July 2014 Grocery Challenge

mumofthetwins

well NSD today but have placed my Tesco order for this month ...using vouchers its gonna be around £37 but I will update sig tomorrow.
hopefully just a couple of top ups ... im hoping to clear as much off my CC as poss so trying to cut everything down

lisa x

meg72

homemademama wrote: »

I have spent £19.49 today at Mr T, adding those bits to the stuff I have in my cupboard gets me dinners for 3 days for 5 people plus I bought some breakfast cereal, cooking oil and popping corn.

FYI because of Mr T's Ramadan event they are doing massive tubs of garlic or ginger paste £2.99 bogof, the use by is next year and it says refrigerate after opening but doesn't give a number of days/weeks so I assume they'll be good til next year. It's so much cheaper than the small tubes you get for over £1-£2! I use garlic regularly but forget I have it and it ends up sprouting in the fridge.

Current total for July: £42.35/£400

Thanks for this will try and get some,just a thought but I do think the use of date of next year is for the unopened tub, once opened I don't think it will last until next year. I would split it into portions and freeze.

FoxFace

Howdy all, enjoying keeping up with everyone's challenges so far!

Another NSD today, very happy with that as I had gotten into the very bad habit of going shopping every single day

Had some leftover vegetable tagine/stew from Monday, so blended it up and had it as a soup for lunch, plenty left for tomorrow and to freeze for another time

Baked spuds with beans for tea, simple and inexpensive classic! :T

Off to bake some fairy cakes now, as we are running low on treats...

Gracie_1827

A NSD today and had a free lunch at aged parents. I take them to an Alzheimer's day club (my mother has the start of dementia) on a Wednesday.
Portioned up the cassoulet I made last night into 6 and froze 5 of them the other will be for tomorrow evening. Also split up the chicken breasts and froze that and the carcass to make stock at a later date.
Today I ate:
B-branflakes with milk, toast & HM jam
L-at parents
D-other half of pizza and berries from garden & yogurt

Solstice_3

just_the_two_of_us wrote: »

Think I have done this one and it was delicious - we had the butcher chop a whole shoulder in half rather than using lamb shanks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/slow_cooker_braised_lamb_01950

Not sure how it translates time wise for boneless lamb shoulder though - perhaps someone else may have an idea?

Oh I've done that recipe I think with lamb shanks but I did it in the oven, how funny Thanks

GettingOrganised

OK, I'm going to try slightly lower than June at £240. I'm hoping that using the additional meat bought last month and in the freezer plus some frozen batch cooked meals will help towards coming in on budget.

I am much happier about my grocery shopping, but would like to reduce even further. We don't waste any food anymore and I feel like the changes I've made should be showing more savings - but, I didn't really track spending before, so maybe I was just way out on my estimated spending prior to this?

Small spend yesterday on toiletries, shouldn't need any more of this sort of stuff this month, except laundry powder, which they didn't have in.

marris

NSD for me today, spent £1 on eggs yesterday

Billie-jo

NSD #2
Have done the meal plan until next Wed and it makes use of a few items out of the freezer and store cupboard. Tonight we had jkt potato, some sweet corn and hm chicken curry - all of this which we had in.
Am out most of tomorrow so the plan is to have salmon and salad when home as its quick and again all items we have in. (That's the plan anyway)

lushlifesaver

Money spent today, means there is likely to be an overspend this week but that's ok as I have bought two 42wash bottles of comfort (even though we have plenty atm) as it's half price at the minute

2 x 42 wash comfort £3.58
15 eggs £1.35
loaf of bread £1
3 x baked beans £1
chicken pieces £1

think that's everything so £7.93 to add

MrsCautious

Hello everyone, I've spent £75 in July so far so that's over where I'd like to be ideally but should be ok by end of month. Thank you so much to everyone who took time to advise me that £250 a month was an ok budget for 3 of us. I had been aiming for and spending less but had started to creep up to around £250 so I'm going to accept this.


I got some excellent YS bargains at Sains last night at around 8pm:

Turkey joint £1.99
4 duck legs £3 down from £8
Warburtons loaf 19p

Meal plan as haven't done one for ages: my meals will be minus the carbs.

Thurs: YS lamb shoulder, baked potato, veg, Aldi gravy.

Fri: Sainsbury chicken and bacon pasta parcels, basics pasta sauce, salad, basics garlic bread -- pasta was £2 for 400g on offer.

Sat: duck legs with Aldi EE rice, mushrooms, veg

Sun: YS steak, mash, basics Yorkshires, veg

Mon: Harry Ramsden fish in batter that was on offer, baked potato and salad.

Tues: chicken pieces with pasta and hm sauce.

Weds: hm fish pie with YS cod.

I had an NSD today, feel like I've been far too spendy lately, had an M&S salad 3 times at lunchtime last week as was all over the country with work and didn't plan enough. They were lovely though