November 2014 Grocery Challenge

sushistar

Hi all. Went shopping in town, resisted stopping n Costa but bought DD a bread roll to munch in her buggy, and myself a bag of sweets for lunch :embarasse. Came to £1.32 - sig updated.

nannygladys

Hi everyone, I haven't been shopping yet so budget still intact. I was given a bag of Apple's yesterday so I gave my dd3 half the bag and made a huge Apple crumble that will be divided up and frozen (after I've had a portion tonight), so whilst I had the oven on I made some shortbread and a loaf of bread as well, not in that order though!!

So feeling quite good. I had roasted veggies, polenta and some sweet & sour
Bit of a mixture I know for tea

Probably need milk tomorrow
Nannyg

maria3104

Well, we had spag bol as mince was in the fridge OH got it out of freezer whilst I was at work, thinking he was helpful. So fish left for tomorrow. Not sure I fancy 3 day old fish? Cat might get lucky.
Menu plan failure...oops.
Still 4 NSD in a row. Loving it.
Ends tomorrow, off to Al**s after a conference tomorrow in a town. Am over excited and writing lists and menus. I have vasts amount of meat in stock, so really just need veg and milk. But I can dream.

smiling_saver

Please put me down for $100 a week for November. Though I come home to the UK on the 23rd. I'm hoping that fiance can carry on with the grocery budget when I am not here.

One great thing the stores here do is produce a weekly advert of all their on sale items. So i can have a look, plan a menu for him and send him the shopping list... Yes without that, there's no chance he'll stick to it, and as he's been working so hard to save recently, I don't mean that to go to waste.

lynnejk

sushistar wrote: »

I'm thinking about trying to make bulb bowls with paperwhite narcissi as gifts - anyone any experience with this? Will they come up, do you think? It doesn't matter if they;re not in flower by christmas, but they need to look like they're growing...

I went to garden shop to buy bulbs for my balcony boxes 4/5 weeks ago. I also picked up some new narcis which don't need to go in the cold or dark - followed directions on packet and they are just coming into buds now. They have been standing in most sheltered part of balcony and now it's getting cold I am bringing them in to flower. HTH.

For the first time I have made a weekly menu to see how it goes and forgot to post it on here so here goes - * is from freezer

Sun. Duck breasts*, dauphin potatoes* and s/s stir fry veggies

Mon. hm cheese/onion quiche, smoked salmon* and salad. Jacket me/chips DH

Tues. Kippers* and brown bread me. S/S pork and rice* DH

Wed. Chicken curry*, chickpea dahl and brown rice

Thurs. Sausage/swede/mash DH (special request). Me = eggs something

Friday. Salmon steaks* croqu potatoes* asparagus and hollandaise sauce

Sat. Baked hm Chilli * wraps with hm avocado salsa

Sun. hm Beef in Ale casserole* steamed veg and mash.

Lunches will be various soups, beans on toast, eggs or sardines.
Pack ups will be sandwiches with smoked salmon bits, egg mayo, cheese salad, tuna salad.
We also have in plenty of fruit and yoghurts.

We will just have to see how it goes. Managed another NSD today :j

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday
Lx

Lemonbee

I am so excited today I have had my first proper NSD!!!

Made mince and onion pie for tea with 2 portions leftover for the freezer. A throw together Thai soup with leftover chicken from sunday. I've got enough mince left to do a Bolognese for the freezer and tomorrow I'm making a king prawn korma for tea.

My plan is to have plenty of freezer leftovers so that we can avoid buying lots at the end of the month when we get close to the budget. I'm bulking things out with plenty of veg.

Billie-jo

4 NSD in a row but have to go out tomorrow as need a few things.
Used up the last of the roast beef we had on Sunday today in a sandwich for lunch.

physicsgirl

Bobarella wrote: »

I wanted to mention to anyone shopping at sainsburys that one tip for saving money on milk is, you can get 2 pints of milk for 89p if you buy it in one of the new plastic bags instead of the old style containers. This works out 9p cheaper than buying 2 one pint containers. I will decant mine into a fridge jug as the bags are fiddly otherwise.
Bob

Do you have freezer space? If so I'd collect four empty 1 pint cartons (rinse them out), then buy a 4 pint carton of milk, split it between them and put 3 in the freezer. They defrost in the fridge in approx. 24 hours, if you get full fat or semi just give it a shake and it's good to go. Voila, 25p per pint milk.

Spent £5.60 in Sainsbobs, £3 in £land and £41.95 in Aldi over the last couple of days, should last us 10 days except for milk. Will post meal plan tomorrow (although am barely sticking to it, have lost all my cooking mojo ).

Bobarella

physicsgirl wrote: »

Do you have freezer space? If so I'd collect four empty 1 pint cartons (rinse them out), then buy a 4 pint carton of milk, split it between them and put 3 in the freezer. They defrost in the fridge in approx. 24 hours, if you get full fat or semi just give it a shake and it's good to go. Voila, 25p per pint milk.

Spent £5.40 in Sainsbobs, £3 in £land and £42 in Aldi over the last couple of days, should last us 10 days except for milk. Will post meal plan tomorrow (although am barely sticking to it, have lost all my cooking mojo ).

Thanks nice tip!:)

Airthrey

Spent £2.03 today, all on fruit.

Had a cooking/baking day. I made 4 homity pies, 6 little mushroom quiches, macaroni and cauli cheese and an apple pie with some free apples from a friend's tree. Part eaten but a lot left for the freezer. I love having HM ready meals in the freezer.