May 2014 Grocery Challenge

elsiepac

Last nights dinner...
Griddled courgette and aubergine
Tinned artichokes which I drained then marinated for an hour in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, garlic and med herbs, then griddled
Chickpea and quinoa salad - olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, basil, garlic, salt, pepper, red onion

I worked out this cost me around £2.20

CH27

Soworried wrote: »

I have a dilemma. MrS has given me a till spit for £9 off a £60 spend :eek:

That is a big saving but it would be a big outlay at the same time, I don't know what to do

Do you need £60 of stuff from there or would you be spending for spendings sake?

XSpender

I haven't done this challenge for a while but as I get made redundant at the end of the month I need to rein in the spends. I am not at work much this month due to holidays, some at home and some self catering as well as 5 days when DH will be at home alone with DS so I am hoping we can keep our spends to a tiny (for us) £100

I have done a meal plan for the rest of the month and do not need any meat as I have 14 chicken breasts, 10 sausages and 3 pork fillets and a load of bacon in the freezer. I don't need much at all really except bread, milk and fresh stuff.

I will need to buy some items to take away with us and some easy stuff for DH when he is here on his own. We will buy more food when we are self catering but this comes out of the holiday spending money.

I did a freezer inventory yesterday and I am hoping that we can eat as much as possible out of it before we go away. It would be great if we could empty it and turn it off when we go on holiday:)

Gammon, egg, beans and HM chips for tea tonight. I have a couple of bruised apples and some frozen berries that I will top with either sponge or crumble for pud as well.

I will be popping to mr t today to get my brows done and to pick up a mag for DH. I only need a loaf, milk, apples and bananas so let's see if I can manage to only buy what's on my list;)

cw18

Soworried wrote: »

I have a dilemma. MrS has given me a till spit for £9 off a £60 spend :eek:

That is a big saving but it would be a big outlay at the same time, I don't know what to do

1. Do you have £60 that you can afford to splurge in one go?
2. Do you have room to store £60 of groceries? (be that freezer or cupboards or a mix of the two)
3. Would you be spending it on stuff you always buy from there, or on stuff you'd normally buy cheaper elsewhere? (if the latter it would negate some of your saving)
4. Would you remember you have it in the house, or would it sit around for months on end? (I'm a swine for stocking up on offers and then forgetting I've got it, so either buying more of the same or just not working it into my meal plans)

I've actually stopped using most of this kind of till spit or in the post voucher I get from Mr T. £5 off £60 is no longer worth doing, but the £6 off £40 they gave me a couple of months ago was - but I still only just managed to get there by stocking up on enough long-life milk to last me until the end of the year.... and now they keep sending me vouchers for extra points if I buy more of it :eek:

SazzleDazzle1

craigywv wrote: »

So worried tescos have the large 5kg bags of spuds from 4.60 ish cant rem to half price anyway so thats a couple of pounds.,i got 3 bags ,planning on session in kitchen of making and freezing mash, wedges,chips and roasties hth.

Hi, could you tell me how you prepare the potatoes for freezing - would love to do this as I spend ages preparing fresh most nights - thankyou

barneydee_2

Hi well my month starts tomorrow & hopefully will be able to do as I have full freezer & full fridge/cupboards I am going to leave my debit card and only take cash the trouble is I work for mr S so I have to go in to a super market every day and it's so tempting when I see yellow stickers lol
I am also finding it hard to adjust to only cooking for 2 me & the oh who is very fussy so I tend to stick with what he wants to eat other wise I would be cooking two different meals .

Barneydee

SazzleDazzle1

First shop of the moth complete, spent £70 accross the £shp, T.sco and wtrose. I have quite a lot in for this and next week and then we are off on holiday. I need to re do my meal plan as bought lamb and diced beef on the 3 for £10. Threw the lamb in the slow cooker yesterday with a few old veggies whik looked ready for the compost, a tin of tomoatoes and some rosemary - was pleasently surprised.

Fishfingers and chips for the kids tonight, dh will have bacon sandwich and I will have last nights lo's with rice.

physicsgirl

Must do better this month than last, going to set my budget at £150 and try to keep up with meal planning.

Saturday - Fajitas (red pepper, mushroom and courgette fried in 2 tsps packet spice, with wraps, salad, yoghurt, salsa and YS guacamole)

Sunday - Meal out at local Indian (first time we'd tried it, pleasantly surprised, will go again)

Monday - Fajita pizza (LO fajita veg on pizza, yum, with LO guacamole for the crusts!)

Tuesday - Chilli with potato wedges

Wednesday - Blue cheese and onion potato scones with roasted veg

Thursday - Beetroot risotto

Friday - meal out

Saturday - Nut Roast

Sunday - Courgette and goat's cheese fritters

Monday - Tagine with couscous

Tuesday - Banana curry and rice

Make-it-3

Hi all, coming over to May and pleased with a £20 underspend from April.

This month we are away on holiday for 12 days and I always run the fridge/freezer down to empty, clean and defrost it and leave it off while we are away (save the leccy too).

So bearing all that in mind, I am setting a small budget of £80 to cover food till we go and an end of month re-stock. This is for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 cat and includes all cleaning stuff, basic toiletries as well as food and the odd bottle of wine.

MandM90

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Hi all, coming over to May and pleased with a £20 underspend from April.

This month we are away on holiday for 12 days and I always run the fridge/freezer down to empty, clean and defrost it and leave it off while we are away (save the leccy too).

So bearing all that in mind, I am setting a small budget of £80 to cover food till we go and an end of month re-stock. This is for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 cat and includes all cleaning stuff, basic toiletries as well as food and the odd bottle of wine.

Wow, what discipline! Mines always full (plus I often travel for work and all in all am probably out of the country for 3 months a year :eek:) I might try to do that before our holiday in June though. :j

Today's spend was 8.25 on bits for OHs birthday cake (though still need to get Guinness tomorrow or friday - forgot my ID and didn't want to risk embarrassing myself hehe) However I used the coinstar for a jar of coins I found, and it gave me a 7.89 voucher which brings today to 36p

Also borrowed "Save With Jamie" from the library