April 2014 Grocery Challenge

Winged_one

I stuck to he menu this week and only a few small spends up to today. As I had meetings in a city 3 hours away, I also went to the market there and got a combination of twrrifically cheap meat (pork hock was €1.50 and will do a dinner, and 15 boned chicken thighs for €4.80 that I'll freeze for curries), and a few nice bits (olives for lunch salads but got wild garlic pesto, and some baby mozzarella with sundries tomatoes at that stall too were the treats). I also got some lovely fresh fish (hake, which I had tonight, and garlic stuffed mussels which will be starter tomorrow). So I spent €37 in total there. But got quite a lot of food for that.

I found out en route home that my DSis and boyfriend intend calling here before going to see my aunt at 11am! And that my parents expected to have dinner here tomorrow night (so 1 pork hock won't stretch far enough). Early call sorted as loads of milk not drank this week so I threw a batch of scones together while fish cooked as oven heated really high, then scones cooked while I ate. Dinner will be feta chicken, assuming I find part boned breasts in shops, which is simple but nice and all will eat. I'm not sure if DM will eat the feta part, so I will leave 1 plain in case, and can stuff that last minute if I need. I have cooking apples, and some crumble mix frozen, so that should do for desert. And cheese, have loads of that so DDad will be happy.

Now, having emptied some freezer space, I want to empty more this week. Spat Bol for dd one night, and I'll use a nice curry sauce I have there. Salmon a night AP is at her class as she doesn't eat fish. Use some chicken. I'll figure it out tomorrow when I do the shopping and a bit of planning. But there was also a lot less thrown away this week which was good too. I am getting tough on dd, and learning ap's portion size better. And I also managed to get some more veg into meals, I want more but it was progress.

lynnejk

PennyGrabber wrote: »

He wanted us to go and buy garlic bread to go with it, so I made some by using a par bake baguette and some garlic butter, as I usually have those things in the house!
PG x

Any tips on the garlic bread. I've tried HM but it never turns out that well

Mama10 wrote: »

We had another takeaway this week at £10.97 and Mr.T at £5.90. We went out for lunch today so that was another £27.83.
Really need to be more careful with spends but difficult with DD being off school for Easter holidays. Next week DH off work so prob have days out which will mean yet more spends.
QUOTE]



When mine were little we often took a picnic for holiday days out. They used to find it great fun and it means they get things they like and it doesn't cost a fortune. Maybe you could save some spends that way


Spent £13.11 today in Li*l. Mainly pots, veg (they still have avocados at 69p), cheese and milk. Had baked spag bol, garlic bread slices and herb salad for tea


Hope you all have a wonderful weekend
Lx

K9sandFelines

Small spends to add fro C*-*p, all YS goodies £1.37 and two YS items from M*rrisons totalling £1.87.

£3.24 to add

PennyGrabber

lynnejk wrote: »

Any tips on the garlic bread. I've tried HM but it never turns out that well

I'm a bit rubbish really... I always keep a block of garlic butter in the fridge. To make my garlic bread, I slice the part bake baguette, put slices of garlic butter in each hole, then put it onto foil. I put it in the oven open for a bit, then mostly covered with foil for a bit, then uncovered for a bit longer. I'm quite fussy, and don't like it too crunchy, so the first part of cooking is to hear up the bread, then it's closed to keep the heat it without browning the bread, then it's open at the end to finish it off.

I hope that makes sense!! It's really just trial and error with the baking, but that seems to work for me.

Nsd today. Spent a lot more time sewing than doing housework or working... Never mind. I get my babies back in less than 24 he's now, so getting excited/impatient. I'll go shopping in the morning, to get the bits that I've put on my list - not too much, thankfully. I slice my month percentage to overtake my spend percentage!!

Had a lo dinner tonight. Didn't really fancy it, but had to either have it or bin it and I'm determined to waste as little as possible, for several reasons.

Not sure what the menu looks like for next week yet; I'll sort it out in the morning.

Night all,
PG x

kayester

NSD today as pjs day with kids as first day of easter hols
Meat and potato pie for tea later when OH gets home.


if anyone is a MUM with a CHILD age 3 or under....and wants to join pinecone research then please inbox me (sorry off topic but a brilliant site)

Mama10

Thanks Lyneejk,

We have a couple of trips planned for next week so think your idea would be a good move. I'm sure we can cut costs and still have fun! X

Ladyluck1

Dinner today will either be jacket pottoes with beans and some crispy bacon (got 2 slices leftover) or spaghetti carbonara. Depends what we fancy later.
Then just tomorrow to tackle before I have some money to shop!
Luckily we have bread and milk, I've got flour and yeast of we run out of bread too. May see how long I can go without spending

Winged_one

Just did the weekly shop, or hopefully all. Spent €29 in Lidl and €59 in SuperValu. Included lots of chicken for hosting dinner tonight pizza bases for dinner one night, pepperoni for same. Lots cooked meat for next 2 weeks as offers. Must update sig later but at least this will remind me.

About to make mushroom soup with ones I didn't use this week for lunch with DSis and her bf.

lushlifesaver

Now at 10 NSDs and 2 spend days for the month! Very impressed with myself.

Second spend day was yesterday; took the baby in to our little town as it was market day. Bought a few treats but the GC spends were as follows:
Iceland:
Milk £1
Fresh cream £1
Half price ready to roast turkey joint £1.75
Market:
10 satsumas £1
strawberries £1
green grapes £1
1lb mushrooms £1
1 huge white onion £0.50
2 huge carrots £0.50
2 x wholemeal wraps £1
Fultons:
Cereal £1.99
Southern fried chicken strips £1

Total spend £11.74, sig updated.

We definitely have enough in for the next week and most of the following week, apart from garlic bread and fresh bits like milk and ham but i can pick that up in the week. and there's £28.26 left for the month and 13 days until pay day

Now I'm on maternity leave and trying to establish a bit of a routine for myself I'm going to change how I grocery shop again. My plan is to make use of our little town and our twice weekly market more - especially heading in to summer season as the veggies etc are great value on the market and Iceland obviously do home delivery if you spend more than £25 and we love their BBQ packs

This means I have 10 possible shopping days in our May (as I run pay day to pay day), I can also fit a weeks shopping in the basket on the pushchair so that's handy as I need to get out and get walking to shift this extra weight off my hips! Also, as that means it's a 5week month I may adapt how I calculate the budget - although baby items come from a separate one so that helps!

PennyGrabber

Just done the shopping, in preparation for the children coming home. Spent £38.04, which was double what I wanted to spend, but that'll last us throughout next week's week off, and into the following weeks. Got 4 massive chicken breasts, 8 gammon steaks, 10 pork loin steaks, 800g mince, 42 chicken dippers, and then loads of usuals too.

No idea what the children will want tonight, but they're home soon, so we'll have time to plan that later.

We're also doing a meal plan once they're back, from what's in stock, so I'll post that up later.

Enjoy the weather!

PG x