August 2014 Grocery Challenge

Frizzle_2

VickyV wrote: »

First spends of the month on Friday. Had 2 of the Aldi vouchers to spend and thought it was a good idea to do 2 shops in the same trolley - separated by a sheet of cardboard. I had 2 lists as close to £45 as possible and stuck to it fairly well - with a few little extras. What a nightmare, I couldn't even fit it all on the conveyor!
I did stock up on everything non-perishable like loo roll, dental stuff, meat and bread for the freezer. cat food, etc. and bought almost all the voucher things too! My large chest freezer is now bursting at the seams and £92.68/£192 spent. :eek:

I should be ok for everything but fruit and salad veg and my month is only til the 18th due to holiday.

OH spent £2.75 on cat litter today but had a nsd yesterday.

Ideas time please! We are camping for 5 nights over this weekend with nothing but a cool box (albeit we can plug it in to the hook up, hopefully). I need some ideas of thing to cook on a 2 ring burner with ingredients that we can avoid keeping in the cool box if possible. So far I have:
Tuna pasta (with tomatoes and peppers)
Corned beef hash
Pearl barley 'risotto' (or any grain!) with veg

Any ideas welcome, I have a fairly well stocked cupboard so anything goes! :T

Thanks,

Vicky x

When we go camping, I make a batch of chilli and freeze it In a Tupperware tub, I then put it in the cool box as an 'ice pack' or you could leave it out. Then take some rice so the rice is on one burner and then heat up the chilli on the other.
We also freeze finger rolls and let them defrost over the weekend. Heat up a tin of hotdog sausages. Don't forget the tin opener and ketchup!
Hth!

Frizzle_2

Can you sign me up for £250 again please.

Snorkypants

Hi, joining please with a budget of £200 to cover 25th July to 28th August.


This is for me and OH, plus DSS for 2 weekends. Possibly some cat food but we should have most of that in already.


We always put £100 each into a kitty on payday but this month it needs to cover 5 weeks, not the usual 4. So this weeks meal plan has two vegetarian days and this will carry on for the rest of the month.


Thank you all for this thread, reading and lurking is a great help - hopefully posting will be even better!

Coxy11

Hi everyone


Budgets list updated to here


Welcome to:
tinks112, BlimusOreilly, Irisis and Snorkypants


Good luck all.


Bluegreen should be copying the recipe lists over today, but in the meantime please refer to last months' thread if you need them.


I have had a right old spend up so far this month - Tesco £127 and then Costco £112 plus £17 in McDs on Friday as DD has gone away for 10 days, so we had a little treat. Freezer is well stocked with meat and desserts plus bakery items though.


Mealplan:
Tonight - SW lamb kebab and pitta (from the index)
Tuesday - Jambalaya (hairy dieters)
Wednesday - chicken curry rice and naan
Thursday - sweet and sour LO pork with noodles
Friday - Mince and pasta bake, green veg
Saturday - sausages and mash - just DH, DS1 and DS2 as I'm having a takeaway with the girls
Sunday - BBQ if nice weather/spaghetti meatballs if raining !


Have a good day all
Coxy

Flat_Eric

I'm joining the August challenge now as there won't be any other big spends at the supermarket between now and the end of the month.

I've got rather full cupboards and my freezer(s) (full) need defrosting so I will be trying in August to limit spends ....

Rule number 1 is I need to meal plan.... This is something I never manage to do and my half hearted attempts at meal planning fail miserably as I end up changing my mind.

I know I could make do with not visiting the shops but I always seem to find stuff to buy.

I'm not going to set a budget for August - instead I am going to try and spend as little as possible. So Ideally nothing ! but of course that won't be possible but it will be a challenge to see whether I can make do as much as possible with using up what I have.

HighlandLass

I really need to get back to doing the grocery challenge. I am in for £200 this month and I will start reducing and saving what is left for the 'C' word!

Can anyone tell me where I can find a spreadsheet to keep track? I think I remember having one from the last time.

If anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great, otherwise I might have a go and making my own.

Thanks,
HighlandLass

wishus

If it helps, I create a new spreadsheet in Google Drive for the month. I find this tool an enormous help!

I keep my budget on sheet 1, including all the bills, with a column next door for 'actual spend'. This is a sum of all the shops I do which I log on sheet 2.

I'm going to try a meal plan this week, see if I can use it to cut down on spend.

Monday: veg pasta in tomato, olive and red wine sauce (dregs of wine!!!)
Tuesday: fish (I think we have sea bream in the freezer), potatoes, green beans, parsley sauce.
Wednesday: cauliflower cheese pasta
Thursday: Aloo Gobi and rice
Friday: Pork chop, veg, spuds and onion gravy.

Lunches: salads with egg, bacon, new potatoes. Will use as many homegrown leaves as poss.
Breakfasts: croissants (freebies!!) or cornflakes.

Friday night I also need to start a picnic as I'm going to a free festival in town next weekend to watch bands and read some of me pomes! :rotfl:

meg72

VickyV wrote: »

First spends of the month on Friday. Had 2 of the Aldi vouchers to spend and thought it was a good idea to do 2 shops in the same trolley - separated by a sheet of cardboard. I had 2 lists as close to £45 as possible and stuck to it fairly well - with a few little extras. What a nightmare, I couldn't even fit it all on the conveyor!
I did stock up on everything non-perishable like loo roll, dental stuff, meat and bread for the freezer. cat food, etc. and bought almost all the voucher things too! My large chest freezer is now bursting at the seams and £92.68/£192 spent. :eek:

I should be ok for everything but fruit and salad veg and my month is only til the 18th due to holiday.

OH spent £2.75 on cat litter today but had a nsd yesterday.

Ideas time please! We are camping for 5 nights over this weekend with nothing but a cool box (albeit we can plug it in to the hook up, hopefully). I need some ideas of thing to cook on a 2 ring burner with ingredients that we can avoid keeping in the cool box if possible. So far I have:
Tuna pasta (with tomatoes and peppers)
Corned beef hash
Pearl barley 'risotto' (or any grain!) with veg

Any ideas welcome, I have a fairly well stocked cupboard so anything goes! :T

Thanks,

Vicky x

Its been many years since I went camping but used to find packs of savoury rice and Batchelors Pasta sauce very useful and easy to store. My kids favourite was a stew made with tins. Stewing meat, Potatoes, mixed veg etc. Hope you enjoy your holiday and the weather holds for you.

suzybloo

Popped to a nearby town to drop Dgs off and nipped into lidl for a look, which is a novelty as we don't have one here. Paid attention to what I bought, some fruit, veg, cereal and uht milk for making yogurt so my total spend today is £7. Aiming for a NSD tomorrow :-)

FoxFace

Hi again everyone!

After a promising July, which was well under target until I got ill in the last week and was unable to keep track properly... I am back this month to hopefully continue the good work

Please put me down for £200 for August... I will be back when I have a menu together!