May 2014 Grocery Challenge

PennyGrabber

Just been to the garden centre next door to us, and bought a tomato plant and two chilli plants. That's enough for this year. Normally I go over the top and get everything, then get bogged down in it all. I'm a bit like that...!! I have to reign myself in sometimes!

Anyway, my pear tree has baby pears on, my apple tree has baby apples and a ton of blossom on, my one remaining cherry tree has baby cherries on, I'll have raspberries if I can keep the dog away, and now I have six diff herbs, a tomato plant and two chilli plants. In the next week bf is going to (although he doesn't know it yet!) attach some sort of gutter shelf thing on my outhouse wall to plant some strawbs in as dog wrecked my plants last year, then I'll be done with planting this year.

Hopefully all of this will save me a load of money come summer and I can put the lo money (ha ha!) into other projects.

Nsd today, and just cooking a roast for dinner. Then I need to do some serious homework before tomorrow!!

PG x

recovering_spendaholic

I was going to mark steak for tea but DD wanted pizza and I was not going to waste a lovely piece of sirloin on such an unappreciative recipient.

So she made herself pizza and I made a vegetable crumble. It is cooking at the moment and smells fab!

It was just lots of veg( carrot, onion,mushroom, sweet potato, celery, green beans, peas and brocolli cooked in a bit of veg stock. When it was just render I stirred in a tin of condensed mushroom soup and a dollop of Philadelphia with lots of black pepper. The crumble topping was oats, flour, butter and grated strong cheese, with a tbs of Parmesan and black pepper. I can't wait to try it!

Will need shopping later in the week but will try and hold off as long as possible.

Pennygrabber - I am jealous of your grow your own! Me and DD are going to tackle the gardens this week and I want to see if we can sort out some big tubs for herbs and strawberries.

physicsgirl

MrsCautious wrote: »

Btw I've added a homepage to my profile on here, my latest post is about poor hospital care received in my husband's last days, would love it if anyone wanted to read, comment or share, not strictly MSE but the difficult feelings stirred up (and the fact there's now one income in our household) are the backdrop to my MSE ways.

I had a read, and it made me so angry to think that hospitals can get away with something like this - I know the NHS has budget issues but this sounds like the nurses lacked any compassion, or basic human decency. I can't imagine how you must feel.

Spends of £10.46 to declare - £1.50 in Sainsbobs on YS courgettes and stir fry mix, and £8.96 in Lidl on red peppers, lettuce, onions, flour coffee, rice, lentils and pesto.

I was excited to see the bakery section has now opened, and there looks to be lots of yummy things, I managed to resist the temptation though!

PennyGrabber

Turns out I don't like agcj's soda bread. Oh well, at least I tried it. I shan't be deterred; I've already planned the next few things I'll be making from her book!

PG x

Bluegreen143

Mrs_T_M, I've added your amazing post to the index now! Wasn't sure where to put it so put it in the Miscellaneous section as "Mrs_T_M's extremely helpful post" and then under chicken and baking as well with the names of those recipes. Going to make some of those things myself and mind = blown that you can make brown sugar yourself

GettingOrganised

Lots of visits to different shops over the long weekend - not good for the budget. The most was at HB for a big toiletries/cleaning products which was £40. I needed lots and I'm hoping that I won't need to go for at least 4 weeks. I then had to nip to shops to pick up odd bits I needed, which racked up a further £30! This takes my total up to £88.23 in less than a week.

I shouldn't need to go shopping now until the weekend and I've already done a meal plan/shopping list which takes me into the following week. I've got to be really careful for the rest of the month now, otherwise I'm in danger of going way over again.

Bluegreen143

At £144.07 / £180 already :eek: but since I did a massive stock up two weeks ago I'll hopefully be ok... maybe. Already started thinking about next week's meal plan as well as this one, because I plan on buying virtually nothing if I can - so I need to make sure I don't waste a scrap of the food I have in.

Mealplan as follows:

S - beef & mushroom pie, new potatoes and veg

M - smoked mackerel with rice, homemade coleslaw and asparagus

T - gnocchi with chicken and mushrooms

W - baked potatoes with beans, cheese and coleslaw

Th - pesto pasta with roasted veg and pine nuts

F - I'm out - OH is having leftover curry from the freezer

Sa - homemade pizzas with salad

MrsCautious

Thank you for reading physicsgirl x

kboss2010

So far this week I've spent:

18 Sausages £1.75
15 eggs £1.25
1kg Flour £1.15
Milk £1
Houmous £1
Onion 12p
Tin mixed beans £1.10
Apple pie £1
Custard 32p
= £8.69

of my monthly spend of £30.

Not bad considering I don't need any more shopping for the rest of this week.

£21.31 left to spend until 31st! Eek! *must use freezer stocks! must use freezer stocks*

I've also been at my OH's this weekend so I took 3 days' worth of supplies with me lol. My rucksack I took on the train contained a whole lasagna, enough bacon, sausages, eggs and beans for breakfast for 3 days and the dry ingredients for toad in the hole and carrot and sweet potato mash. I'm glad they don't search luggage on trains otherwise I'd probably have been locked up for being mental lol!

vixtress

not doing too bad although when i totted up the weeks spends i was surprised to see it was £56 I'm actually really pleased to have done this, i wouldn't have done normally and i would have been left thinking id only spent a few quid! its really made me think on a plus note, I'm going to limit myself to only £10 for the rest of the week. I really shouldn't need any more, I've got bulging freezers that i need to use.