I ever fancy some but TBH I only eat it once a week, if that. We don't eat 'fake' meat stuff - Quorn type things - most meals are based round pulses, but I will once in a while use TVP.

We rarely drink wine etc. - DH makes some wine and beer every now and then and we will drink this if we fancy alcohol. We go through a loaf of bread a day but the bread maker makes this as it is cheaper than bought (and I slice it with an electric knife so it goes further!;)) When I can get some yellow stickered mozzarella it goes into the freezer for when we fancy pizza - the bread maker makes the base and the sauce is just half a tube of tomato puree, a good blob of tomato ketchup, garlic granules, basil and oregano. I'll cut some potatoes into wedges and stick them in the oven to go with the pizza.

We get through a sack of potatoes every four weeks and I get these for £6 from the farm shop, a large bag of carrots was £4 last week and that will last a month. Most fruit is bought from the market at the end of the day - they do a bowl full for £1 so I can usually get about a carrier bag of bananas and half a carrier of apples for £4. The bananas have nothing wrong with them - they are just singles that have lost their bunches! All other fruit and veg is bought from either the weeks Aldi Super Six offers or from the farm shops. Being in the middle of the fens there are a lot of farm shops nearby and you can pick up some sacks of veg for a good price.

Very, very rarely buy crisps, chocolate or fizzy drinks / squash. If the kids want them then they can buy them out of their pocket money! They rarely do! I buy popping corn and make up a huge batch and keep it in an air tight container - the kids snack on this they usually eat it plain or (if I'm feeling nice!) I'll occassionly pour a bit of melted butter and sugar over.

Cleaning and toiletries type stuff is the cheapest available, usually from either Home Bargains or Boyes, or from the supermarkets 'basic' range.

I often cook pulse based meals in the slow cooker as we have a huge one and I can make two meals at once, freezing the spare for another day.

We have a pretty plain diet, I guess, but we are happy with it

Sorry for the long post

Thanks for taking the time to post this its really interesting and useful to pick up tips from other people who budget really well